When NOT to seek strategy approval

How often do you outline your desired outcome as follows:

I want the Board to approve my ABC strategy?

While this is a good place to start and most likely true in the general sense, it’s not sufficient.

A general statement like this does not set you up to truly understand your audience’s issues and concerns.

This in turn does not set you up to tell a story that resonates.

Instead, I encourage you to be more specific so you flush out the issues that you must address to get your strategy across the line. Here are the questions I ask:

Strategy: What is distinctive about this strategy and its implementation?
Situation around the strategy: Where does this strategy ‘sit’ within the broader organisation and industry ecosystem?
Stakeholder attitudes: How will stakeholder histories and hot buttons impact your ability to ‘sell’ the strategy?

Answering these questions will help you define a much more nuanced ‘purpose’ that will in turn set you up to prepare a communication that gets you the outcome you need.

I hope that helps and look forward to having more ideas for you after the Christmas break.

Kind regards,
Davina

PS – For deeper insight into what sits inside each of these questions as well as how and when to use them, register for the Clarity Hub.