It's About Focus

What is our strategy now?  How are we doing on our strategy?  Have we arrived yet? There are other questions your people could be asking about your organization’s focus, but these are three questions that you should be asking if you don’t already know.
Your organization has a strategy and it is being executed as you read this. The strategy sets the overall direction of your organization and establishes the context for everything done in the organization.  If you are not crystal clear on the strategy then decisions you have to make every day become a bit more challenging if success in what you do is important to you.
The responsibility for staying informed about the strategy is yours. Certainly it is the top leadership’s responsibility to set the strategy, explain it to everyone, provide updates against it and to continually reinforce it, but it is everyone’s responsibility to bring it to life in the organization.
Here are ideas for breathing life into your organization’s strategy:

• Understand It – If you’re new to the organization or if you have been there for a long time, get informed about the organizations strategy and why behind it. Talk to your manager, review the website, ask and listen at town halls, because this is so important to an organizations success there will be a wide variety of ways to get clear.

• Get Refreshed – You should be hearing frequent updates about the organizations progress against the strategy. If you’re not hearing, ask your leaders.  Find out about challenges, successes and adjustments along the way.

• Explain it – Whether or not your title has VP in front of it you have other people around you that you can help to better understand the strategy.  Take the important time in your 1:1 meetings with your direct reports or team members to get clear on the strategy and their role in executing against it.

Your organizations success depends on everyone moving in the same direction.  The strategy sets that direction so understand it, stay refreshed on it and do your part in bringing it to life by explaining it to others.