How to Put Strategy in Action with Strategic Themes
With 7 years of experimentation behind us, we can confidently conclude that a useful framework to help put strategic plans into action is Strategic Themes.
In over 50 organisational planning processes with our own clients, and growing evidence of the practice emerging elsewhere, strategic themes have been used successfully to achieve sustained focus and follow through on priority areas of activity, leading to measurable organisational gains.
So what are Strategic Themes, how can they be developed, and what practical benefits do they serve to maximise traction and follow through of strategy?
What are Strategic Themes?
A description of Strategic Themes begins with a geometry lesson about why tripods have 3 legs and not 10.
Think about what is most important to you today. You might have a list of 10 things. But if push comes to shove, what are the really, really most important things?
The human mind can readily retain only a small number of important concepts, items or priorities at one time. More often than not, your Top Things To Do Today list will be just 2 or 3. Similarly, across a group or organisation, achieving focus on the priority pursuits for the next 1 year or 3 will be hindered by a long list, and helped with a small number. The fewer there are and the more clearly and strongly they are articulated, the more likely they will be remembered by individuals and groups, thereby helping to sustain focus and co-ordinated action.
Of course, it would be foolish to contain Strategic Themes to a small number if this left gaping holes in the overall plans for growth. Strategic Themes must therefore be well balanced, ensuring they include all the most important areas of growth as a wholistic set. Like a tripod, the simple yet robust design of a set of Strategic Themes should represent a stable structure, able to deal with the 'uneven terrain' of uncertain environmental and business conditions while 'covering all the bases', and strong enough collectively to 'support the load' of detailed operational plans, resources, problems and projects that are natural features of implementation.
Another important feature of Strategic Themes is their durability over time. We have found that whilst a destination statement such as a mission or vision of a future desired state may exist for 5 or more years, well found Themes appear to have a life of 18 months to 3 years, depending on the industry and scope of planning. Thus, a thematic approach provides 'compass bearings' that point the way for a long enough period to allow for significant effort, specific projects and activities and tangible changes to be achieved.
Having described some features of Strategic Themes, a student of strategic planning models might argue that themes should therefore fit a balanced and considered model.
Our experience is different. Over the course of many client projects, we have found relatively few rules that indicate the type of content that could be found in a Strategic Theme. However, a defining content feature is their direct or indirect orientation toward the customer, (or the end recipient of products and services).
Such an orientation ensures that the Themes are indeed Strategic, and not simply a re-engineering of different ways to achieve the same result. As such, Themes might sometimes be referred to as Ends, as described in the board governance model of Carver.
To test these defining characteristics described above, consider two different examples.
FIFA, the international soccer association, recently announced it's strategic direction with 3 themes; "Develop the game, touch the world, build a better future".
A banking and finance client developed 3 themes based on their financial drivers, the customer experience and their internal need for change; "Be the Difference, Lead the Experience, Drive the Value"
Notice that the themes are few in number and are strongly and simply articulated. They are well balanced, appearing to cover broad realms of endeavour. And as they appear to be far reaching, we can imagine them enduring for some time. The themes are not just about what FIFA or the banking group will do, but describe the impact or benefit for others.
Another simple distinction is that strongly articulated Themes begin with a verb. The action word puts in energy and indicates movement in a stated direction. As well, you may observe the power of brevity in the language used.
Whilst a couple of examples may pique interest in themes, they don't mean much until an organisation finds their own themes. Just how does that occur, and what steps are involved.
Finding Strategic Themes
Like a young lover who 'finds the one', the search for Strategic Themes ends when a set of themes is found that resonate and 'fit' between the current reality and long term mission of the organisation.
This is an interactive process, ideally conducted in groups, and involving a fusion of ideas and opportunities that have emerged through other conversations and analysis.
One successful approach is to have 2 different types of conversations.
One type is looking at the ultimate purpose and long range goals of the organisation, with questions like "What are we here for?", "What does our future success actually look like?", and "What unique benefit and contribution do we provide to our customers and stakeholders?"
The second type is Current Reality conversations, in which the current situation is discussed from a number of perspectives. These may be facilitated with questions like "Where are we now?". "What is our current performance, viewed from the perspectives of; Results, Things we are happy with, Things we are unhappy with?" "What does our current success look like through the eyes of Customers, Owners, Staff, Other Stakeholders?" "What are our Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats?" and "What forces are acting on us Economically, Politically, Sociologically, Environmentally?"
For each of these conversations, key ideas can be found that are of greater importance than others, and these compile as potential ingredients for Strategic Themes.
Once Current Reality and Long term Goals are considered, Strategic Themes are found by answering the question "How will we get from here to there?"
Using a process of sorting and synthesising the various key ideas into groups, and then putting a label to these groups, themes have been consistently found. The sorting and grouping process works easily if the key ideas found from the prior conversations are recorded seperately on index cards. This way, they can be moved, clustered and shuffled into a small number of groups that contain similar or related ideas.
The labels attributed to groups of ideas are an initial attempt to define the Strategic Themes. The initial labels can then be wordsmithed to achieve the clarity, brevity and distinctiveness of a final Theme.
Putting Themes to use
Like the pillars of the Parthenon in Greece, Themes can hold up the structure of a plan. They can be the visible pillars that define the shape and distinctive thrusts of new growth and new direction.
From this simple basis, detailed plans, measures of success, and resource and activity time lines can be developed.
As such, Themes provide a backbone that the planning group and other stakeholders can agree on. This alignment of thinking is important as the planning process unfolds, because any dissention and opposing views that emerge can be brought back to a point of agreement at the thematic level. Whilst the devil is in the detail, themes can facilitate ultimate agreement at the detail level.
A great strength of Strategic Themes is their power in communicating strategy to others. They provide a simple, memorable frame of reference, so that over a period of time, they become recognised and infuse through the language and thinking of people at all levels. In many environments we have seen staff updates, strategy reports, and Balanced Scorecards framed around themes. Thus, as the story of current progress and future directions are being told, these high level headlines become a sustained focus amidst a constantly changing sea of organisational challenges and issues. As Strategic Themes become more commonly accepted, it is likely that Annual Reports may be written from Chairman and CEO perspectives through the lense of specific themes.
Ultimately, strategy design is based on a series of assumptions about cause and effect relationships, and trade-offs between many different possibilities and ones that are deemed most likely to succeed.
A final benefit of Strategic Themes is the ability they provide to review the efficacy of these assumptions and trade-offs over time. A well constructed and articulted set of themes provides a simple, accessible reference back to those core assumptions, enabling regular review of whether these high level 'bets' are paying off, or proving to be incorrect. This is because themes, in relatively few words, and with a high level of visibility actually articulate the most important assumptions about what is important to achieve success.
When contrasted to Strategic plans that are not underpinned by Strategic Themes, these benefits have a significant impact on the ability of groups to implement strategy through sustained focus and traction.
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By David Pointon
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FAST Meetings Co. help clients put Strategy into Action through design and facilitation of Strategic planning retreats, using proven processes and frameworks.
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