Business Challenges Strategy & Culture
Everyone knows the strategy. Nobody quite owns it.
The strategy was presented, not built together. So it lives in a slide deck rather than in the decisions people make every day. We help leadership teams build it together, so they own it and live it.
45 minutes with our senior team. Snapshot within 48 hours. Free.
“We all know the strategy. We just don’t live it day to day.”
The plan survived the board. It hasn’t survived the diary.
It’s not just your organisation. Strategy rarely makes it past the slide deck.
Sources: MIT Sloan Management Review (124 organisations); Gallup (US employees)
- 28%
- of the executives and managers responsible for executing strategy could list three of their company’s strategic priorities.
- 23%
- of employees strongly agree they can apply their organisation’s values to their work every day.
- 27%
- strongly agree they believe in their organisation’s values at all.
What’s usually going on
Four patterns we see again and again.
Capable leaders, each with a slightly different picture of where the business is going. It usually shows up in one of these.
Pulling in different directions
A leadership team that is strong operationally but not quite aligned at the top. Each person is right about their own area, and the strategy gets pulled several ways.
- A strategy built in the room by the people who will lead it
- Clear roles, so accountability is built into how the team works
- An independent facilitator, so the most senior voice doesn’t dominate
Values on the wall
The values were agreed, printed and launched. Day to day, people work the way they always have, because nobody worked out what the values look like in practice.
- Values translated into everyday behaviours
- A team identity people recognise in themselves
- Follow-up that keeps it alive after the launch
Drifting into silos
After a busy year, or a long stretch of remote working, teams have drifted into their own corners. Everyone is busy, but not on the same priorities.
- Time out of the office to regroup and refocus
- Priorities the whole team agrees and can name
- A plan built together, so everyone owns their part
Strategy on a slide
The away day produced a clear plan and everyone left agreeing with it. Six weeks on, the diary is back in charge and the plan lives in a deck nobody opens. It was presented well; it was never made anyone’s. It’s happening again with AI: the board agreed to “make use of AI”, and every team has taken that to mean something different.
- A strategy built in the room, by the people who will carry it
- Priorities few enough to name without looking them up
- Follow-up that keeps the plan alive after the launch
Client story · Barwood Capital
What Teamscapes really does is hold up a mirror to us. It takes us out of our day-to-day thinking and allows us to step back.
Andrew Barlow · Director & Head of Fund Management, Barwood Capital
A series of facilitated strategy sessions across 2023 aligned the leadership team on shared values, a strategy that fits its goals, and a roadmap the team owns.
Read the full story: Barwood Capital →How we help
Four ways in. The Diagnostic finds the right one.
From one strategy day to a leadership team tested on a real project.
Facilitated Events
Strategy days and leadership sessions where the conversation ends in decisions your team owns.
In person · Online · HybridExplore Facilitated Events →Strategy under pressureBridge The Gap
Plan, budget, build and cross a 14-metre bridge over open water. See how your plan holds up when it’s real.
In person onlyExplore Bridge The Gap →Culture, experiencedTeam Building
Experiential days that turn agreed values into shared experience, with a debrief that carries it back to work.
In person · Online · HybridExplore Team Building →One leader, over timeCoaching
One-to-one support for the leaders taking the strategy to their teams.
In person · OnlineExplore Coaching →
Insights
Why strategies stall after the away day, and how to make them stick.
Why a strategy built by a few rarely survives contact with the many, and what makes the difference, with examples from Barwood Capital and ICENA.
Read the article →
Not sure where the strategy is getting stuck? Let’s find out together.
45 minutes with our senior team. Tell us where the strategy stalls between the plan and the day-to-day, and your Team Snapshot follows within 48 hours.
Request a free Team Diagnostic45 minutes with our senior team→