How to help your employees own your strategy

Shifting from cascading information to chartering teams can generate the clarity and commitment your new strategy requires.

- Elizabeth Doty

If there’s one thing many of the leaders I’ve spoken with lately have in common, it’s that they feel pressured to roll out new strategies more quickly, with more impact. These leaders recognize the importance of communication — of getting the message out to employees about where the organization is headed and why. To do so, they often default to the “cascade” approach: holding high-energy town hall meetings, posting on internal social media, writing executive blog posts on intranet pages, hosting lunch-and-learn sessions. They work hard to craft a compelling message at the top and send it on its way.

A cascade is similar to the waterfall model in software development, wherein customers provide detailed specifications at the beginning, and developers build in a linear sequence, which they hope will hit the target in the end. A strategy cascade implies a one-time, one-way flow of expectations, priorities, and targets from the top to the bottom of the organization. Built on the mantra of “communicate, communicate, communicate,” it tends to focus on information, with doses of inspiration. The trouble is, even when employees are informed and inspired by the company’s direction, they may be left feeling unclear about exactly what they need to do differently to help the company meet its goals. As one professional recently said to me, “Our new corporate purpose and strategy are great, but they don’t change how I do my job.” And, like the waterfall, the cascade approach puts intense pressure on senior leaders to have everything figured out, which can cause delays or result in messages that do not have full executive buy-in.