A Strategy Is Only as Strong as the Team Expected to Deliver It

Most strategy days focus on the plan - Where are we going?  What are the priorities?  What needs to change?  What are the numbers?

All important questions.

But there is another one that is often given far less attention: "How well does the team responsible for delivering the strategy actually work together?"

A strategy can be sound on paper and still fall short in execution.  Sometimes the market changes. Sometimes circumstances move against you.  But sometimes the issue sits much closer to home: the people around the table are not as aligned as everyone assumes.

A group of capable people is not automatically an effective team
Most boards and senior leadership teams are made up of experienced, capable people.  They know their own areas, understand their responsibilities and bring years of knowledge with them.

But individual capability does not automatically create collective effectiveness.

One leader may want to move quickly.  Another wants more evidence.  One naturally challenges assumptions.  Another looks for consensus.  One is thinking three years ahead, while another is focused on what needs to happen this week.

None of those approaches is wrong.  In fact, most organisations need all of them.  The problem starts when those differences are misunderstood.

Challenge can be interpreted as negativity.  Caution can look like indecision.  Speed can appear reckless.  A desire for consensus can be mistaken for a lack of conviction.

Over time, capable people can begin to work around one another rather than with one another. Decisions slow down, conversations get repeated, some voices dominate and the same people become relied upon again and again.

The organisation sees the symptoms without always recognising the cause.

When strengths become blind spots
There is another issue worth examining.  The very strengths that helped a leadership team succeed can eventually become the source of its blind spots.

A business built by leaders who move quickly may become exceptionally good at action.  That can be a huge advantage while the organisation is smaller.  But as the business grows and becomes more complex, speed without enough challenge can create risk.

A highly collegiate leadership team may have excellent relationships.  But if preserving those relationships makes difficult conversations harder, collegiality can quietly become consensus.

A team heavily focused on delivery may be excellent at getting things done.  But if everyone is concentrating on the immediate priorities, who is looking far enough ahead?

The issue is not that these strengths are wrong.  It is whether the team understands where its natural tendencies may also be getting in the way.

That leads to a more useful question than simply asking what a team is good at:  "Where might what we are good at also be creating risk?"

Looking at the team, not just the individuals
I recently worked with a board and wider leadership group using CliftonStrengths as the starting point for this conversation.

Each person completed an individual assessment, but the real value came when we brought those profiles together and looked at what they meant for the team as a whole.

People gained a clearer view of what they naturally brought to the group. They also began to understand why colleagues approached situations differently.

The team could see where it had considerable collective strength, but also where there were gaps, areas of over-reliance and potential blind spots.

The conversation moved beyond: “What are my strengths?” to: “How do we use what we have around this table more effectively?”  That is the more important question.

The purpose is not for everyone to leave knowing more about an assessment report.  The purpose is for the team to work better afterwards.

Before adding capability, understand what you already have
This matters in the current environment.  Organisations are under pressure to improve performance, manage costs, retain good people and develop future leaders.  Recruitment is expensive and not every apparent capability gap needs to be solved by bringing in someone new.

Sometimes recruitment is absolutely the right answer.

But before making that assumption, boards should ask another question: "Do we properly understand the capability we already have?"

An organisation can recruit into a perceived gap when the capability already exists elsewhere in the team but is underused.  It can appoint someone to solve what appears to be a leadership problem when the real issue is unclear accountability.  It can add another senior role when the existing leadership team is simply not working together particularly well.

Adding another person to a poorly aligned team does not necessarily solve the problem.

Sometimes it simply gives the problem another chair around the table.

Team alignment is part of strategy
This is why I do not see this kind of work as simply delivering a CliftonStrengths workshop.  The assessment is a framework. The more important questions sit beyond it.

Where does the team have real depth?  Where is it over-reliant on one person?  Who naturally challenges?  Who drives delivery?  Who builds relationships?  Who looks ahead?  What tends to get missed? Where are the likely blind spots?

And, most importantly: "What does all of this mean for the strategy the organisation is trying to deliver?"

The purpose is better decision-making, clearer accountability, stronger communication, more constructive challenge, better use of talent and greater confidence around development and succession.

Boards quite rightly spend time testing strategy.  They challenge the numbers, examine risk and debate priorities.  But the strategy will still be delivered by the people sitting around the table.

Understanding how those people work together is not a softer conversation sitting somewhere alongside strategy.

It is part of the strategy.

If your board or leadership team is reviewing strategy, going through change, or wants to understand how effectively the people around the table are working together, I’d be happy to have a conversation about what that could look like in practice.