Visualizing the Strategy

A strategy is a game plan for action.

It crystallizes what actions and resources must be coordinated to achieve a specific goal or outcome.

A good strategy provides the direction and focus that galvanizes the team to execute and achieve. It clarifies what the team is working on and why.

After crafting a workable strategy, leaders must communicate the plan in plain and simple language so the team understands and can act on it.

Unless team members comprehend the critical elements and tradeoffs baked into the strategy and grasp the specific objectives it aims to achieve, their ability to execute it will be severely hampered.

A great strategy without equally sound execution produces far less value than it should. That’s why getting everyone on the same page regarding the strategy is so critically important.

Keeping a sustained focus on the strategy over time is yet another challenge leaders must overcome.

To aid in achieving understanding and sustained focus, the best leaders and organizations spend the time to create a visual representation of the strategy.

This visual map illustrates the key components of the strategy and simplifies the complex relationships between inputs and outputs.

It allows team members to examine the strategy at length and generate questions critical for their understanding. It lays bare the underlying logic or rationale from which the strategy operates and maps out the linkages between smaller objectives and larger goals.

Perhaps most importantly, a visualization of the strategy serves as an ongoing reference for the team and makes the plan memorable.

A good visual depiction of the strategy typically depends on a simple set of boxes and arrows to represent the connections between premises, actions, and goals.

Illustrating all the causes and effects is the primary aim of a powerful strategy visual. Linking actions to desired outcomes in a cause-and-effect format enables team members to see how the many facets of the strategy work together.

The connections leaders make through this visualization also help to surface unstated assumptions and impediments to execution. Allowing the team to challenge the linkages represented visually works to the leader’s benefit.

This enables the leader to be even more precise regarding how each component of the strategy influences every other component in the plan. Visual maps usually get better after everyone gets the chance to challenge them.

A great visual of the strategy is highly intuitive and encourages team members to grasp the whole picture of where the team is going, why, and how it will get there.

Consider creating a visual for the strategy that drives your work and team. The process will likely show you how to make the strategy better as well.

And now for the best part: Hold a picture of the strategy up for everyone to see, and they will be drawn to make it happen.