Top Tips for Communicating Strategy

Editor's Note: Take a look at our featured best practice, Structured Thinking 101: Clarity Through Storylines (39-slide PowerPoint presentation). Clarity is critical in business communication of all kinds, yet difficult to achieve. To add insult, clarity is necessary, but not sufficient. Powerful professional communication must also deliver an insightful message, while often prepared in collaboration with others and under great [read more]

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All business leaders know the importance of developing a good long-term business strategy. Stepping back and using data and collaborative thinking to draw up a road map can enable a business to stay competitive, work towards concrete objectives, and maintain an identity. While all business leaders know the importance of good long-term strategy, a surprisingly small quantity of business leaders understands the importance of effectively communicating that strategy. If a strategy is not effectively communicated, it may as well have never been written down in the first place. This article runs through some top tips for communicating the business strategy that you and your fellow executives have formulated.

Keep It Simple

When communicating your strategic goals, always follow the KISS principle. KISS – standing for ‘Keep It Simple, Stupid’, is one of the best guiding lights that a business leader can follow. Do not disseminate your strategic plans using complex or verbose language. Do not focus on abstractions or needless hyperbole. Instead, simply disseminate the information that you actually need to disseminate. When was the last time you read a set of guidelines or a political manifesto that was worded as a 19th-century historian wrote it of the classical world?

Make Use of Technology

Do not stick to one channel when trying to communicate strategy. Every person takes in information effectively in different ways. Business leaders are making more and more use of technology in their quest to get their message across. Employee communication apps like Simpplr make it far easier for leaders to communicate strategy directly to the mobile devices of the people working for them. Project management software can also be used to disseminate strategic information. All projects should be completed to meet broad strategic goals. Making sure that strategic goals reach project management is a good way of ensuring all projects are carried out with strategy in mind. Technology can be a great aid in the communication of long-term strategy.

Do Not Be a Dictator

All business leaders should be open to discussion when it comes to the dissemination of strategic aims. Although you might truly believe that you and your co-conspirators have worked out exactly what the strategic aims of your company should be, you cannot possibly have considered all perspectives. The people you are communicating your strategic aims with may have valuable insights into their feasibility. Keep all communications reciprocal if you can – do not be a dictator.

Keep Communicating

Do not assume you can communicate your strategy once and then just ride off into the sunset, leaving your employees to work towards your broad objectives faultlessly. Business leaders must be willing to consistently communicate strategy to drive every decision made within a business. Think of strategy as a constant presence in all of your communications. Do not limit yourself to only disseminating strategy through one medium. Use all of the communicative media at your disposal to make sure that all of your employees fully understand the goals that they should be working toward.

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