Create Implementable Strategies for Your Team in 3 Key Steps

Do You Create Implementable Strategies for Your Team?
Strategies that never get put into action are frustrating and demoralizing. To drive real progress, leaders must create implementable strategies that are not only clear and believable but also realistically achievable within their unique organizational context. Effective strategies bridge the gap between where your team is today and where you want to go.

For a strategy to be truly implementable, it must be:

• Simple enough to communicate clearly.
• Aligned enough across the organization to ensure consistent execution.

When done right, it gives your team a roadmap they can follow with confidence and purpose.

The Research on Strategic Implementability
The data on strategic execution is sobering.

• A McKinsey survey of nearly 2,000 senior executives found that only 26% considered their strategy transformations successful.
• Even more striking, research from Wharton’s Mack Institute of Innovation shows that just 5% of managers fully understand their company’s strategy, while 75% feel they have little or no stake in it.
• These findings align with what we see in practice. Our organizational alignment research reveals that leaders perceive the strategy to be twice as clear as their direct reports.

With organizational culture assessment research finding that most leaders dedicate only a small fraction of their time to discussing, aligning, and refining strategies, it is not surprising that strategic initiatives are highly vulnerable to misalignment and failure.

The Top Strategy Implementation Mistakes to Avoid
Based on project postmortem data, the top strategy execution mistakes to avoid are:

• Lack of Involvement
  Failing to actively involve those responsible for executing a strategy in its design and planning is the most common — and most damaging — mistake in strategy execution. Bain research shows that effectively engaging stakeholders has a 50% greater impact on execution success than any other factor, including the clarity of the strategy itself.

  Yet far too many executives assume that involving others will slow the process. The truth is the opposite: when stakeholders are engaged early, strategies move faster and more smoothly, with stronger commitment and fewer roadblocks along the way.

• Overreliance on Strategy Communication
  Many organizations assume that repeated communication alone will help employees “get” the strategy. In reality, repetition does not guarantee understanding or buy-in. Gartner research found that what leaders say contributes just 1% to the success of strategy implementation.

  Far more powerful is how leaders act and how work is structured — business practices, decision-making, and daily behaviors drive results. Combined, these factors have 23 times the impact of communication alone on successful strategy execution. Simply put, talking about strategy is not enough; living it is what makes it stick.

• Not Being Agile Enough
  Effective strategy execution requires more than a plan — it demands strategic agility. Leaders must be able to adjust quickly to evolving market conditions, competitive pressures, and emerging opportunities. Our organizational alignment research shows that a leader’s responsiveness to relevant market changes, combined with how well employees adapt to critical shifts, ranks among the top three factors driving successful strategy implementation.
• Weak Accountability and Decision Making
  Strategy cannot be driven by the C-Suite alone. Execution at scale depends on the strength of accountability and the quality of decisions made at every level of the organization. The culture of ownership and the ability of teams to make effective, aligned decisions are far more decisive in determining whether a strategy succeeds than top-down direction alone.

3 Ways to Create Implementable Strategies for Your Team
The key to strategic success starts with leadership team alignment. A corporate strategy retreat can bring leaders together to ensure everyone shares a common understanding of strategic priorities. From there, the next step is translating high-level strategic goals into meaningful, challenging — but achievable — objectives that can be tracked, measured, and clearly owned.

This step is deceptively difficult, and many leadership teams stumble here. Crafting well-defined strategic objectives is not just about setting targets; it provides a true roadmap, establishes accountability, and ensures that everyone knows what actions will drive results. Without them, even the best strategy remains an aspiration, not a plan that your team can execute.

1. Agree Upon Where You Are
   It may sound basic, but many leadership teams fail to invest the time to align on current assumptions and market realities. Without a shared understanding of the starting point, creating strategies your team can actually implement becomes nearly impossible.

   Key questions to ensure alignment include:

   — Do all stakeholders have a shared understanding of what “Point A” represents?
   — Is there agreement on the key challenges and complications the company faces?
   — Can everyone articulate the critical consequences of failing to execute the strategic vision?

   Clarity around the current situation is essential. If the team does not see the same reality, any strategy you design will lack direction, relevance, and the ability to drive results.

2. Agree Upon Where You Are Going
   Low-performing teams often struggle because their goals and accountabilities, roles and responsibilities, success metrics, and processes are unclear. Strategic success begins with a shared understanding of the destination:

   — What does “Point B” truly represent?
   — Are you entering new markets to diversify offerings?
   — Targeting 20% revenue growth and 15% margin expansion?
   — Enhancing employee engagement to reduce attrition?

   Whatever the ultimate objectives, a successful strategy clearly defines what success looks like — and how both success and failure will be measured at the individual, team, and organizational levels. Without this clarity, it is nearly impossible to align performance management, reward systems, and day-to-day decision-making with your strategic priorities.

   Does everyone on the leadership team agree on where you are headed — and why it matters?

3. Break Strategic Goals into Concise Objectives
   Every strategic objective and initiative must directly align with — and drive progress toward — your strategic priorities. Effective objectives are:

   — Specific
   — Owned by a single accountable leader
   — Time-bound with a clear completion date
   — Measurable with a defined success metric

   The most impactful strategic objectives are concise — ideally a single sentence that starts with a verb, includes a measurable outcome, and sets a timeline. Examples from recent clients illustrate this approach:

   — Increase the executive sales team by two members within six months.
   — Improve employee engagement from 76.5 to 82.3 over twelve months.
   — Reduce attrition of A Players by 50% in six months.
   — Hire and onboard 250 new employees within 18 months.
   — Grow top five accounts by 18% by the end of Q4.
   — Raise average client satisfaction ratings by 3% by next quarter.

   Clear, concise objectives provide a roadmap for execution, establish accountability, and make it possible to track progress in real time — turning strategy from aspiration into action.

Some Tips About Approach

• Don’t Create Too Many Strategic Goals
  We have found that there should be no more than two to three major strategic goals for the year. This allows people to focus on the few critical strategic bets that will make the biggest difference. Too many goals spread valuable resources and mindshare too thin.
• Actively Involve Key Stakeholders
  Strategy is the time to go slow to go fast.  When you co-create the strategies with your key stakeholders, you engage them in the process and gain their commitment to succeed. This is not the time to work in an ivory tower. Actively involve the team in strategic planning to avoid problems down the road.
• Ensure Clear Decision Making Rights
  Follow decision making training best practices and ensure that everyone know how to clarify the decision to be made, follow a proven decision making process, unlock stakeholder commitment, take action, and communicate decisions for greater commitment.
• Have One Owner Accountable for Each Objective
  Having multiple people accountable for big strategic bets causes nothing but confusion and problems.  Do not have “two in a box.” While multiple people will most likely be responsible for completing the task, only have one executive project sponsor accountable for the final results.
• Create an Effective Exposure Mechanism
  When it comes to strategy implementation, a cadence of accountability is critical.  There should be regular leadership team meetings to monitor, report on, and assess progress. Be as transparent with the organization-at-large as you can. Every single employee should have a clear understanding of the company’s strategy and a line of sight into how their contribution fits in.

The Bottom Line
With clear, believable, and implementable strategic objectives, you will know where to play and what actions to take. This is how a company strategy comes to life, effective decisions get made, and resources get allocated to the right priorities.

To learn more about creating strategies that will be successfully implemented across your company, download 3 Big Mistakes to Avoid When Cascading Your Corporate Strategy 

by Tristam Brown: CEO

Tristam Brown is an executive business consultant and organizational development expert with more than three decades of experience helping organizations accelerate performance, build high-impact teams, and turn strategy into execution. As CEO of LSA Global, he works with leaders to get and stay aligned™ through research-backed strategy, culture, and talent solutions that produce measurable, business-critical results. See full bio.