Clarify & Communicate

Strategic Clarity Facilitation for executive teams, boards, sales leaders, business unit leaders, and HR functions

The critical few strategies matter most

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“Having tripled in size and recently merged, LSA helped our executive team with strategic clarity facilitation to increase our level of strategic alignment, solidify our new direction, and push our agency forward.

As we look to rapidly scale, the clear and actionable critical few strategic moves combined with how we differentiate ourselves to our top accounts and target clients has really set us on a great path to success.

This is exactly what we needed to get to the next level.”

Matt Britton | CEO | MRY, a Publicis Groupe Company

“LSA Global rocks! Thank you for helping our executive team create a clear and powerful strategic direction and go to market plan that we could all commit to.

From a sales growth perspective, I am really energized about the outcome and grateful for what I have learned throughout the strategic clarity facilitation process.”

Stacey Wong | VP Sales | Servicon Systems

“An excellent strategy session and a great use of everyone’s time. Thank you for your evident preparation and for keeping the conversation focused and moving forward on what mattered most.  Exactly what our executive leadership team needed.”

Allen Henderson | Director, Biochemistry | Impossible Foods

Having recently completed an acquisition that doubled our size and geographic reach, we needed to redefine our “go forward” plan to address the increasing commoditization of our marketplace.

I was very impressed with the thoughtful and practical way that LSA Global was able to bring our leadership teams together to gain focus, buy-in, and commitment to the strategic plan that we created together.”

Jon Troen | CEO | Miterra Group

“Working on our HR Strategy was so eye opening.  I feel so much better prepared to be successful as a leader individually and collectively.  

Now the entire HR leadership team can drive our growth strategy forward in a way that makes sense.”

Kristin Talastas | Director, HR Shared Services | Lucid Motors

The Value of Strategic Clarity
Our organizational alignment research found that strategic clarity accounts for 31 percent of difference between high and low performance in terms of revenue growth, profitability, customer loyalty, leadership effectiveness, and employee engagement.

The Problem Faced by Leaders
A survey by the Rotman School of Management found that a whopping 43 percent of managers cannot state their own strategy.  Our own research found that strategic priorities become half as clear one level outside of the executive team.  It is difficult for both leaders and followers to perform at their peak without a clear, meaningful, and agreed upon direction.

Yet many teams find themselves — either consciously or unconsciously — moving too quickly or in too many different directions to create and clearly articulate a solid corporate, business unit, team, or sales strategy for success. Some say they do not have the time. Others think their strategy is already clear enough.  But when you ask employees at all levels, organizational ambiguity reigns.

Unfortunately the lack of strategic clarity not only hampers short-term performance but also long-term organizational health.  Effective strategies provide crystal clear reasoning why the company, function or team does what it does and how specific actions should lead to superior performance.  Unclear strategies cause important choices, priorities, and trade-offs to become blurred.

What A Clear Strategy Does
Even those organizations or teams that think they have a strategy to get them where they want to go may have just enough direction or operational planning to stay in the game — but not to win it.  To succeed, leaders must be crystal clear on goals (where the organization is headed) and strategies (how it is going to get there).

  • A good strategy guides the undertakings of the organization, provides rationales for resource allocation, and sharpens decision-making at every level.
  • A bad strategy creates ambiguity and opens the door to politics, bad choices, and lower performance.

When faced with negative pressures from unclear strategies, many leaders look to reorganize because the changes are visible, quick and concrete.  Our alignment research shows that this is a mistake.  It is far more important to first create a strategy that is clear enough, believable enough, and implementable enough to win the hearts and minds of your constituents.

Getting Strategy Right
You will know that you are headed in the right direction in terms of strategic clarity facilitation when your company, function, business unit, or team strategy is:

  • Clear
    Conveyed and understood on one page (see One Page Strategy Communication Map examples)
  • Relevant
    Used to guide your leadership team and their direct reports in making day-to-day operating decisions
  • Compelling
    Not derailed or steamrolled in times of crisis
  • Agile
    Constructively and openly discussed, refined, measured, and evolved
  • Executed
    Implemented consistently across the company
  • Meaningful
    A source of motivation and focus for your employees (some clients like Graphic Illustration)

Go-to-Market Sales Strategy
You will know that you are headed in the right direction in terms of strategic clarity facilitation when your go-to-market sales strategy outlines:

  • Target Clients
    Your ideal target client where you should win the majority of the time
  • Differentiation
    What differentiates you from the competition in the eyes of your target clients in a way that drives premium pricing, increases qualified lead generation, and improves customer retention
  • Success Metrics
    How sales success and failure will be measured at the corporate, team, and individual levels
  • Sales Processes
    The critical few sales processes that matter most in terms of meeting your sales targets and executing your sales strategy
  • Sales Barriers
    The top 10 barriers to sales success over the next 12 to 36 months
  • Action Plan
    An action plan to execute your sales strategy and overcome the key barriers

HR Strategy
You will know that you are headed in the right direction in terms of strategic clarity when your HR strategy is fully aligned with the business strategy and outlines an aligned plan to:

  • Attract Top Talent
    How you will attract and hire top talent to support the company’s strategic priorities.
  • Develop Top Talent
    How you will build the knowledge, skills, competencies, and confidence for people to perform at their peak in a way that makes sense to their career aspirations and the business priorities.
  • Engage & Retain Top Talent
    How you will build a healthy, high performing, and aligned workplace culture to drive inclusivity, equality, diversity, discretionary effort, advocacy, loyalty, performance, and retention where it matters most.
  • Create Efficient and Scalable People Systems, Processes & Analytics
    How you will ensure the employee experience is proactively supported both now and in the future.
  • Overcome Key HR Barriers
    How you will socialize and overcome the top HR barriers to success.
  • Take Meaningful Action
    How you will create enough alignment, transparency, accountability, and agility to execute your HR strategy and overcome key barriers in a way that makes sense to the people and to the business.

Until then, you have some work to do. Please contact us if you want to take the first step toward strategic clarity with proven strategic clarity facilitation that helps executive teams to thoughtfully to set aspirations and make bold choices.

 

Related Information

How to Succeed

To succeed, executives must be crystal clear on goals (where the organization is headed) and strategies (how it is going to get there).  A good strategy guides the undertakings of the organization, provides rationales for resource allocation, and sharpens decision-making at every level.

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This was an extremely effective executive strategy session that helped our executive leadership team efficiently navigate through our core strategic objectives. It was exactly what we needed.  The approach was practical and valuable for our specific business and market.

I recommend LSA to anyone looking to push their strategic planning, thinking, and growth to the next level.

Blake Krikorian
CEO

You have become our premier change leadership strategic partner. Your expertise in the human side of change is unparalleled and enabled our company to successfully implement our ERP Solution under challenging and ever-changing circumstances.

Thank you for your practical and outcome-oriented approach.

Ted Ramlet
CIO & SVP

McKesson

Thank you for a great leadership development session today. The facilitator was brilliant.  The team got a lot out of it (as did I).

I believe it will help us create an even higher performance culture by ensuring we have a common understanding of how to create higher performance and work toward clear and common strategic goals.

Simon Jefferson
Managing Director

AKQA

Having tripled in size and recently merged, LSA helped our executive team to increase our level of strategic alignment, to solidify our new direction, and to push our agency forward.

As we look to rapidly scale, the clear, actionable, and critical few strategic moves combined with how we differentiate ourselves to our top accounts and target clients has really set us on a great path to success.

This is exactly what we needed to get to the next level. Thank you LSA!

Matt Britton
CEO

LSA helped us to create the strategic clarity and alignment we needed for our team to thrive.

The practical, no-nonsense, and outcome-oriented approach really helped us all get on the same page and set us up to be a high performing leadership team to focus on what matters most.

Michael Carter
VP Human Resources

Samsung

Thanks a million for the great strategy and cultural alignment session for our global leadership team.

Your experience and patience to expertly deal with the inherent and complex challenges between business units uncovered many hidden truths that created a great roadmap for us to move forward as a unified leadership team.

I recommend LSA to any leader looking to shape and align organizational culture.

Juan Plaza
Geospatial Sales Manager, Latin America

Trimble Navigation

LSA’s action-learning leadership approach has been very beneficial to me, our leadership team, and the entire organization.

The balance of development and results has been excellent.

We have made huge progress, and I was also able to identify 2-3 high potentials while having the extra benefit of people stepping up to carry key strategic projects forward.

The experience was better than anticipated.  I could not be more pleased.

Heather Feltman
President & CEO

LSS

Having recently completed an acquisition that doubled our size and geographic reach, we needed to redefine our “go forward” plan to address the increasing commoditization of our marketplace.

I was very impressed with the thoughtful and practical way that LSA Global was able to bring our leadership teams together to gain focus, buy-in, and commitment to a compelling strategic plan that we created together.

Jon Troen
CEO

Mittera_Logo-LSA-Grobal

Working on our HR Strategy was so eye opening.  I feel so much better prepared to be successful as a leader individually and collectively.

Now the entire HR leadership team can drive our growth strategy forward in a way that makes sense.

Kristin Talastas
Director, HR Shared Services

lucid-motors-logo-LSA-Global

The LSA customized Organizational Alignment Survey gave us a comprehensive view of how our employees experience our culture, talent, and strategy.

The systemic approach provided us with a great forum to discuss the strengths and opportunities in our organization, and then to quickly get focused on the key actions critical to executing our business and people strategies.

Mark Forrest
General Manager, FSM Division

Trimble

LSA has a very unique and powerful methodology regarding learning. Their ability to overcome skepticism, obtain executive support, and create an aligned learning strategy that provides measurable business impact is second to none.

They understand your goals, flex to your needs, and solve problems. They certainly help make my job easier and are a pleasure to work with.

I highly recommend LSA to anyone trying to connect the dots between strategy, skills, knowledge, and results.

Noelle Van Vlierbergen
Human Resources Director

AKQA

We selected LSA Global over 5 other companies to help our key executives improve their overall communication and executive presentation capabilities. LSA exceeded our expectations.

I highly recommend LSA to any executive team looking to better organize and more effectively deliver key executive-level messages — especially when the stakes are high.

Todd Power
Office of the CEO

We consider LSA our true business partner.

From Strategic Facilitation and Planning to Presentation Skills and Management Training, they continue to provide excellent value and extremely high quality solutions that make an impact.

I recommend them to anyone looking for a practical approach to drive true business and people results.

Michelle A. Mitchell
Vice President, Worldwide Human Resources

LSA’s executive coach based his approach on understanding our business circumstances and strategy, as well as our leadership aspirations. The customized coaching covered all aspects of leadership; it was not simply a touchy-feely endeavor.

In fact, the focus on clear business outcomes and real life circumstances challenged me as a senior leader to develop my thinking and actions related to leading the business.”

Janet Pagano
Managing Director

Ovid

LSA worked with our Executive Leadership Team to help create strategic clarity and alignment as we look to increase our growth rate and unlock innovation.  They masterfully handled very complex, challenging, and high stakes leaders, decisions, and cultural nuances to help us identify what matters most and move toward one unified direction.

Their practical, straightforward, and client-centric approach was refreshing.  I highly recommend them to any executive team looking to get aligned to create even higher performance.  They are lights out awesome!

Patrick Resk
Chief Financial Officer, Partner

Porter Novelli logo LSA Global

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