Strategic Clarity Facilitation - Clarify & Communicate Strategy

“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

“We partnered with LSA Global to help us create a clear, compelling, believable, and implementable strategy that the executive team could fully commit to and support.

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

Explore more Strategic Clarity

Strategic Clarity Facilitation of leaders creating a clear and winning strategy together

Clarify & Communicate

Identify and articulate the critical few strategic actions and performance metrics that will make the biggest impact.

Align & Lead

Align senior teams and functions with
the strategic direction.

picture of executive leaders discussing how to Implement and Cascade Strategic Plans

Implement & Cascade

Implement and cascade strategic plans, actions and metrics throughout the organization.

LSA Global really shifted our perspective about strategic clarity and organizational culture.

The 3 C’s approach to workplace culture is very practical and really helps executive teams – even skeptical ones – ensure that your culture is healthy, high performing, and aligned.

Amy Cappellanti-Wolf
Chief Human Resources Officer

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

Having taken on a new executive leadership role, one of my first calls was to LSA Global to help my leadership team to design, implement, and cascade clear strategic plans. First, LSA helped our leadership team identify the strategy, culture, and talent areas that mattered most to create organizational alignment.

Then they helped facilitate the design of a strategic growth plan that is clear, compelling, believable, and implementable. We now have 100% commitment from an aligned leadership team and key stakeholders going forward.

I would recommend LSA to anyone who wants to create high levels of strategic alignment, growth, and performance.

Erik Arvesen
Vice President, General Manager

I can’t emphasize enough what a huge shift you helped to create for us as an organization. Thanks again for your change management consulting help and guidance.

The clarity, practicality, focus, and accountability are exactly what we needed to make this strategy and major transformation a success from a hearts and minds perspective.

Cris Alvarez
VP Corporate Strategy

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

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

As a high growth agency with cutting edge talent, we hired LSA Global to help clarify our strategy and work with our executive leadership team to help implement strategic changes in a way that made sense for our unique culture.

The work was so successful that we also hired them to coach our key leaders. LSA has been instrumental in helping us transition to a new leadership team and triple revenue. In this age of useless consultants, I highly recommend their practical and business-oriented approach to strategy, culture, and talent.

David Bentley
General Manager

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

We got great value from the executive strategy session. We would not hesitate to use LSA again with our Executive Leadership Team.

Natalie McCullough
Chief Marketing & Strategy Officer

At a time of change in our marketplace, LSA Global did an exceptional job helping our executive team create strategic clarity by helping us to define, clarify, and prioritize our corporate vision, mission, values, differentiation, target clients, strategic priorities, success metrics and key roles.

They beautifully navigated a very difficult and fuzzy situation, respectfully cleared out all of the cultural elephants, and shared impactful insights and leadership development theories along the way. They have transformed our business.

Laurie Sewell
President & CEO

LSA has a tremendous ability to distil complex, multilayered challenges into meaningful, impactful, and clear strategies and action plans.

The time we invested as a leadership team to get aligned was well spent in gaining laser focus and identifying ways to prioritize what was meaningful individually and as a team. The facilitation and leadership style was direct, firm, and compassionate.

LSA provided the high level thinking and support for our team to co-create in a rapidly scaling business.

Bindu Garapaty, PsyD
VP, Talent and Inclusion, Diversity, & Equity

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

LSA was very thorough during all phases of our customer service strategy process. Their time spent with management and our employees went very well.

LSA’s insights were very powerful, and their suggestions for the future were very valuable.

I can’t think of any phase of the process that wasn’t first class.

John Lynch
CEO & President

We recently hired LSA to help us take our client delivery methodology to the next level as we continue to grow and help our clients succeed.

The custom strategy and design session exceeded our expectations. They really understood our business and delivered within tight time frames. They were the best I have seen for this type of complex, visible, and strategic work.

LSA’s ability to get a group of 20+ executives from around the globe on the same page, push their thinking to new heights, and ensure an executable plan was excellent.

I would recommend LSA to anyone looking to take their strategy and strategic execution to the next level.

Rob Sturgeon
EVP Client Delivery

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

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