11/21/2024

Make Your Strategy’s Message 'Sticky'

A website announcement and email aren't enough anymore

At effective associations, strategy is key: Boards, staff leaders and other stakeholders put in a lot of time and effort setting the direction of an organization. Which is why it's frustrating when, after all that effort, staff and members still say things like, "Why are we doing this?"

Part of the frustration stems from the fact that associations can be just as diligent about communicating the strategy as they are developing it. Internal and external websites are launched. All-hands meetings are convened. New slide decks are drawn up for the annual conference. But communicating strategy isn't the same thing as communicating it well.

In a recent piece at the Harvard Business Review, two London Business School scholars discuss a few of the reasons why that might be. The problem is acute: They point to one study that found that less than a third of organization staffers could pick their strategy out of a lineup, even when it was clearly communicated. Part of the issue, they note, is that strategies, as written, are often amorphous messages devoid of context. Leaders “cannot even begin to communicate all the implicit, often tacit knowledge that brought them to a particular decision, which means that they can never really explain their choices."

Please select this link to read the complete article from Associations Now.