Strategy Communication

As a team grows, alignment becomes more important. In small teams osmosis does the hard work of ensuring information is passed around the team. But this is not planned, nor is it scalable.

For teams to act autonomously and not have to rely on senior leaders for input (that then becomes a bottleneck) the team need to know the strategy inside out, so they can act without constant guidance.

How do you do this in a growing team?

1. Communicate the strategy at every opportunity
2. Ask the team to reiterate the strategy in their own words on a regular basis

If the teams version of the strategy and the real strategy are one and the same, then the team can work at pace. If they are not further communication is required. Any deviation in team members from the actual strategy will cause problems over time - bad decisions, no decisions, rework.

The summary? When communicating something as important as strategy - check that your communication has been effective, and keep checking. Old habits die hard. If the team are not aligned, you are not getting the leverage from having the team in the first place.