Most organisations have a sense of where they want to go, but deciding what that means for the work people do now can be harder, especially when there are already too many demands on their time.
Our recent webinar, Introduction to Strategy, was delivered by The Cambridge and Financial Times Strategy Programme. Professor Stelios Kavadias and Claire Oatway explored how organisations turn strategic ambitions into choices people can act on, and how those choices hold up when circumstances change.
A strategy needs to help people see what takes priority. Adding new work is often easier than ending an existing project, particularly when time or money has already been invested in it. Claire described the latter as “the active choice to stop doing something”. Without those decisions, teams can find themselves trying to deliver a new strategy alongside everything they were doing before.
The choices an organisation makes should also be visible in its budget. As Professor Kavadias put it, budgets are “the strongest signal” of an organisation’s priorities. If funding stays with the same activities, it is hard to persuade people that the direction has changed.
Even with priorities and resources in place, people need to understand what the strategy means for their work. They may need new skills or support to take on a different approach. Apparent resistance to change may reflect uncertainty about what is expected, or concern about being asked to take risks without the means to manage them. Finding out what is behind that response is part of putting the strategy into practice.
The webinar also explored how strategy should evolve as conditions change, from geopolitical shifts to advances in AI. Leaders may need to reconsider how they deliver an objective as new tools and pressures emerge. With AI, that means starting with the business need, then deciding where the technology could help, rather than trying to find a use for it simply because it is available.
Watch the full Introduction to Strategy webinar recording.
The discussion introduced themes explored further in The Cambridge and Financial Times Strategy Programme, including strategic choices, execution and adapting to change.
