This is Why Business Strategy Needs to be Simple

Is your message too hard to understand?

Einstein once said: “If you can’t explain it to a six-year-old, then you don’t understand it yourself.”  It’s mind boggling to me how many leaders craft meticulously complicated strategies, and then stand in front of people and explain the plan using words that one needs to search through a dictionary to comprehend.  Then they wonder why no one actually executes the plan.

According to the Franklin Covey Institute after studying 200 organizations and their ability to execute on a strategic plan, they found that only 17% were able to do so.  Why?  Too many strategies.  Too complicated.

What I have discovered in my work as a strategist in over 25 countries around the world for Fortune sized to small start-up businesses, is often leaders feel that they have to make plans complicated in order to prove how smart they are.  Yet, Einstein also once said: “The ultimate in complexity is simplicity.”

Is your plan one people will follow or sabotage?

Everyone in your organization is busy doing their ‘day-jobs.’  Everyone will tell you how busy they are.  When we introduce complicated plans, communicated with convoluted language, people will naturally be confused, resist the plan, get frustrated and find ways to sabotage or ignore the plan – in other words, they will do their day-jobs and nothing more.

How to make a plan that will inspire

Now, to mitigate human nature, you could hire double the amount of people that you need and have the extra team members only work on executing the plan, or you can follow some easy steps and have your people get excited, engaged and inspired by your plan.  Here’s how:

1. Have a very clear ‘Why.’ Every human on the planet thinks the same way.  We all think ‘Why, what, how.’  In the order.  When we present a complicated plan with too many things to do, team members struggle to understand the purpose behind the plan, and they will resist it.
2. Have an equally clear and compelling vision (that’s the ‘What’ part). After our people understand the purpose, they want to absorb ‘What are we going to do?’  When you are able to paint a picture of what the goal looks like and how we measure it, people will commit.
3. Have only three strategies (that’s the ‘How’ part).  Our brains remember three things.  Think about the last time you went to the grocery store.  Chances are that if you needed to pick up more than three items, you needed a list.  When you have three simple, measurable strategies, your people will remember them.  They will also more easily understand how they play a part in the plan.

Strategy should be simple.  It is meant to be that way.

Robert Murray is a Vancouver, BC based Business Strategy Consultant, #1 Best Selling Author, International Keynote Speaker, and TEC Top Speaker of the Year for 2018. For further advice, insight and inspiration on how to unlock your inner leader, follow Robert on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

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