The Missing Link of Mid-Level Strategic Thinking
A common frustration I hear from senior leaders is the challenge of executing strategy.
A great deal of effort goes into developing the strategy. Workshops are held. Leadership teams debate priorities. Documents are produced that outline the organisation's direction and ambitions.
And yet, somewhere between the boardroom and the frontline, the strategy seems to lose momentum.
I was reminded of this recently when talking with a colleague at a networking event. She told me that in her organisation, whenever strategic thinking development was suggested for mid-level leaders, the response from senior leadership was consistent:
"Our people don't need to think strategically. They just need to execute the strategy."
At first glance, that might sound reasonable. After all, if the senior leadership team has already done the strategic thinking and determined the direction, surely everyone else just needs to get on with making it happen?
But here's the problem with that thinking:
Execution is not the opposite of strategic thinking. In fact, effective execution requires strategic thinking at multiple levels of the organisation.
Why high-level strategy needs another layer of thinking
If you've ever sat in a room full of senior leaders unveiling a grand new strategy, you'll know the feeling. There's a lofty vision, a set of bold strategic priorities that sound inspiring, and then there's often a gap. That gap is the space where the strategy is supposed to become everyone's day-to-day reality.
Senior leaders are naturally dealing with the big picture. They're making choices about the overall direction of the organisation, often thinking across long time horizons and broad organisational shifts. And because the strategy needs to apply across the whole organisation, it tends to be expressed in fairly high-level, abstract terms. You might see strategic priorities around things like innovation, sustainability, customer experience, or operational efficiency.
All good things. But what exactly do they mean for the people who have to make them happen?
If you're leading an IT team, a finance function, or an operational department, what does 'innovation' mean for your part of the organisation? What should you be doing differently? Where should you focus your limited resources? And what should you stop doing to make room for those priorities?
The strategy itself doesn't necessarily answer those questions. Nor should we expect it to.
Because that's where the next layer of strategic thinking needs to happen.
Strategic thinking happens at different levels
One of the things I often talk about in my work is that strategic thinking isn't a single, one-size-fits-all thought process.
At the top of the organisation, strategic thinking involves considering the whole system, the longer-term future, and the broad choices that will position the organisation for success. But as we move down through the organisation, the thinking needs to become progressively more specific and relevant to each part of the business. That doesn't mean it becomes less strategic. It means we're applying strategic thinking to a different scope of responsibility, with different decisions to make.
This is where mid-level leaders play such a critical role. They're the bridge between the organisation's high-level strategy and the everyday decisions and actions that ultimately determine whether that strategy succeeds. But they're not simply passing instructions down the line or breaking the strategy into smaller tasks.
They need to do their own layer of strategic interpretation and decision-making.
They need to understand what the organisation is trying to achieve, consider the unique context of their own function, and determine where they can make the greatest contribution. That involves making choices about priorities, resources and trade-offs. It means identifying the critical few things that will have the greatest impact on what their team can contribute to the strategy, rather than simply adding more activities to everyone's already full workload.
Closing the gap between strategy and execution
So let's come back to that comment from the networking event.
"Our people don't need to think strategically. They just need to execute the strategy."
I can understand the sentiment. Senior leaders want to see progress, action and results. But if we expect mid-level leaders to execute strategy without equipping them to think strategically about their part of the organisation, we're missing a crucial step. We're asking them to turn something abstract into something concrete, without giving them the thinking tools to do it. And then we're surprised when the strategy doesn't gain traction.
Of course, senior leaders need to provide clarity about the strategic direction. But the answer isn't to make the organisation's strategy so detailed that it tells every function exactly what to do.
It's to equip and empower leaders at different levels to do the strategic thinking that's appropriate to their scope of responsibility.
The goal isn't simply to have more people who understand the strategy. It's to have more people who can think strategically about how to contribute to it.
That's the missing link between strategy and execution.
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