As the summer months end and the temperature drops, many of us at Tusk Consulting have taken the time to reflect and recharge. This period of reflection has been invaluable, allowing us to appreciate the privilege of working with some amazing organisations as they navigate change and strive to become more effective and impactful.
The common pitfall in strategy development
In our reflections, we’ve noticed a recurring theme: many organisations invest significant time and effort in developing strategies that focus primarily on the ‘what’—the goals and objectives they hope to achieve.
These strategies often set a broad North Star for the organisation, outlining strategic priorities for a specific period. Subsequently, organisations often then jump straight to how to organise their resources to achieve these goals, sometimes focusing solely on their structure and processes, and other times on broader organisational design or operating models.
The missing middle
However, we’ve observed that these activities are often viewed as distinct and separate. The competing drivers of long-term strategic intent and optimal structure can lead to what we call the “missing middle.”
The gap arises when strategies fail to address the ‘how’—the strategic choices an organisation must make to focus its limited resources, deliver value, create impact and differentiate itself in a crowded market.
In turn, this leads to an org design or operating model that fails to harness the unique strengths and assets in a strategic way. Without this, there is often confusion among managers and staff about what the strategic shift looks like and how to deliver it uniformly.
Why does this happen?
The root cause often lies in the people and dynamics within the organisation. Factors such as the tenure of key individuals – especially the CEO and Chair – the dynamics at the trustee and senior team levels, and the broader organisational system all play a role. These dynamics can make it challenging to align strategy with execution.
Our perspective
At Tusk Consulting, we believe that organisations can accelerate their desired transitions by focusing on the alignment between these elements rather than treating them as separate tasks. This alignment can kickstart the shifts needed to achieve strategic goals with the pace and efficiency that is often desired.
Join the conversation
Where are you in managing this conundrum? If anything in this article resonates with you, we would love to hear from you; please get in touch to share your experiences.
(Image by freepik)