Sometimes leaders forget the most essential part of strategy. It’s not about creating it per se; This is what comes next.

Your job as a leader is to improve alignment between the organization’s current state and the planned strategy. It understands the priorities and related deadlines that affect the team members under your command.

Communication, consultation and connection – what I call the three Cs of strategy – are essential to aligning your team members with the organization’s strategy.

The first “C” is communication. Leaders should occasionally update team members on the execution of the organization’s strategy. Communicating ensures that the strategy is understood and not ignored or misinterpreted.

However, you also need to find ways to consult with them on the success of the strategy or obstacles related to their specific roles. To consult is the second “C”. This information is critical to improving or revising the strategy itself and is an important feedback loop up the chain.

Finally, another requirement is to make the strategy a reality. The third “C” is connect the dots between your organization’s strategy and how it affects team members’ current tasks and roles.

Global Strategy Insights

Global research conducted for my latest book, Work-life fulfillmentsuggests that leaders and organizations find themselves in a “hit and miss” situation when it comes to strategy and its effectiveness with team members.

Overall, 69% of employees at all levels believe their organization has a clear vision strategy. This percentage is higher for leaders (74%) than for non-leaders (59%). Unfortunately, only 47% of employees worldwide believe that their employer’s strategy helps them perform their roles.

In other words, about half of employees do not positively connect their performance to their organization’s strategy.

Another trend appears when the data is broken down according to the four predominant generations in the labor market.

Even if the age difference is not significant, younger individuals tend to view the organization’s strategy as clear. In contrast, older team members are less likely to believe that the organization’s strategy helps them.

Specifically, 53% of Gen Z say their organization’s strategy makes doing their job more manageable. This is the high water mark. Unfortunately, this value begins to erode as people age.

50% of Millennials feel the same way, compared to just 44% of Generation X and 43% of Baby Boomers.

This raises an interesting question: Does an organization want its most experienced employees to become increasingly disillusioned with its strategy as they age? Likewise, don’t we want the performance of our senior team members to be high and, thus, closely linked to the organization’s strategy?

What can leaders do to contribute to the success of their strategy? As mentioned, I call them the three Cs of strategy: communicate, consult and connect.

Communicate the strategy

Communicating strategy and objectives should not be a one-time or annual tactic. However, all too often, an organization’s strategy is rolled out at the beginning of the operating year, never to be discussed again. Is it immersive? Will an employee become deeply immersed in the strategy if it is only mentioned in passing once a year?

The answers to these questions are of course no.

However, if you want your team members to fully understand and appreciate your strategy, you must use an immersive communications strategy. Simply put, you need to find opportunities to communicate and relate strategy as frequently as possible with your team members.

Consult on strategy

If we agree that a good organizational strategy acts as a guide for all team members – a path that shows everyone in the company where it is going, why and to what extent – ​​wouldn’t it be a good idea to consult the individuals who are implementing the strategy from time to time?

If leaders announce the strategy and team members execute it, it’s probably a great idea to check in intermittently with people to see how it’s actually going. This action can create a strategic link.

Implementing the organization’s strategy relies largely on your team members. Yet few employees get involved in the strategic planning process.

Not only are you missing critical feedback that could help reshape future versions of the strategy, but it also negates the opportunity to strengthen context between the employee, their performance, and the strategy.

Again, this may be another reason why two-thirds of team members not in leadership roles don’t think their organization’s strategy makes it easier for them to do their job. .

Log in to policy

It’s pretty simple: your role as a leader is to connect the organization’s strategy to the roles and goals of your team members as often as it makes sense. By establishing this connection, you provide a essential point of view for the individual.

What good is a team member if an organization’s strategy is only on a website or in an annual report PDF document? This is not the case.

Team members must feel the strategy is relevant to them. They must feel connected to it.

A surefire way to prevent this from happening is to rely on the “hopes and prayers” approach. You can’t hope that the team member will make that connection. How should you connect to the strategy? There is a specific method that makes the most sense.

Your one-on-one meetings with each team member can effectively serve as a mechanism for you to connect their role to the strategy.

Not all one-on-one meetings require this to happen, but neither is it advisable to ignore it outright. Plus, it’s not a difficult leadership exercise.

Consider asking open-ended questions. Start a dialogue with the team member by asking how they think their role has recently contributed to the organization’s strategy. From there, you can infuse the conversation with your leadership ideas about what else they are doing to help achieve the strategy. It is enough to do it two to three times a year for 10 to 15 minutes.

When the three Cs of strategy are implemented, the end result is a team member who better understands the big picture.

When team members understand and embrace your organization’s short- and long-term goals, it leads to strategic alignment. Additionally, when they are aligned with strategy, their performance generally improves.