Depending on how jaded or optimistic your worldview is, you’re probably watching the news of COP26 in Glasgow thinking “what a colossal waste of time” or “perhaps, finally we’ll get our collective asses in gear”
This is that weird little dance our species does we call Democracy. Where everyone has a voice, and, more importantly, everyone has a vote.
Will they abstain?
Will they vote against?
Will they eagerly commit?
Will they flip-flop by voting one way and then doing something else entirely?
In the simplest of terms, how the COP26 constituents vote will determine how our planet deals with the most existential threat we face globally – how can we curb climate change?
In equally stark terms, you face the same challenge as you try to answer the most existential question your organization faces each day – how do we grow?
And there are 3 critical constituents that vote on your business strategy every day.
Your competition
Your customer
Your culture
And only one of those can you truly impact and influence to vote in your favour.
Your competition is never going to vote in your favour. If you’re a credible threat they’re going to do everything in their power to stop you, and your artfully created strategy, dead in your tracks. And as every military tactician from von Moltke to Colin Powell remind us “No Plan survives first contact with the Enemy.” The best you can hope for is to be so small and insignificant that your competition has neither the will nor the inclination to halt your growth. And is that really the type of ambition you’d ever write into any strategy document?
Your consumer may vote in your favour but, as Professor Byron Sharp and any true-blooded marketer will tell you, consumers are a fickle bunch. They’ll love you one day. Then leave you the next for some other Bright Shiny Object, BoGo or LTO faster than you can say NPS or omnichannel customer experience management. Sure, you can spend significant time in developing market fit, optimizing your distribution and pricing but, at best, you’ll never be their only choice and the only brand in their portfolio of purchases. Does that mean you pay them no heed? Of course not, but you need to recognize that that strategy work is never done and even if you’re Nike, Singapore Airlines or Nordstrom’s your ability to influence this constituent is still limited.
And then there is your culture.
The one constituency that you have remarkable influence over (remember, influence not control!) and impact with.
The one constituency that votes with uncanny reliability each moment of each day on whether your strategy soars magnificently or fails miserably.
The one constituency that you’re entirely reliant on to execute that strategy. Because, if you’re unable to execute your Strategy then it’s nothing more than a colourful Powerpoint.
Now, look inside your own culture and ask if any of these actions and behaviours could stall your growth more effectively than a competitor doubling their distribution and halving their price simultaneously.
Teams so wracked with fear and trepidation that they slow-roll everything by not making decisions and wrapping every project in layers and layers of crippling bureaucracy.
Teams driven to such levels of “win at all costs” that they actively undermine their own colleagues and even set those colleagues to fail.
Teams so bound by hierarchy, centralized decision-making, and process that new ideas, concepts and innovations are starved of oxygen and die before even reaching the market.
That is your culture voting.
Voting as a result of how it’s been treated.
Voting as a result of how it has learned to be recognized and rewarded inside this organization.
Voting as a result of knowing that to act in any other way would not be psychologically safe and might even negatively impact their employment.
That is why I’m always incredulous when leaders don’t obsess over their culture recognizing it as the most effective growth engine and strategic advantage they have. A growth engine with the ability to accelerate or stall any strategy they’re looking to deploy.
I’m equally incredulous when leaders don’t painstakingly share their strategies with the culture and, with equal purpose and fervour, communicate to the culture the role they play, the behaviours that are required and the behaviours that are unacceptable.
Remember 3 constituents control the outcome of your strategy.
One will never vote in your favour – that’s your competition.
One will only ever vote in their favour – that’s your consumer.
And one could genuinely vote in your favour each and every day – that’s your culture.
What are you doing to secure their vote?
