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If your strategy needs explaining, it needs improving.
Most leadership teams have a strategy. The problem is that too few employees know how to use it.
A customer asks for something unexpected. A project goes off track. A new opportunity appears. If your people have to wait for a meeting or your approval before they know what to do, your strategy isn’t guiding the business. It’s sitting in a slide deck.
According to the Harvard Business Review, every organization needs a clear strategic center — a simple idea that shapes priorities, investments, and decisions.
It starts with one question: What are we really about?
That’s important. But there’s an even better leadership question: Can your employees answer it with their decisions?
A strategy only matters if people can execute it without you.
Focus is only the beginning
The best companies have always had a clear strategic center.
Henry Ford made automobiles ordinary Americans could afford. Herb Kelleher built Southwest Airlines around low-cost air travel. Steve Jobs obsessed over beautifully designed, user-friendly technology.
Having a focus, however, isn’t enough.
WeWork also had a clear idea: flexible shared workspaces. The concept wasn’t the problem. The economics were. When reality changed, the strategy couldn’t support the business.
That’s the lesson. A strategic center isn’t a slogan. It’s a living framework that has to evolve alongside customers and markets.
The missing operating system
Knowing your strategy isn’t the same as executing it. That’s where economic engagement comes in.
The idea is straightforward: people make better decisions when they understand how the business creates value and profit for customers.
When employees understand which customers matter most, how the company makes money, and what winning looks like, they stop waiting for instructions. They start making better decisions on their own.
That’s the bridge between strategy and execution.
Follow your best customers
Kaloutas Painting is a good example.
What began as a residential painting contractor has become one of New England’s leading facility services companies. At first glance, that sounds like a company that wandered far from its original business.
It didn’t.
Jim Kaloutas simply kept asking what his best customers needed next.
Commercial and industrial clients wanted more than painting. They needed industrial coatings, concrete restoration, flooring, maintenance support, fireproofing, and specialized cleaning. So the company expanded into adjacent services that solved bigger customer problems instead of chasing unrelated opportunities.
The strategy never changed. Serve the best customers better. Everything else followed.
When I worked with Kaloutas beginning in 2005, we focused on helping employees understand both customer value and the economics behind the business. That gave people the context to make better decisions every day without waiting for direction.
Customers shaped the strategy. Employees made it happen.
The leadership takeaway
Most leaders spend too much time refining strategy and too little time teaching employees how to apply it.
If your people understand what customers value, how the business creates profit, and where the company is headed, they don’t need to wait for the next planning session. They already know how to make decisions that move the business forward.
So ask yourself: What are we really about?
Then ask the harder question: Does every employee know how to turn that answer into action?
Strategy defines the destination. Employees who understand the business are what get you there.
This post originally appeared at inc.com.
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