Thursday, April 24, 2025
Thursday, April 24, 2025
by Dr. Michael Gerharz:
There’s a stubborn myth out there: that the best strategy is the one that’s the most clever, the most nuanced, the most complex.
But everyone who’s ever had to put a strategy into practice knows that the true quality is a very different measure: How well people can act on the strategy.
You don’t judge a strategy on how brilliant it looks on paper. You judge it on how well it guides people’s actions.
Imagine walking into your organization tomorrow and asking each team member what the essence of your company’s strategy is. How many of them could give you a clear and compelling answer? How many would know, without hesitation, what it means for the choices they need to make today?
Forgive me for being direct here, but great strategies don’t make an impact through what they were supposed to do when they were presented in glossy PowerPoints. They live through the actions people actually take.
The problem is often not the strategy itself. They are indeed brilliant, smart, intelligently created.
The problem is communication. They aren’t communicated effectively.
To be effective, strategy communication must be:
Plain and Simple: Clear enough that everyone immediately understands it.
Actionable: Directly linked to the decisions and actions people take.
Transformative: Capable of inspiring meaningful change.
Heartfelt: Rooted in a deeper connection with people’s motivations and beliefs.
Conveniently, these four principles form the acronym PATH. If a strategy determines the PATH of an organization, its communication needs to light that PATH.
Let’s dive into each of these four principles.
In many organizations, strategy feels much like a riddle wrapped in jargon, fancy words that sound impressive but don’t mean much when you’re knee-deep in daily operations.
Effective communication is never about sounding smart but always about being clear. If you find plain and simple words to explain your idea, it always beats the fancy mission statements agencies come up with.
Much like Southwest Airlines did with their early strategy of getting planes back in the air as fast as possible. They realized that planes only make money in the air. The usual way of framing that strategy would be to “become the market leader in efficient airlines operations”.
But what does that mean for the ground crew? Or the flight attendants? How do they know which actions help their employer become the “leader in efficiency”?
That’s why Southwest chose a different way of saying the same thing, using only two words: “Wheels Up!”
Now, that’s clear! Everyone knows what it means: Does my action contribute to the plane’s wheels going up sooner? Absolutely do it! Otherwise, absolutely don’t!
Does your strategy communication have that level of clarity? If not, it’s not a strategy. It’s a guessing game.
Let’s put it another way: If the purpose of your strategy is to guide action, your communication needs to make these actions obvious. Otherwise it’s not actionable. It’s abstract.
Consider FedEx’s legendary motto: “When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight.” That wasn’t just a catchy slogan; it was a clear, actionable strategy. It told every employee exactly what the priority was. Whenever they faced a choice, they knew exactly how to act. The right choice was always the one that ensured the packet was there the next day. Do whatever it takes.
When a strategy is actionable, it gives people a filter through which to view their decisions. It cuts down on debate and second-guessing because it makes the right choice stand out as if it’s the only one.
Does your strategy communication guide actions? If not, you haven’t finished the job.
Plain and simple is crucial, actionable is necessary, but true impact requires that your strategy is transformative. The point of a strategy isn’t to maintain the status quo; it’s to change the game in your favor. That requires bold choices.
The problem is, many strategies ask people to follow the rules rather than challenge them. But the most successful companies motivate their teams to make courageous leaps, not just cautious steps.
Think about when Paul O’Neill became CEO of Alcoa. He led a remarkable turnout of a struggling company to a thriving textbook role model using transformative words.
In a dangerous industry, he made worker safety his number one priority. But unlike others who would have framed that strategy using jargon words such as “We’re prioritizing worker safety!”, O’Neill was bolder. He claimed the strategy was to get to “zero injuries” – an ambition that many would say was impossible in aluminum production.
It wasn’t. Not with O’Neill’s choice of words. “Prioritize worker safety” would have easily been satisfied with a few more warning signs. But “zero injuries” didn’t allow for that. It encouraged (in fact: demanded) bold, transformative moves.
The result? Not only was the goal achieved, but Alcoa’s financial performance skyrocketed thanks to a ripple effect.
Is your strategy inspiring your team to make bold choices? Or is it just playing it safe?
Here’s another inconvenient truth: Strategy isn’t about logic and reason. It’s just as much about belief. It’s about getting people to buy into a vision so passionately that they’re willing to go the extra mile.
When a strategy is heartfelt, it creates emotional buy-in.
Take the story of Buurtzorg, a Dutch healthcare organization that operates without managers. Their entire strategy is built on a heartfelt belief: nurses know what’s best for their patients.
It’s a powerful idea, based on a simple realization: Nurses don’t choose their jobs for the money. They choose it because caring for patients matters to them. That’s what de Blok’s strategy embraced.
Pay attention to what a difference the wording makes. Buurtzorg’s strategy wasn’t to “provide effective healthcare at a reasonable price,” it was to “always start from the patient’s perspective and prioritize their best interests.”
The former is what businesses might care for; the latter is what nurses care for. At Buurtzorg, nurses engage in a mission they deeply believe in.
And it works. Buurtzorg consistently delivers the highest patient satisfaction scores in the industry while operating with much higher efficiency, all because their strategy isn’t just understood, it’s heartfelt.
Does your strategy connect with your team on an emotional level? If it doesn’t, don’t expect them to give it their all.
A strategy that isn’t effectively communicated, lulls you into thinking you’ve got a plan when all you’ve really got is a piece of paper, however beautifully designed. But a strategy that gathers dust is worse than no strategy at all, it’s a distraction.
You need to make sure that your strategy lights the PATH forward. With words that are plain and simple, actionable, transformative, and heartfelt. That’s how you turn strategy into action. That’s how you create real impact.
It’s time to light the PATH!
PS: This text is based on my book “The PATH to Strategic Impact” (https://geni.us/the-path) which elaborates the four PATH principles and how to use them in detail.
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Dr. Michael Gerharz helps leaders worldwide find the right words. He’s the author of “The PATH to Strategic Impact”, host of the “Irresistible Communication” podcast and his blog has 1000+ posts on “The Art of Communicating”. You can reach him on LinkedIn.
Written by: Editor
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