INCLUDE Leaders in Your Strategy Making

Waiting until your strategic plan is perfect before presenting it to a leader for review renders him practically useless.

Seek real input, not a pat on the back. Ask your leader early on whether there’s a different way he would frame the strategy problem. Then go back with the possible solutions and ask him if you’re overlooking anything.

Return a third time when you have reverse-engineered the possibilities to determine what you believe would and wouldn’t work. See if your leader can come up with other scenarios in which you could test them. Doing this helps you avoid tunnel vision, gets the leader excited about the strategy and results in a more productive process and outcome.

(Adapted from “Help Leaders Be Less Useless at Strategy” by Roger Martin.)