Is True North South of the Equator?

“True North” is a term taken from the business glossary Lean Lexicon and describes the ideal future state businesses should be continually striving toward. For most companies and organizations, their business strategy explains their desired Future State or True North.

Having your True North defined is powerful, but if not communicated effectively to managers and employees, execution will suffer, and your culture can become toxic.

When your strategy isn’t communicated and embraced, employees will perform their jobs based on assumptions, and managers and their teams can actually work against each other trying to achieve competing and conflicting goals.  No organization is immune to this kind of confusion!  (You may recall the very public disagreement between BMW’s former CEO and its Engineering Lead around the development of electric cars.  They were stymied for years.).

Is your organization understanding its strategy?

Answer the questions below. If you answer “yes” at least once, you need to clarify your intent to all employees:

• Does your leadership team fully agree on what differentiates your business in the marketplace?

• Are your employees sometimes confused about the direction the business is heading?

• If we surveyed your employees, would we find some who are unable to explain your strategy?

• Are teams sometimes asked to optimize conflicting goals?   

We often hear from leaders that the work of defining the Future State, formulating strategy, and developing targets are the least challenging. In actuality, the real and more difficult work starts when leaders transform into evangelists for their True North, intentionally, consistently, and repeatedly explaining it.

When it comes to communicating strategy and True North, the much desired but often overlooked goal of the communication is UNDERSTANDING, i.e. making sure that all employees know the why and the how of the strategy in ways that foster emotional and actionable commitment

If your “True North” isn’t communicated up and down the organization clearly and repeatedly, you may find your goals, strategies, or current initiatives living south of the equator, far from the results, deliverables, and success you aspire to achieve.

Not sure about your organization’s True North?  Wondering if your leadership team, managers, and employees understand and have confidence in your True North?  Or feeling the negative impact of goals and strategies that live “below the equator”?  We can help you diagnose what is standing in the way of the superlative execution of your strategy.  Reach out to learn more- info@realgoodventures.com

In our next blog, we will explore how critical leadership is to execution.