What do you do when it looks like your strategy has stopped working?

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Many companies battle with strategy and strategy exection, as the truth is it's not easy to always get it right (even at corporates with a history of success.) There are plenty of mistakes being made in strategy creation and execution, including lack of alignment and clarity to lack of focus, but if all of these aspects are covered and your strategy is still not working, what can you do?

Of course, it could be that you're missed important things off your checklist when creating strategy, or even failed to acknowledge current strategy trends and patterns, but regardless, we've created a checklist of expert tips for practical steps you can take If your strategy or strategy execution is not working.

Top ways to reignite your strategy - Tl;dr of expert advice

1. Pivot, and once you have tweaked your strategy, sit down with your team and give feedback to each other on why they weren't able to anticipate this change earlier or quicker
2. Open conversations with customers, end users, and employees
3. The first thing to do is to get your execution right. If you're not executing well, you'll never know if the problem is your strategy or your execution
4. Hone a strategy over time, don't expect to come up with one in a week-long retreat. Strategies take time (years to decades) to perfect and implement
5. Don't be afraid to challenge the sunk-cost fallacy: drop projects that aren't delivering results
6. Undertake strategy in shorter iterations with low effort - this decreases the risk of investing in an idea that is not validated yet
7. Review the data, review the people, test, iterate, change it up… if you believe the strategy is right then find out the causes of why it’s not working
8. Don't let ego prevent you from saying that was wrong and we could do this better
9. Always work in small sprints so that you can test your strategy
10. Use the 5 whys technique to get to the problem

Kenneth Paul Lewis, Strategy & Leadership Consultant

There is nothing called an accidental strategy. Be ready to pivot or change your strategies with changing times. Your strategies should be future proof, but flexible enough to navigate through our ever-changing world.And once you have tweaked your strategy, sit down with your team and give feedback to each other on why they weren't able to anticipate this change earlier or quicker. Then use those learnings to make your changed strategy, more agile!

Sienam Lulla, Strategy Coach

Talk to customers. Internal and External. Employees, partners and end users. Most business leaders fall in love with their own stories and forget that the goal is to make their customers fall in love. When a strategy is not working, it's time to listen, learn and pivot or iterate as quickly as possible.

Richard Russell, Leadership Coach

The first thing to do is to get your execution right. If you're not executing well, you'll never know if the problem is your strategy or your execution - and nor will anyone else.The next thing to do is to be cautious and methodical in your approach. Hone a strategy over time, don't expect to come up with one in a week-long retreat. Strategies take time (years to decades) to perfect and implement, because the investments and decisions that will pay off require time to show benefit and compound. Changing strategy rapidly is going to undermine every decision you may make and confuse your customers.Be flexible on implementation and tactics, but very clear about your strategy.

Daniel Montgomery, Strategic Agility Coach & Author

Re-examine your assumptions about your market. Whatever you think is true is, at best, an approximation of reality. Review all your strategic choices at each level - aspiration, where to play, how to win, internal capacities. Don't be afraid to challenge the sunk-cost fallacy: drop projects that aren't delivering results.

Cansel Sorgens, Strategy Coach

A strategy is a hypothesis and it is very likely that it won’t work. Therefore I recommend to experiment and learn fast in short iterations in order to validate and adapt the strategy continuously. This is one of the reasons why I became passionate about OKRs, as it enables organizations to think in hypotheses and accept the reality that our assumptions need to be validated. By doing this in short iterations with low effort we decrease the risk of investing in an idea that is not validated yet, and on the other hand we increase the business agility in organizations by applying approaches that enable us to learn fast in short feedback loops.

Tom Marks, Transformation Leader, Hewlett Packard

Review the data, review the people, test, iterate, change it up… if you believe the strategy is right then find out the causes of why it’s not working… if the strategy is wrong, kill it fast and change tack.

Areen Shahbari, Business Strategy Instructor, Harvard University

Conduct external and internal analysis to identify what is causing your strategy to not work. The reasons could be related to your strategic plan or to the way you are executing your strategy.

Craig Wood, Strategy Coach

Embrace change. Don't let ego prevent you from saying that was wrong and we could do this better.

Saumya Surendran, Strategy Consultant, IBM

Always work in small sprints so that you can test your strategy. When it doesn't work, simplify the situation and keep asking yourself why until you understand the root cause. I like to use the 5 whys technique to get to the problem.

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