Is your strategy well governed?

Your strategy is well governed if there are:

• Clear, timetabled opportunities to review and discuss strategy AND
• Clear ways to communicate strategy insights and decisions AND
• Evidence-based evaluations of progress and the impact of decisions.

Discover below:

• Key advice and actions to improve your strategy governance.
• Questions to ask to prompt deeper conversations on strategy governance across your organisation.
• Strategy models relating to governance.
• Strategy workshops.
• Links to our full range of resources, including ‘The Strategy Manual’, our Strategy Glossary and links to articles and posts by Mike Baxter.
• We also offer consultancy and advice on all aspects of strategy.

Key advice and actions

Your strategy will be well governed if it is thoroughly reviewed and discussed, diligently refined and reported and competently evaluated. To ensure effective communication, review and refinement of strategy, it is important to realise that strategy governance covers two topics, executive governance of strategy, and working governance of strategy.

1. Executive governance of strategy

Executive governance of strategy ensures the board and senior leadership are working effectively together towards strategy success to serve the best interests of the organisation.  The House of Strategy, a graphic model from The Strategy Manual, can be used for executive governance to explore how vision, mission, values and strategy come together for an organisation.

Executive governance can be defined by specifying the respective roles and responsibilities of the board and senior leadership at key strategy governance events across the strategy lifecycle, for example:

1. Strategy scope sign-off;
2. Strategy sign-off;
3. Strategic plan sign-off;
4. Strategy review initiation.

How authority is exerted and delegated in pursuit of strategy success can usefully be defined in a Strategy Governance Charter. This is a document defining how governance works and specifying how the roles and responsibilities of the board and senior leadership align.

2. Working governance of strategy

Working governance of strategy ensures that people and teams across the entire organisation know about the strategy, are committed to it and empowered to contribute to its success.

1. The working governance of strategy can operate according to two distinct principles. The enforcement principle imposes rules and formalities that need to be complied with and enforced. The engagement principle has goals, norms and conventions that individuals in the organisation co-create, engage with and commit to.
2. Governance-by-enforcement entails formalisation of authority through organisation design, the use of RACIs, the deployment of policies and standards, the distribution of budget and the measurement of performance metrics against set targets.
3. Governance-by-engagement is enabled by high levels of consultation, influence and autonomy being afforded to individuals and teams across the organisation.
4. Strategy governance should default to governance-by-engagement and only govern by enforcement when necessary.

The Goal Adoption Support Model can be used by anyone in an organisation to check that their own strategic goals are effectively supported. It can further be used by senior leadership to highlight areas where the organisation supports the adoption of strategic goals well, and where it does not.

Let’s talk about… strategy governance

Use these questions to prompt deeper conversations* on strategy governance across your organisation:

• To what extent is your senior leadership team in agreement about the relative benefits of governance-by-enforcement and governance-by-engagement?
•  How much of your strategy governance is by enforcement and how much by engagement?
• How much time is set aside across the strategy lifecycle for strategy governance?  Is that time well enough planned and managed to give strategy the best chance of success?
• Is everyone across your organisation aware of their role in strategy governance?

*Download a pdf with some helpful rules (suggested by Ed Morrison and colleagues in their book Strategic Doing) to ensure successful conversations about strategy.

Want to know more?

Discover below the strategy models and workshops that can improve your strategy governance, or see our full range of resources, including ‘The Strategy Manual‘, our Strategy Glossary and links to articles and posts by Mike Baxter.

We also offer consultancy and advice on all aspects of strategy – find out more about how we work.

Our strategy workshops and models are colour-coded  under the following themes:

Strategy models to improve strategy governance:

Strategy workshops to improve strategy governance:

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