Contributors: Monica Heuer, WG'06 and Elizabeth Blaylock
To learn more about Monica and Elizabeth, click here.
A truly winning strategy takes more than just crafting a compelling plan. It needs employee buy-in to execute it effectively. Unfortunately, strategic plans often fail because employees don’t feel inspired or connected to the direction chosen by organizational leadership. As practitioners of strategic planning in complex organizations, we have observed ways in which organizations can and must account for the “professional passion” of their employees to develop effective strategies.
We use “professional passion” to refer to the intrinsic motivation that many workers with deeply held values and priorities about their work bring to their jobs. It goes above and beyond the expectations of their job descriptions. We see it often among members of well-defined professions such as medicine and architecture, as well as among those whose career choices have been driven by commitment to a particular purpose such as combatting climate change or advancing social justice. It can lead workers to put in extra effort. It can also cause them to ignore the priorities of their organization, particularly when they are skeptical or unconvinced in the mission, and to look instead to their own professional values for guidance.
In organizations dominated by passionate workers, successful strategy formulation requires a blending of traditional planning approaches with appreciation for the intrinsic motivations of the workforce. Strategy development in these settings requires leaders to navigate the often-competing commitments and priorities of their teams and their organizational realities. We propose five key steps for leaders to unlock the full potential of passion-driven strategies.
Step 1: Discover Existing Commitments
The first step for leaders is to delve into the existing commitments of the key influencers in the workforce. In complex organizations, departments and teams frequently have their own local strategies. These can involve multi-year commitments to internal and external partners and significant investments. For example, a church-sponsored program to provide food and clothing to the homeless grew over time based on the passionate commitment of the rector and a core group of volunteers. As the costs of the program grew, church leaders sought to limit the scope of the program, causing tension not only within the congregation, but with other community groups that had come to rely on the church’s services. To resolve the issue, the church established a 501(c)3 and began a fundraising campaign to support the program.
Enterprise leaders need to take these existing commitments into consideration and understand the extent to which they have the power to shape or change them. We’ve seen leaders both over- and underestimate their ability to make a change, leading to suboptimal strategies and ineffective execution. It’s worth investing the time to understand what is really at stake for all involved in making a change and craft the strategy accordingly.
Step 2: Craft a Distinctive Narrative
Connect people’s professional passion to the organizational strategy by articulating what makes this organization distinctive. Your people are already committed to the work, in a general sense. Look for ways to engage them with what makes their work in this organization particularly impactful. Once you’ve got some critical elements of the narrative clear, use storytelling to bring it to life.
We often see successful organizations craft these narratives around combining unique capabilities and expertise in one place. For example, a healthcare organization responded to the emerging opportunity to use AI to support decision making by creating a centralized team that included data analytics, data science, IT, and information services. The narrative about bringing resources together to use AI to improve patient care inspired many employees to renew their commitment to the organization.
In developing the narrative, start out describing your distinctiveness as boldly and ambitiously as you can. You might even be deliberately provocative to stimulate some reflections on why your organization is unique. We’ve noticed that strategic plans tend to evolve toward the industry mean over many iterations. Starting out with something that is deliberately different can lead to both a better plan and a more committed workforce.
Step 3: Look for Ways to Address Motivation
While many people come to their jobs with a strong sense of commitment and motivation to do the right thing, their drive isn’t limitless. Workers will put up with many things they don’t like and still pour their heart and soul into the work if it feeds their sense of purpose. At some point though, their passion will start to drain away if they feel unable to do the work that gives them purpose or it makes up too small a part of their day.
When resources are constrained and priorities compete, it can be hard to find a way to address everyone’s passions. Look for ways to incorporate concepts into your strategy that will matter to your people, particularly where organizational priorities might otherwise feel less compelling. We’ve seen leaders skillfully use decisions to limit investment in key areas to give team members in those areas permission to challenge established practices and critical assumptions so they can develop more innovative approaches. In healthcare, for example, caregivers have used resource constraints to drive expansion of telemedicine and other approaches to remote care that can also be more convenient for patients.
Step 4: Balance Clarity and Flexibility
Effective strategy development requires striking a delicate balance between clarity and flexibility. Providing clear direction is essential, particularly in those areas where you are making a distinct choice between alternative paths. Passionate people are likely to interpret vagueness as support for their preferred programs and activities. Where those preferred activities aren’t aligned with your strategy, make a clear statement and set boundaries, but encourage dialogue. The best plans allow some room for autonomy and innovation. You want your people to be able to use their passion and creativity to enhance your strategy in ways you might not have thought of already. Finding the right balance empowers individuals to contribute their unique perspectives and talents while staying aligned with the organization's broader vision.
Step 5: Foster Continuous Dialogue and Expect to Negotiate
As you move toward strategy execution, there is no substitute for conversation. Passionate people will push for the ideas, programs, and services they believe in. To keep benefitting from the upsides of their passion, you have to engage with them. Expect to negotiate -- frequently. The leaders who are most effective in executing strategy prepare for those negotiations by distinguishing what is really important from what is nice to have, and they allow for some flexibility and compromise. They also recognize that people may know more than they do, and approaching those conversations with curiosity can lead them to better outcomes than those they might have arrived at their own.
We see this negotiation approach frequently in academic institutions where faculty have invested years researching questions they believe to be important and impactful in their fields. These experts cannot simply change direction and take up a new field of study. The role of the chair in these settings is to navigate and negotiate a path that aligns the priorities of the institution to the expertise and passion of the faculty. The most successful chairs understand this type of negotiation is a core part, perhaps the core part of their roles.
If you do not engage in dialogue and you are not prepared to be flexible, you will not only execute inconsistently, but you will miss all the opportunities to harness their passion to drive your strategy forward.
Contact Monica at her LinkedIn profile.
Contact Elizabeth at her LinkedIn profile.