Strategy — Whose job is it, anyway?

Strat­egy is an inter­est­ing topic. Devel­op­ing strat­egy is the process of devis­ing a plan with a spe­cific goal, or goals, in mind. So, if we know what it is, who’s job is it?

Con­ven­tional wis­dom tells us that lead­ers are respon­si­ble for strat­egy. They drive the strate­gic direc­tion of the organ­i­sa­tion, and act as a cat­a­lyst for achieve­ment. That’s prob­a­bly true, but it depends who the true lead­ers are.

Is it always the job of the man at the top? Per­haps authen­tic lead­ers at lower lev­els of the organ­i­sa­tion are a bet­ter place to develop strat­egy. Engag­ing those employ­ees might just result in bet­ter strat­egy, which of course leads to bet­ter outcomes.

There is one ques­tion that needs to be asked. If senior man­agers don’t deal in oper­a­tions, and they don’t deal in strat­egy, what do they deal in? At that level, strat­egy must be a core com­pe­tency. Sure, it requires col­lab­o­ra­tion with sub­or­di­nate staff, but strat­egy isn’t a task to be del­e­gated. Abdi­ca­tion doesn’t work here.

There isn’t a sin­gle answer to this ques­tion. It’s very organ­i­sa­tional spe­cific. The point is to chal­lenge the sta­tus quo, and con­sider all the pos­si­ble options.