Communication - Key to Business Strategy

Right around the planning cycle for next year, one question starts to bother me - how often do we discuss the strategic direction that we are setting for our business, once the planning cycle is over? Why is that?

1. Is senior management not crafting/revisiting the strategic road-map that is well understood? 
   
2. Is middle management not in-tune with the strategic impact their roles are making on the company’s bottom-line? 
   
3. Or, is it a matter of not communicating the vision, that can be permeated through the organization?

I believe there is an element of all of the above. Here, I want to call out a certain lack of communication that is rampant in most organizations. Let's look at the business reviews, for instance, that are conducted weekly, monthly, etc. Are these backward looking or forward looking? Is there enough element of the latter for all to see? The answer in most cases is "no" or "not enough." 

• There are goals and plans in place for the current and the upcoming year, but how often are they reinforced? 
• How frequently, do we meet to take a stock of business progress and how it aligns with the plan we had set for ourselves? 
• What are the new projects, competitive landscape, consumer needs, operational efficiency improvements, etc., that need more attention than was envisaged at the planning stages?

If these are not addressed and collectively communicated to the teams, there will always be a certain degree of dissatisfaction and lack of coherence  among the troops. What we do during the year ought to be calibrated against the plan we built, but more importantly, the plan we revise as we go. Management cadre should take note!