Imagine you are leading a team or an organisation. Your job is to keep refocusing people on the overall strategy – the story – and ensure they deliver success. There are many ways to make this happen through off-sites, coaching sessions and informal conversations. You can also use a monthly newsletter to inform people about the progress towards reaching the goals. Let’s explore three areas you can cover when updating people on the story.

1) You can remind people of the story.

Imagine you are writing a monthly update for your people. You can remind people of the strategy by covering the following themes in the opening paragraphs. Bring it to life by giving examples that are relevant to their daily work.

“Let’s start by reminding ourselves of our strategy. This is: a) The ‘what’ – the goals we are aiming to achieve. b) The ‘why’ – the benefits of reaching the goals. c) The ‘how’ - the strategies we are following to reach the goals. d) The ‘who’ - the responsibilities of different groups, such as the leadership team, managers and colleagues, in reaching the goals. e) The ‘when’ – the milestones we aim to pass on the road towards achieving the goals.”

Giving the road map helps people to see how their daily actions fit into the big picture. Then go onto the next stage.

2) You can update people on the successes and plans for the story.

You can now move from the strategy to the specific examples. Give people an update about progress on the journey. Describe both corporate and individual achievements in the last month – plus the plans for the next month. If appropriate, mention some of the issues ahead and the plans for tackling these challenges. Let’s imagine, for example, that your company runs a chain of bookshops. Your update might look something like this – though you would obviously give your own examples.

“Let’s start by focusing on some of our successes in the past month. We have run excellent book launches in the following towns: a) _____ b) ______ c) ______. The staff in these branches have maintained the launch momentum and exceeded their targets. There have also been many examples of great service this month. Several of these are mentioned at the end of this article, but there is one that I would particularly like to mention. An international student group visiting Oxford found that all their text books had gone missing. Carole, the manager of our Oxford shop, contacted every bookshop and managed to gather 40 text books for the students. Moving onto our community work, our branches in Manchester and Leeds have provided practical support to the local literacy campaigns. The successes mentioned above have contributed to helping us to hit our profits, provide great service and serve our local communities.”

“Looking ahead, the company faces several challenges over the next month. First, several supermarkets are running loss-leaders on their Harry Potter books. We are holding Harry Potter events around the country and also introducing children to other authors. Second, we are refurbishing the coffee shops in 10 stores and also providing more reading areas for our customers. This will cost £20k – but we believe it will enrich our customers experience. Finally, we will be introducing a new career development package for all our people.”

You will, of course, cover areas relevant for your team. Give people a strategic overview, together with examples that relate to their daily work. Then move onto the next stage.

3) You can invite people to describe their successes and plans – then repeat the story.

Give the ‘call to action’ and repeat the strategy. So you may say something like:

“Now it is about moving-on in the journey. During the next month I and the managers will be: a) _____ b) ______ c) ______. I would like you to focus on doing: x) _____ y) ______ z) ______. During the last week of the month remember to tell your managers about your successes and plans for the next month. We will capture some of these in the next update. So to summarise: we are on the road towards achieving our aims. The route won’t always be easy – so let your managers know the support you need to do your job. We will then do what we can to help you and the company to achieve success.”

There are many ways to keep people updated. Whatever the approach, it is good refocus on the overall road map, report progress and explain the road ahead. People will then feel they are contributing to a compelling story. Try completing the following sentence.

The specific things I can do to keep
reminding people of the story are:

*

*

*

Bookmark It