How leaders and teams turn strategy into clearer priorities and action
By Maria Boese, partner at Unite Consulting. Advisor in strategy, leadership, team development and process optimisation.
In brief
Many organisations already have a good strategy. The challenge is rarely the ambition. The challenge is translating the strategy into everyday decisions, priorities and action.
A strategy only creates real value when leaders and teams can use it actively to choose what to do, and what not to do.
Strategy implementation is not only about communication. It is about creating clarity, shared direction, stronger collaboration and more consistent execution.
The best strategies can be seen in meetings, priorities, decisions and in the things the organisation chooses not to do.
Many strategies do not fail. They simply disappear into everyday work
Most leaders have experienced it. The strategy has been developed. It has been presented at town halls, discussed in the leadership team and captured in polished slides. The direction seems right, the ambitions are clear, and the words make sense.
Yet after a few months, everyday work starts to take over. Meetings return to operations, deadlines, urgent issues and the projects that were already underway. Strategic priorities are mentioned, but they do not necessarily guide daily choices. And when dilemmas arise, the strategy is not always what determines what is prioritised up or down.
This is a well known pattern in strategy execution research. Sull, Homkes and Sull argue that many organisations do not struggle because they lack alignment on paper, but because execution breaks down when functions need to coordinate, adapt and make trade offs in real time. [1]
On paper, the strategy has been decided. In practice, it does not fully live in the organisation’s behaviour, collaboration and decision making.
This is where many strategies stall. Not because they are poor strategies, but because they have not been translated clearly enough into everyday work.
Strategy becomes valuable when it helps us choose
A strategy is not only an ambition. It is not only a story about where the organisation wants to go. A strategy should make it easier to choose.
It should help leaders and teams prioritise, make decisions and act more consistently, even when everyday work is complex. Research on strategic consensus underlines the importance of a shared understanding of strategic priorities across managers and organisational levels. Without that shared understanding, the same strategy can lead to different decisions in different parts of the organisation. [2]
That is why the central question is not only: do we have a strategy? It is also: can we use the strategy to make better choices in everyday work?
If the answer is no, the strategy may have been understood as communication, but not yet converted into a practical management tool.
This is one of the most common reasons strategy implementation becomes difficult. The organisation knows the words, but is less clear about the consequences: what does the strategy mean for our team? What should we do more of? What should we do less of? Which initiatives should be stopped? Which decisions should be made differently? Pfeffer and Sutton describe this broader challenge as the gap between knowing and doing: organisations often know what needs to be done, but struggle to turn that knowledge into consistent action. [3]
When those questions are not answered, the organisation often continues as before, just with new strategic language around it.
From our experience
We have worked with several organisations where the strategy was both relevant and well described on paper. The challenge was not that people disagreed with the direction. The challenge was that the strategy meant different things in different parts of the organisation.
In one case, the leadership team had spent a great deal of time communicating the strategy. Even so, the same types of decisions were escalated again and again. Not because the leaders were not capable, but because the strategy had not been translated into clear decision criteria.
When two teams faced a similar dilemma, they chose differently. One team prioritised speed. The other prioritised quality assurance. Both could argue that they were acting strategically. But they did not have a shared understanding of how the strategy should be used when difficult choices had to be made.
The turning point came when the strategy was converted into clear prioritisation principles: what matters most when everything cannot be done? What is non negotiable? When should we say no? And which decisions should be made closer to the team instead of being escalated?
The strategy did not change. But the way the organisation used it did.
Communication is not the same as translation
Many organisations spend a great deal of energy communicating the strategy. That matters. But communication is only the first step.
Communication explains the direction: what do we want to achieve? Why does it matter? What are our strategic priorities?
Translation is more concrete: what does the strategy mean for our team? Which decisions should it influence? What do we need to do differently in our collaboration? Which activities should receive less attention? How will we follow up?
Beer and Eisenstat identified several recurring barriers to strategy implementation and learning, including unclear strategy, ineffective senior teams, poor coordination across functions and weak vertical communication. These barriers are rarely solved by more communication alone; they require leadership dialogue, prioritisation and follow up mechanisms that make the strategy actionable. [4]
When a strategy is only communicated, employees and leaders may be able to repeat the overall messages without being clear about what they mean for their daily work. When a strategy is translated, it becomes concrete choices, actions and collaboration patterns.
When everything is still important, the strategy is not clear enough
A good strategy creates focus. But in many organisations, the strategy is added on top of everything that already exists.
Old projects continue. New initiatives are added. Meeting structures remain the same. Success criteria are not clearly changed. And no one has really decided what should no longer receive the same level of attention.
This is also why the strategy literature places so much emphasis on choice. Richard Rumelt argues that a good strategy is not a long list of ambitions, but a coherent approach to overcoming the most important challenge. Lafley and Martin similarly describe strategy as an integrated set of choices about where to play and how to win. [5][6]
The consequence is that the strategy competes with operations instead of guiding them. When everything is still important, the strategy quickly becomes another layer in the organisation. It creates activity, but not necessarily progress.
That is why strategy should always be followed by an honest prioritisation dialogue. Not only about what the organisation should do more of, but also about what it should do less of. This is often the difficult part. But it is also where the strategy starts to matter.
Teams are where strategy becomes real
Strategy is not implemented in PowerPoint. It is implemented in teams.
Teams are where tasks are prioritised. Teams are where resources are allocated. Teams are where dilemmas are handled. And teams are where strategic intentions either become new behaviour or disappear into ordinary operations.
Classic work on strategy implementation describes implementation as more than top down planning. It requires different approaches depending on context, and it must connect strategic choices with organisational structures, people, processes and behaviour. [7]
That is why strategy implementation should not only be a leadership exercise. It needs to move close to the team’s everyday work.
A team can benefit from working with questions such as: which part of the strategy matters most for us? What do we need to succeed with over the next 6 to 12 months? What do we need to do differently in how we collaborate? Which meetings, processes or decisions should be adjusted? Where are we spending time on something that is no longer as important? How will we know whether we are moving in the right direction?
When teams work with strategy in this way, it moves from the organisation’s overall ambition to the team’s shared practice.
The role of leadership: creating clarity again and again
Leaders play a decisive role in turning strategy into action. Not only by presenting the strategy, but by continuously creating clarity around it.
Strategy is rarely fully understood the first time it is presented. It needs to be repeated, translated and connected to concrete situations.
Leaders therefore need to help the team understand: what does the strategy mean for our most important tasks? How does it affect our goals and success criteria? Which priorities should we change? Where do we need stronger collaboration across functions? Which dilemmas do we need to handle better?
This is also where leadership alignment matters. Research on strategic consensus highlights that a shared understanding of priorities is not simply a communication issue; it affects how managers interpret choices and coordinate action. [2]
This is not about the leader having all the answers. It is about facilitating the right conversations and ensuring that the strategy is actively used when choices are made.
From goals to behaviour
Many organisations are good at setting goals. But goals do not automatically create new behaviour.
For a strategy to succeed, it must be translated into the actions and collaboration patterns that need to change in everyday work. This could mean making faster decisions, sharing knowledge earlier, involving other functions sooner, prioritising fewer projects or becoming clearer about accountability.
That is why an important question is: what behaviour does our strategy require? Do we need to be more data driven? More customer oriented? More cross functional? More focused? More courageous in our priorities? More consistent in our execution?
The gap between knowing and doing is especially visible here: goals and intentions can be widely understood, while daily behaviour remains unchanged. Turning strategy into action therefore requires more than setting targets. It requires routines, responsibilities and feedback loops that make the desired behaviour visible and follow up on whether it is happening. [3]
When strategy is connected to behaviour, it becomes clearer what actually needs to change. And when behaviour becomes concrete, it becomes easier to follow up.
Unite Consulting’s approach: from ambition to action
At Unite Consulting, we work with strategy as something that must be useful in practice. Not only as direction, but as a foundation for clearer priorities, stronger teams and more consistent execution. This article uses the same logic as our A Practical Approach to Strategy: clarify the ambition, create alignment, identify priorities, turn priorities into actions and track progress.
These steps are aligned with the model on our strategy framework page, which describes how leaders move from strategic intent to practical delivery by creating clarity, alignment, clear priorities, ownership, milestones and an execution rhythm. [8]
The questions may seem simple, but they create an important movement: from ambition to concretisation, from formulation to prioritisation, and from strategy as a document to strategy as daily leadership.
When strategy becomes practical, it creates momentum
The best strategy is not necessarily the most impressive one on paper. It is the one the organisation can use.
When the strategy is clearly translated, something important happens. Leaders become more consistent in their priorities. Teams can more easily see how their work contributes to the whole. Decisions become faster and better informed. And the organisation spends less energy on ambiguity and more energy on progress.
This does not mean that everything becomes simple. Strategy often means choosing in complexity. But with clearer translation, the complexity becomes easier to navigate.
Many organisations already have a strategy. The crucial question is whether the strategy lives in everyday work.
- Can it be seen in priorities?
- Can it be seen in decisions?
- Does it help teams choose what to do and what not to do?
- Does it create clarity about what needs to change?
If not, the next step is rarely to formulate an entirely new strategy. The next step is often to translate the existing strategy better.
From ambition to action. From words to decisions. From shared direction to concrete progress. That is where strategy begins to create real value.
Do you want to turn strategy into action?
At Unite Consulting, we help leaders and leadership teams make strategy more concrete, useful and action oriented. We work with strategic direction, prioritisation, team development, leadership and process optimisation, so the strategy becomes easier to use in everyday work.
Contact us for an informal conversation about how you can turn your strategy into clearer priorities, better decisions and concrete progress.
Frequently asked questions
Why do good strategies often stall?
Good strategies often stall because they are communicated, but not translated clearly enough into daily decisions, priorities, behaviour and collaboration.
What does it mean to turn strategy into action?
It means making the strategy concrete for leaders and teams, so it influences goals, meetings, decisions, processes, collaboration and priorities in everyday work.
What is the role of leadership in strategy implementation?
Leaders need to create clarity, repeat the direction, facilitate prioritisation dialogues and ensure that the strategy is actively used in team decisions.
How can teams work with strategy in practice?
Teams can translate the strategy into concrete tasks, decision criteria, collaboration agreements, behaviour and follow up, so it becomes clear what needs to be done differently.
When does a strategy create real value?
A strategy creates real value when it is not only understood as an ambition, but actively used to create direction, focus, decision quality and progress.
Sources and background
- [1] Donald Sull, Rebecca Homkes and Charles Sull: Why Strategy Execution Unravels, and What to Do About It. Harvard Business Review, 2015.
- [2] Franz W. Kellermanns, Jorge Walter, Christoph Lechner and Steven W. Floyd: The Lack of Consensus About Strategic Consensus: Advancing Theory and Research. Journal of Management, 2005.
- [3] Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton: The Knowing-Doing Gap. Harvard Business School Press, 2000.
- [4] Michael Beer and Russell A. Eisenstat: The Silent Killers of Strategy Implementation and Learning. Sloan Management Review, 2000.
- [5] Richard Rumelt: Good Strategy Bad Strategy. Crown Business, 2011.
- [6] A. G. Lafley and Roger L. Martin: Playing to Win. Harvard Business Review Press, 2013.
- [7] L. J. Bourgeois III and D. R. Brodwin: Strategic Implementation: Five Approaches to an Elusive Phenomenon. Strategic Management Journal, 1984.
- [8] Unite Consulting: A Practical Approach to Strategy.
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