How very dare you????

Killing time at Geneva Airport, surrounded by the biggest collection of posh watches I've ever seen - I wandered into the business section in the magazines in the bookshop - and then I somehow went and got all philosophical (no change there then).

Magazine after magazine talked about strategy.  What strategy to have in a downturn, what strategy to have if employee fraud brings you to your knees, what strategy to have if you can't invest any more.  And there were some neat articles on the business wisdom of Homer Simpson or something.

Then on the plane - more bleedin' strategies! (Sue can tell you about my strategy for getting extra snacks but that's another story...)

But what if you don't have a strategy?  Lots of organisations don't (otherwise how do McKinsey's stay in business?) and what if you're the poor internal communicator?

If you think your raison d'etre is to create 'line of sight' between the corporate strategy and the regular employees you're in trouble.  What do you do?

You're probably not likely to hire in McKinseys if you are a humble IC urchin.  And it's a petty bold communicator who sets out to write a corporate strategy all on their own (although, Lord knows we've all been asked to magic one out of thin air a few times when the centre spread in the magazine is looking a bit bare).

Perhaps you could run a focus group with the guys from facilities or security (enough late shifts have told me they're always willing to share their views on where the world is going wrong).

But let's say that your organisation isn't strategically minded or what passes for strategy around your way just doesn't stack up.  Then what?

Should you throw your hands up in horror and stalk out of the building crying "I can't help you - you're all doomed!"?

Probably not.  You probably do what the vast majority of IC people do every day - just get on with it.  There's still a pretty good job to be done making sure people stick around, are happy to hand in great work or say nice things about you externally.

But I guess that doesn't sell many glossy magazines...

Liam

Comments

[Tom Abbott]

'the business wisdom of Homer Simpson'

I think Homer would have the edge on many...

[Indy]

Hi Liam, I started writing a comment, but it ended up rather long, so I turned it into a blog post:

http://enoptron.blogspot.com/2008/03/strategy-and-coalface-in-ic.html