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Big Distance Between The CEO and The Frontline

by Joe Clark, Featured Contributor

CEOs OFTEN underestimate the distant between their office and frontline employees. They spend a lot of time crafting well-articulated strategies and then ship the message off by passing it along to their executive team, which then gets funneled across a great distance to employees. This can be a serious roadblock that keeps firms from really good strategy execution. Additionally, this gap is especially problematic when those frontline employees have direct contact with customers. Ouch.

Are you familiar with the game of Telephone?

Telephone is a game played around the world, in which one person whispers a message to another, which is passed through a line of people until the last player announces the message to the entire group. Errors typically accumulate in the retellings, so the statement announced by the last player differs significantly, and often amusingly, from the one uttered by the first.”

Organizations can wind up in Telephone Phonea situation where the whole firm is playing one giant game of Telephone. On the good versus bad scale…this is bad. It’s bad because strategy execution is everyone’s job, every day. If employees across teams, whole departments, and functional units, are all operating from different play books then this creates a scenario where mediocrity is the best outcome. Again, this is not good. Especially if you happen to be a shareholder. Sure, these firms might have a quarter or three where their numbers are solid but sooner or later they’re going to have a “miss.” Sustainable results are not possible if employees aren’t rowing the boat in the same direction. There are too many ways for costs to sneak into the system.

There are many reasons why this disconnect between the C-Suite and employees can take shape. Here are three of our favorites:

  1. The strategy or game plan of the company is not communicated in a way that is clear and meaningful to all employees. For example, the CEO is communicating the strategy with a one hundred slide Power Point deck filled with spreadsheets and fancy but complicated models.
  2. The strategy is not communicated frequently enough. For example, the CEO communicates the strategy once a year at the holiday party or the summer picnic.
  3. Objectives, goals, and performance measures aren’t tied to the strategy. Measurement systems are not strategy-focused and therefore employees are not strategy-focused. For example, the CEO says the strategy is to create innovative new products and services and be the first to market. However, at the very same time the company is measuring managers based on operating profit. Innovation requires taking some risk and testing new things. Operating profit can prompt managers to avoid risk. (See the problem?)

Are these happening in your organization? What are the implications for you and your company if they are? What can you do to fix the situation?


Joe Clark
Joe Clarkhttp://pranabusiness.com/
JOE has over 18 years of strategic planning, operational management, and entrepreneurial experience. As a strategy execution consultant, Joe is highly sought-after by board directors, executives, and managers from mid-cap businesses to the Global 500 enterprise. Joe has co-authored the Keys to Strategy Execution™ model that has helped thousands of managers across dozens of organizations execute strategy and create competitive advantage. He’s considered a category expert in the area of strategy execution and has been a guest speaker on top-rated podcasts such as DriveThruHR and he’s been featured in the Wall Street Journal. In addition to Joe's strategy work he has also founded, served on the board, and/or participated as an early investor in a number of successful start-ups and early development stage firms such as California Fitness Holdings LLC., Tourmalet Properties, LLC., and Meganet, which recently filed with the SEC for an Initial Public Offering. Workshop facilitation, coaching, and consulting are all a passion for Joe. He’s facilitated leadership and executive education programs for thousands of managers across dozens of well-branded firms such as Bertelsmann AG, Anadarko, Penguin Random House, Pfizer, and Baxter International to name a few.

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3 CONVERSATIONS

  1. Thanks for the smart comment, Ken. You mentioned that employees must know what’s in it for them. That couldn’t be more true and is often overlooked. If they don’t understand how they fit into the game plan then I believe the best you can hope for is compliance rather than commitment from them.

  2. Good points, Joe.

    I have always gelled the issue down to two matters.

    First the message from above is often not clear, or complete, or relevant. Often all of the above. For a game plan to resonate and be supported the team must know where they are going, why they are going there, how they are going to get there, and most importantly what is in it for them.

    Secondly, the plan needs to get from top to bottom by going through the fewest number of filter levels as possible. As you note in the telephone game the more layers of management that a message must be passed through the greater the risk for poor results.

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