One would think that creating a focused business happens naturally through the passage of time and with repeated messages about the direction of the company.
However, from an outsider's perspective, we rarely find that to be the case. Sitting through hours of executive meetings, we find that the message senior executives think they are sending is often not the message that is being received.
Early in each engagement, we like to get the C-Suite together, then the second tier management group and all the way down to line supervisors, and ask them to write the answer to a single question, without discussion. That question sounds something like "what is the goal of this business".
More telling than a right answer is the number of dissimilar answers. We rarely find more than ten percent or so give the same answer. The right answer, or the most senior manager's answer is rarely in that pool of like answers. The dissimilarity is amazing.
When we talk to organizations about strategic planning, we usually find that this exercise is of tremendous value. Route planning is impossible without a destination. And knowing the method of travel is pretty helpful, as well.
Well laid communications start at the top. The Chiefs need to decide who they want the business to be when it grows up and develop a concise message around that. That message should be delivered by the CEO/President ad nauseam. The best examples are written as a flowing collection of sound bites that can be used to answer almost any question an employee may come up with. The stump speech should be relatively short, just a paragraph or two. Sound bites are usually one sentence.
Once the overarching message of the business is developed, it needs to be continually recited so that the direction is clear, from the top. Once all the resources of the business are focused in one direction, it is amazing how quickly it can move.