“Engagement” is the new buzzword: employee engagement, community engagement, stakeholder engagement. But what does engagement mean in relation to strategy, and is it more than just a fad and fashion? Is there really something important here?
A widely acknowledged challenge in many organisations in the Middle East is getting people to understand and act on the strategy. Senior management teams often create a strategy but then find that it is hard to get others on board and to execute effectively.
Right at the forefront of addressing this problem is collaborative engagement, which aims to get people to provide input to the development of the strategy. All the different forms of collaborative engagement seek to engage the participants emotionally, as well as practically and intellectually, right through the strategy process — not only during implementation or “execution”.
The first benefit of large-scale collaborative engagement is that it usually generates more and innovative ideas, and as diversity is a valuable catalyst for innovation, the large diverse national mix in the Middle East creates rich conditions for innovative strategy formulation. Good collaborative working makes the most of the amassed wisdom and day-to-day knowledge of all those involved, including those closest to the customer and products, for example in the sales team, the complaints department and the factory (‘operations’ rather than ‘factory’ — maybe as the manufacturing sector is relatively small here).
The second benefit is that it improves the chances of the strategy being implemented effectively and at pace, which is essential across the region, where there is a high desire and expectation to implement strategies and projects quickly. When strategy is dreamt up at the top of an organisation and then cascaded down, a gulf of understanding and ownership opens up. Those responsible for implementing the strategy do so without really connecting the actions they are taking on a day-to-day basis with that vision or direction.
Collaborative engagement also provides a powerful mechanism for learning together, developing the overall strategic capacity of the organisation and growing the capability of the next generation of leaders. By moving strategy beyond an annual ritual and into a vibrant part of organisational life, people are more alert to how it relates to their jobs
Perhaps the most important benefit of collaborative engagement is that it increases the likelihood of the organisation being able to respond to unexpected and unpredicted changes as the strategy is implemented. The more you engage people throughout the process, the more able they can play this responsive and responsible role at all times.
If it has been decided to include a large number of people in the creation process, then it is best to create a number of different teams and allocate a different question or questions to each for further investigation, based on themes that have usually been defined by the board or executive team.
Practical considerations include thinking about how much time and budget you have. If the group is very large, this may not permit a face-to-face encounter but there are many virtual ways of gathering input (such as online meeting platforms). It is possible to involve large groups of people in quite a short time frame, so long as the process is well thought through and creatively designed.
If many people are involved, then there must be a particular emphasis on communication. Each group needs to know something about the findings of the others. Given the mix of backgrounds of the people involved, forms of communication should not be restricted to those typical of strategy processes in large companies.
A comment often made by senior managers is that “Engagement sounds fine, but if we involve more people then they’ll think that means they also have a decision-making vote”. There is a strong case to be made for engaging others in the decision-making process, not as decision-makers but to keep the executive group as well informed as possible, to act as a critical friend or devil’s advocate, or to challenge ‘stuck thinking’ within the senior group.
The process of engagement does not finish with the roll-out of the initial strategy. The awareness, attention and learning ability of the organisation needs to be harnessed in order to allow the strategic actions to be refined as the strategy adapts to changing circumstances.
The more people are primed to act as the nerve endings of the organisation, noticing the tiny signals that this or that is happening, the more the organisation is able to react. It can still follow its plan, but does so intelligently and flexibly in an uncertain world.
The writers are with Ashridge Business School.
