Factors Leading to Strategy Confusion in Companies

In 1913, Henry Ford unified an entire workforce around a single vision: a car for every family. Everyone knew what they were building. Today, companies risk up to 10% of their revenue because leadership teams can't agree on what brand even means. Ask five executives to define brand. You'll get six different answers. Here's how confusion impacts performance: 1. Marketing Sells Tomorrow. Sales Sell Yesterday. Your CMO promises "AI-powered innovation." Your sales team closes on "proven reliability." According to LinkedIn, 52% of salespeople cite misalignment with marketing as a barrier to closing deals. That's not a messaging problem. That's a math problem. 2. Marketing's Clear. Pricing Isn't. Sales holds pricing until call four. Customers aren't clueless. They see the contradiction. And when customers see the disconnect, trust fades. 3. Six-Figure Rebrand, Seven-Figure Cost. That rebrand looks sharp. But if your teams aren't aligned on the strategy behind it, the ROI disappears. Studies show misaligned organizations move more slowly and operate less profitably. A great visual identity can't fix a fractured company. Alignment can. 4. Everyone Pushes Towards Greatness Purpose-driven organizations outperform the S&P 500 by a factor of 10. Stop polling your executives. Start pointing them toward one future. 5. "Brand is Marketing's Job" = Expensive Lie When brand lives in one department, revenue slips through the cracks in others. Purpose-driven companies don't outperform by luck. They outperform through alignment across functions, not silos. 6. Five Pitches in One Pipeline Sales promises speed. Product demos something else. Customer success delivers a third story. Forrester reports 88% of buyers expect consistency across every touchpoint. Mixed messages don't just confuse buyers — they cost you deals. 7. Mission Statement ≠ Operating System That inspiring vision on your website? It means nothing if Sales can't sell it, Product can't build it, and Finance won't fund it. Integration beats inspiration. Every time. —— Ford's genius wasn't the assembly line. It was the alignment. When every person knows what you're building and why it matters, you don't just move faster. You multiply everything. The question isn't what brand means to each department. It's how much revenue you're leaving on the table until they all mean the same thing. 🏴. Motto®

I've spent the last year talking with Chiefs of Staff and other operating leaders to understand how they think about all the different types of strategy execution challenges. Other than OKRs being extremely polarizing, here's what I've noticed: When we see a problem, we instinctively try to solve it operationally. Makes sense... that's what we're good at. There's usually multiple ways to tackle any operational challenge, and we're wired to find solutions. But when it comes to issues with strategy execution, this strength becomes a bit of a trap. We see teams missing deadlines or priorities getting muddled, and we reach for operational fixes: more check-ins, better tracking systems, clearer accountability frameworks. To be clear: I've fallen into this trap myself. Some would say too many times. Because here's what I've experienced and learned from others: About 90% of what looks like execution failure is actually clarity failure wearing execution clothing. > The team missing deadlines? They don't understand why their work matters to the business. > The leadership team that can't align on priorities? They're trying to do too many things and haven't made the hard choices about what not to pursue. You might be wondering: "But don't execution problems need execution solutions? Ops fixes ops!" They absolutely do. But sequence matters. When you skip the clarity work and jump straight to operational improvements, you get beautifully organized confusion. Teams hit their deadlines but deliver the wrong outcomes. Leadership aligns perfectly on priorities that don't actually drive growth. This means the most effective execution work starts with clarity work. Get crystal clear on what matters most, then build the systems to achieve it. Especially with Q3 coming up and other likely big plans about AI, now's the time to get clear from the start. If this resonates and you're curious about how to design execution systems that start with clarity rather than process, feel free to reach out. Happy to share what I've learned from helping others navigate this challenge.

Many strategic plans appear sophisticated on the surface. The decks are polished, the goals are clear, and the timelines feel actionable. But too often, these plans are built on lagging data and internal assumptions rather than real-time insight. The result is a document that feels strategic, but in practice, offers very little clarity for decision-making in the moment. The real issue is not the absence of planning. The issue is building plans in isolation from the present. When executives are making decisions based on data that is a week or a quarter old, they are not operating with the full picture. Planning without a live connection to the business reality leads to misaligned budgets, missed forecasts, and confusion across departments. It becomes incredibly difficult to adapt when there is no timely feedback guiding the next move. If the information driving your strategy is always behind the curve, your decisions will be as well. The organizations that lead effectively today are not necessarily the ones with the most experience or the biggest budgets. They are the ones with the clearest view of what is actually happening in their business, right now. And that clarity enables faster action, better alignment, and more resilient planning. #StrategicPlanning #DecisionMaking #BusinessIntelligence #ExecutiveLeadership #RealTimeData #PlanningCulture #OperationsStrategy

The biggest risk to any strategy isn’t competition or market forces. It’s confusion. Here’s what I mean: leadership builds a strategy. Often a good one. Then it gets presented in an all-hands, maybe recapped in a deck or email… and that’s it. But strategy only works when it’s *understood*. Not by your board. By your frontline. What gets in the way? - Jargon-packed messaging that feels disconnected from daily work - A one-and-done rollout instead of repeated, clear communication - Leaders who assume alignment instead of confirming it Execution problems are often framed as ops issues. But most of the time, they’re comms issues in disguise. If people don’t understand the strategy, they can’t own it. Your job as a leader isn’t just to set the strategy. It’s to make it make sense. If comms isn’t in the room while you’re setting 2026 priorities, don’t be surprised when execution falls flat.

Weak direction from the top creates frustration below. Leaders, it’s on us to get clear goals from senior leadership. If we don’t, we pass that confusion down and make execution even harder. You can’t hit a target you can’t see. How Unclear Goals Hurt Execution: 1️⃣ Creates Confusion: No one knows the priority. 2️⃣ Reduces Ownership: People avoid decisions. 3️⃣ Wastes Time: Uncertainty slows progress. Why This Happens: 1️⃣ Leaders assume goals are clear. 2️⃣ Priorities keep shifting without reason. 3️⃣ New leaders try to do too much at once. How to Fix It: 1️⃣ Get Clarity: Push for defined goals from the top. 2️⃣ Set Priorities: Focus on what matters most. 3️⃣ Be Direct: Make expectations clear. A team without clear goals doesn’t just move slower; it risks moving in the wrong direction. It’s up to leaders to eliminate confusion, set the course, and keep teams aligned. #BuildingLeaders #Manufacturing 👉 What’s harder: unclear goals or shifting priorities? Comment below!

I know companies are in trouble when they start acting all herky-jerky, making rapid changes. It’s a clear indication that they’ve lost control of their business. I call it "Whack-A-Mole Leadership." Leaders start playing whack-a-mole across the organization, trying to whack problem after problem. They lose context about the systems and processes. It clearly reflects that leaders don't understand the levers in the business. And it's clear there is no strategy behind the tactics. Here's how it breaks down: New processes are rushed to the company. They aren’t well-developed or thought out. Never fully implemented to gain traction and solve the intended problem. Ultimately, these well-intended new processes create a host of unintended consequences. These further slow the organization and create friction. Then the process is changed again. One part of the company is doing it the old way. Another part is doing it the new way. And another part is doing it the new, new way. 🤯 No one knows what winning looks like anymore. 👎 This leads to a lack of employee engagement, who start to wonder, “Will this stick?” and “Am I doing work that matters?” This "whack-a-mole leadership" style leads to what I call “Leadership Quicksand.” - Constant changes lead to a lack of clarity. - A lack of clarity leads to confusion.  - Confusion leads to a lack of confidence. - A lack of confidence leads to low trust. - Low trust damages relationships. - Poor relationships result in poor performance. It’s not your people. It’s you. Look in the mirror. Create clarity and a clear path to winning. 🏆

Disagree and commit only works when everyone’s working from the same facts. But when the disagreement is about the data: what it means, where it came from, whether it’s even right, you’re not just debating strategy anymore. You’re dealing with multiple versions of reality. 😵💫 I’ve seen it too many times. Leadership teams getting stuck in meetings, debating the numbers instead of what to do about them. It usually involves conflicting reports, questionable definitions, different teams bringing different metrics to the table. It’s never pretty. So how do you get unstuck? Samantha Lohier shares learnings from a recent project with a global retail company. It was a journey, but a worthwhile one. By the end, leadership meetings went from fact-checking marathons to productive strategy meetings. Here are a few tactics that helped us get them there: 1. Diagnose before you redesign. Confusion in meetings usually points to deeper misalignment. Start there. 2. Involve decision-makers early. Shape the what (metrics) and the how (dashboard layout) with them. 3. Design dashboards to prompt action. Don’t just show the data, guide the conversation. Ask: what decisions should this drive? 4. Capture what systems miss. Give teams a safe, structured way to input real-world knowledge, like expected orders or manual adjustments. Getting “unstuck” starts with alignment, not just on strategy, but on the data that informs it. Link to full post in comments 👇🏻

What would happen if you asked a handful of team members to tell the story about what your company is trying to achieve? Would everyone’s narrative sound the same or would it result in something similar to the “gossip game?” Misalignment on mission and strategy is one of the biggest problems I’ve encountered in business, particularly large organizations. Most people have a general sense of what their company is trying to achieve, but everyone’s story varies significantly. There are reasons for that. People enter companies at different periods; their perspectives are based on timing. Team members may have different priorities, leading to conflicting actions and decisions based on their interpretations of the company's mission and strategy. New leaders may shift the focus. When a business doesn’t have a unified story, team efforts can be counterproductive. Your sales team may sell what your product team isn’t prepared to offer. Your marketing team may run a campaign that doesn't align with your specific financial goals. You end up with a business that is confused and not operating on all cylinders. Everyone needs to be aligned with their eyes on the same mission and vision for the business.  The solution is a simple yet profound one - routinely communicate a consistent message as often as your audience needs to hear it versus the frequency with which you feel the need to say it!