R. Timothy S. Breene, Paul F. Nunes and Walter E. Shill in the Harvard Business Review article The Chief Strategy Officer (2007) suggest the strategy must be clarified “for every business unit and function, ensuring that all employees understand the details of the strategic plan and how their work connects to corporate goals.”
Later they observe, “CSO’s (chief strategy officers) must drive decision making that sustains organizational change. A strategy that is clear one day can become fuzzy the next as people and competitive environments change. Alignment can bend and then break if it is not continually reinforced. Chief strategy executives…. must be that person who, in the CEO’s stead, can walk into anyone’s office and test whether the decisions being made are aligned with the strategy and are creating the desired results.”
Three questions:
1. Does your CEO serve as your chief strategy officer for execution? If so, is this really the appropriate role for them at your organization (some argue that enterprise leaders have a different role from strategy leaders)?
2. Does your CFO or CIO (insert any other chief officer here such as chief people officer) truly serve as a strategic leader or are they serving in more of an high-authority functional role?
3. Does your business have a person who truly is driving strategic execution but their business card does not say chief strategy officer?
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