Today we will continue talking about Untrustworthiness as one of the Five Deadly Sins of Strategy. In the previous newsletter, I shared a personal story from early in my career that taught me a valuable lesson about trust. Today we will be learning how to avoid this mistake by early detecting untrustworthiness in your team.
Let's explore how to spot this sin and navigate your team to clearer seas.
How to Spot the Sin:
- Your strategy struggles to get team buy-in faster than a vegetarian at a BBQ contest.
- People start playing "telephone" with your strategy, asking different folks to "confirm" answers.
- Collaboration becomes as smooth as sandpaper, with everything grinding to a halt.
A strategy becomes untrustworthy when it fails to secure team buy-in, often due to a lack of belief in its feasibility or alignment with organizational values. This leads to resistance and morale lower than a limbo stick at a limboing competition.
The Ripple Effect:
How do you know you're in troubled waters? Anyone affected by the strategy starts asking different people to "confirm" answers. It's like your strategy has become a game of whispers, with the message getting more garbled with each retelling.
Why is this a problem?
Trust is the engine oil that keeps teams working efficiently. Without it, everything grinds to a halt faster than a rusty old jalopy.
The Million-Dollar Question:
As we navigate these choppy waters, we need to ask ourselves: How can this strategy build trust in our work?
This Week’s Challenge
The Data Sharing Experiment: Choose one piece of data your team usually keeps internal. Find a way to share it regularly with other departments in a digestible format. Monitor how this impacts their perception of your team.
Share your experience with me in the comments - I'd love to hear how it goes!
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Ready to unwrap a strategy that doesn't gather dust faster than your holiday decorations? I offer a free workshop as a Holiday special to help product leaders craft their strategy for the next year.
Here is the link for the workshop description
Don't let another year go by with a strategy that's as stale as last year's gingerbread house. Join me for a session that's more fun than untangling holiday lights.
