Special report 01
You fixed how you say it. But the problem is somewhere else.
Every time you realise your people have not taken the strategy the way you meant it, you go back to how you said it. What you say, how you say it, how to be more compelling. It helps, to an extent. But being clearer will not fix the core issue, because the problem is not on your side of the sentence.
From the report
A room that nods and then scatters
The chief executive of a London firm opened every monthly meeting the same way, reading out the strategy so nobody could be unclear about where the company was going. Her staff survey agreed: eighty-four per cent said they were clear on the top priorities. Then the same researchers asked her own leadership team to write down the company's top five. Not even a third could name two.
She had done everything communication asks of a leader. And somewhere between her saying it and them getting it, most of it was lost. This is what a broken handover looks like. Not silence, not conflict. A room that nods, and then scatters.
Rebecca Homkes, London Business School; wider study with Donald Sull, "Why Strategy Execution Unravels", Harvard Business Review, March 2015.