October was a busy month of executive offsites, and one theme came up repeatedly in my conversations with leaders and their teams.
The difference between what leaders believe they’ve communicated and what their teams believe they’ve understood.
Leaders often feel confident that their teams are clear on the strategy and where the organization is headed. Yet, when I speak with their teams, I sometimes hear a very different story.
They’re confused. They’re overwhelmed. They feel as though priorities are constantly shifting.
And here’s what I find particularly interesting: Often, the teams aren’t resisting the strategy. They’re deeply committed to it.
They’ve bought into the vision, invested their energy, and rallied around a shared ambition. So when the approach suddenly changes, it can feel like the very thing they committed to has been abandoned.
Sometimes, there’s even a sense of betrayal.
Yet, in many cases, the strategy hasn’t changed at all.
The tactics have.
Recently, I heard a brand president make this distinction very clearly to his leadership team:
“Our strategy hasn’t changed. Our tactics have.”
A simple statement, but an important one. It reinforced what remained constant while acknowledging the need to adapt how the organization would get there.
Strategy is about making choices. Tactics are about taking action.
Strategy defines where we’re headed and the choices we’ll make to get there. Tactics turn those choices into action, adapting to new information, emerging opportunities, and changing circumstances along the way.
In an increasingly unpredictable world, the ability to adapt our tactics isn’t a sign of strategic weakness. It’s a necessity.
But here’s the disconnect.
What leaders experience as agility, their teams can experience as instability.
When a tactical pivot isn’t clearly connected to the broader strategy, people are left to interpret the change themselves.
Has our ambition changed? Are our priorities different? Was everything we were working toward no longer relevant?
And when those questions go unanswered, uncertainty grows. So do frustration, fatigue, and eventually, disengagement.
I don’t believe the answer is simply to communicate more. It’s to communicate with greater clarity and consistency.
When tactics change, leaders need to reinforce three things:
1. What hasn’t changed? Remind people of the strategy and the ambition that continues to guide our decisions.
2. What has changed, and why? Help teams understand what we’ve learned or what circumstances require a different approach.
3. What does this mean for us now? Clarify which priorities remain, which need to shift, and what we may need to stop doing.
It’s a relatively simple discipline, but one that can make an enormous difference.
Because communicating strategy isn’t a one-time exercise. It’s an ongoing responsibility to help people connect the decisions of today to the ambition of tomorrow.
The more committed people are to a strategy, the more important it is to explain why the tactics are changing.
Agility shouldn’t come at the expense of clarity.
In fact, clarity is what gives teams the confidence to be agile.