putting the map to work: a real-life example

We were asked to help our client’s Leadership Team to connect, align, and focus the business behind their new strategy. The strategy represented a significant pivot as they were implementing ESG-led environmental and social impact targets at scale for the first time. The goal was to align their workforce behind the new sustainability goals - while maintaining a traditional focus on profit and loss. A new way of thinking about the business required a new way of visualising it - and it’s here that strategy mapping proved crucial.  

  

The challenge:   

Strategy doesn’t exist in isolation: the client was facing a number of problems that complicated a solution. A new operating model, a new leadership team, unclear accountabilities and a previous, unsuccessful attempt to implement a sustainability strategy had all contributed to a distrustful relationship between frontline operators and corporate functions. Alongside this, sustainability and performance reporting capabilities were in their infancy in the organisation.  What did this mean for us?  

With leaders overwhelmed by multiple priorities, fires to put out and competing initiatives, the first step was to align as a team, face the brutal facts about the organisation and strengthen the relationships among those accountable for the solution. From here, we worked together to; 

  • Develop a clear strategic intent statement to drive engagement,  

  • Break down the strategy into actionable objectives,  

  • Develop a coherent, sequenced, transformation plan to deliver the targeted change 

  • Develop the reporting capability, KPIs and governance required to monitor delivery of the strategy  

As you’ll see, our approach to Strategy Mapping is slightly different. It’s not just about the numbers. It’s about the people - how they connect. It’s about building trust within the leadership team, providing space to listen and share ideas, which can then cascade through the organisation - and ultimately getting many brilliant minds in the same room to decide exactly what they want (as well as how to get there).  

 

How did we do it?  

Phase One: Strategy Alignment and Leadership Team Development  

Designed around our High Performance Teams framework - which encourages connection within the team and assesses its internal dynamics, relationships, capabilities, feedback loops and overall direction - phase one consisted of several workshops focussed on working out exactly what the leadership team wanted to achieve.  

The answer was to put sustainability at the heart of the organisation. To enable this we adopted a combined Triple Bottom Line sustainability framework and Balanced Scorecard approach . This enabled us to not only widen the organisation’s understanding of the outcomes it was working towards, but to identify and visualise the connections and interdependencies between its financial targets and environmental and social goals.  

At the same time, we embarked on an extensive review of the organisation’s external commitments, strategic ambitions, KPIs, and initiatives - and conducted an analysis of the organisational climate and historical performance. This was crucial to developing the Strategy Map, aligned KPIs, and a Transformation Map which would sequence key initiatives over the next three years.  

Phase Two: Strategy Execution and Performance Management  

The second phase was all about putting phase one into action. We took a multi-pronged approach to embedding the Triple Bottom Line Strategy Map:  

  • Helped design and facilitate a strategy cascade event, which brought together the whole organisation’s management community to connect as a team around the new strategy, get feedback and answer questions. 

  • Designed and implemented a refreshed reporting and performance management framework - which we then cascaded through the organisation 

 

The results:   

Since aligning their workforce behind the new sustainability goals this client has: 

  • Reduced their overall emissions by 15% 

  • Beaten sustainable product sales targets… 

  • … all whilst increasing profit margins 

 

And in the words of our client: 

‘You got everyone on the same page, pulling in the same direction. Before this everyone did their own thing and there was in-fighting and we’ve moved to collaboration.’ 

‘You gave us a vision, structure and the confidence and ability to see it through.’ 

 ‘I’ve learned more in these 12 months with Egremont than I have in 16 years of business.’ 

To find out more please get in touch / +44 (0) 20 7298 7878

How To, Breakthrough TClaudia Lawrenceleadership, leaders, best leaders, strategy mapping, strategy map, sustainability, corporate sustainability, people, planet, profit