Who ultimately is responsible for strategic initiatives?

3 September, 2021

Anyone might think that this question has an obvious answer: top management is responsible for strategic initiatives. They are who ultimately define and approve them. However, we frequently observe that senior management after defining and approving the strategic initiatives delegates their implementation to other levels of the organization. After that they are almost completely absent during the project.

There are two fundamental elements to ensure top management’s a true commitment to successfully implementing the strategic initiatives: structuring the governance model for the transformation and the measurement and recognition frameworks for top management as pertains to the strategic initiatives.

The first one, the governance structure, must consist of members of the management team to be impacted and that will benefit from a successful transformation. Selecting the members of the governance structure has to be done with great rigor. They must be very clear as to their responsibilities and commitment to the change that they themselves have defined and endorsed.

In addition, from the moment the transformative vision is defined, it is important for the responsible management team to establish the transformation’s success indicators and set their commitment to meeting them. These factors must be immersed in the measurement and recognition systems that the organization will apply to this group. In order to seal this senior management commitment to the change, it is important that these indicators be presented to the organization’s highest governance body, generally the board of directors.

To be successful in a transcendental and critical organizational transformation, for no reason whatsoever should senior management delegate its responsibility nor should it stop monitoring the process with great rigor. This should be the case even considering that they have another team in charge of implementing the change.

Para tener éxito en una transformación organizacional trascendental y crítica, por ningún motivo la alta dirección debe delegar su responsabilidad y dejar de monitorear con gran rigor, pese a que tenga grupos humanos a cargo del desarrollo de la implementación del cambio.

“Senior management is mainly responsible for all strategic initiatives; nonetheless, on too many occasions they totally delegate their implementation to other levels within the organization. Read up on the Elements that foster top management’s commitment and achieve success on these strategic initiatives.”