Senior leadership is resisting your new strategic direction. How will you navigate their opposition?

When faced with opposition from senior leadership, the first step is to understand their concerns. Actively listen to their viewpoints and ask clarifying questions to grasp the root of their objections. This demonstrates respect for their perspective and provides valuable insights into their priorities and potential risks they foresee. Understanding their concerns allows you to address them effectively, find common ground, and present solutions that align with their objectives. This approach fosters collaboration, builds trust, and increases the likelihood of gaining their support for your initiatives.

You have to remember that your internal stakeholders are your internal customers. You have to be customer obsessed and really understand what are the pain points of your stakeholders, how they measure success. You also have to understand not only WHAT are their concerns, but WHY do they have the concerns. You need to engage in conversations with key stakeholders and make sure that you're listening and asking clarifying questions. You want to come out of those conversations with a very solid idea of the individual concerns.

If senior leaders are opposing your strategy, one of two things is true: 1) your ideas are not good, or 2) you have not provided enough information for leaders to see the benefits. When you run into resistance from above, ask what the leader thinks could go wrong with the idea. Their answers will either reveal insights you did not consider (your concept was flawed) or convey that they misunderstood your plan (you didn't communicate well). Either way, you know what to do next: improve your ideas to address their concerns, or rework your presentation to showcase your strategy and expected benefits.

Sometimes addressing to the points of the opposition senior leadership can make us craft a better strategy with diverse aspects. So don't be reluctant in understanding their concerns too.

Not every idea becomes a reality. Many fail due to various factors, including resistance from senior leadership. When faced with rejection, instead of getting discouraged, consider the reasons behind it. Evaluate the clarity of your idea and seek feedback from leadership to understand their objections. Use this insight to refine your proposal, addressing their concerns and increasing its chances of acceptance.

I've been developing and selling strategies for the last couple of decades. One of the approaches that I take with the concerns is that I build it into the strategy. I either built it in the go to market plan that directly addresses those concerns. I build it in the business case to address the concern around investments. I build it into the marketing strategy that will address commercial concern. Whatever the concern is, I try to build it into the strategy explicitly to demonstrate that I heard them and that I'm doing something about it. Obviously, not all concerns can be addressed by strategy, so I make sure that I prioritize and rank those concerns.

When you find their pointers aligning with the bigger goal then add them in the strategy formulated on the other hand if the pointers are not relevant then try to take the help of case studies, diagrammatical explanation, short presentations for a better clarification.

Navigating opposition from senior leadership to a new strategic direction requires a combination of diplomacy, evidence-based persuasion and strategic alignment. Tailor your communication to address the specific concerns and priorities of different leaders. Use language and examples that resonate with each individual. Maintain transparency about the strategic process, potential challenges, and mitigation plans. Utilize visual aids such as charts and graphs to make your case more compelling and easier to understand. Incorporate storytelling techniques to make your presentation engaging and relatable. #leadership #strategy #strategicalignment #communication #transparentleadership #storytelling

This is always a balancing act. You have to make sure that you can sell your strategy so that 80% of your strategy directly benefits your stakeholders. It's that other 20% that you have to negotiate. Not everyone is going to be happy with your strategy because you are going to force someone to make a change. So focus a large part of the conversation on that 80% that's common. And then negotiate that other 20% that is not common.

In my career whenever I have been faced with "resistance" from senior leadership , I have always taken the approach of emphasizing that what I m trying to convey or implement strategically ultimately align with their goals and vision. Communicating that clearly in a medium or tone that carries with them can usually reduce any concerns and get them to buy in.

Obviously, at the beginning of this work process, you need to map out your stakeholders, making sure that you understand who are allies, who are in different, and who are opposing you. You still have to collect the concerns of everyone that's involved. However, you have to be spend most of your time with the stakeholders that are opposing you and leverage the people that are your supporters.

By leveraging allies, you can accomplish more than you could alone, benefiting from the diverse perspectives and capabilities of your team. This can create an unofficial team working towards a shared vision. However, ensure this doesn't lead to factionalism, which could weaken the overall spirit of the company team. Keep a varied approach to teaming up, embracing diversity and inclusivity.

Selling a strategy will always require diplomacy and knowing who are your champions and snipers. You will need to spend time with both sides to get the job done, but you want to leverage your allies to assist the evaluative process when senior leadership reviews the strategy. Make sure those allies are well aligned with your analysis and seek their guidance on how to potentially manage the snipers that may exist. They probably have a better rapport with those individuals and can provide invaluable advice to help your pitch become a success.

Networking can be a powerful tool to overcome resistance. Identify colleagues who share your vision, personally present your idea to them and seek their feedback to refine your proposal. By building support within your network, you can create a stronger case for your idea when presenting it to senior leadership. This increased backing can significantly improve your chances of gaining approval.

➸ Adaptability in Strategic Planning Adapt and evolve strategies based on feedback from senior leadership. Confidence in direction is essential, but flexibility is a strength. Take leadership input seriously and incorporate suggestions without compromising core strategic vision. This willingness to evolve shows commitment to the organization's success above personal ambition. A refined strategy with leadership backing can lead to more effective and unified execution. Embrace adaptability as a key component in strategic planning for sustained success.

One of the best ways to deal with critics is to involve them in the problem-solving process. If they agree on the problem, its severity/urgency, and the solution parameters, you're off to the races. The trick is shifting from YOUR solution to OUR solution. This shift is essential for creating and implementing a successful and resilient strategy. Showing your strategy to key allies and asking them to critique it is a great approach. I often say, "Try to break this idea" or "Show me where this will fail," and genuinely seek to pressure test an idea. This ensures that you adapt, evolve, and overcome obstacles together as a team.

Strategic rhythm ensures regular reviews and adjustments, fostering a culture of continuous improvement. This rhythm helps maintain momentum and adaptability, even when facing resistance from senior leadership. Developing the Adaptability Quotient (AQ) of team members is equally crucial. It enhances their ability to pivot and innovate, aligning with evolving strategies. When senior leadership resists, a high AQ and strategic rhythm empower the team to demonstrate resilience and flexibility, ultimately gaining leadership’s trust and support for the strategic direction.

Gathering input is incredibly important to build a strategy for both small and especially larger companies. The process is beneficial to gain insight, but it also helps you iterate your strategy from the feedback you gather. This helps the strategy feel more like a collective effort and can reduce friction down the line. To ensure that this iterative process does not dilute your initial intention, ensure that you've grounded the analysis by clearly defined problems/opportunities to ensure the feedback does not cause marked drift from what you were trying to originally accomplish.

Co-Creation is the key. A strategy should be co-created in collaboration with Senior leadership, so any proposed vision is shared, all concerns, risks, issues and interests especially from those that will be implementing the strategy are considered, discussed and addressed. This is the basis to which you can prevent upfront, any resistance from senior leadership on what would be a generally agreed new strategy. If not done it should back, it's a uphill task to share the vision. convince, explain, compromise, adjust and get buy-in, through constant and collaborative communications. It's best simply done upfront!