Stratrix

Ninety-seven percent, and then the list test

A technology company's engagement survey came back with good news: 97% of its senior leaders said they clearly understood the company's priorities. Then researchers asked those leaders to list them. Only a quarter of the managers surveyed could name three of the company's five priorities 1. The company, anonymized by the researchers as “Generex,” was not unusual. Across 124 organizations, only 28% of the executives and middle managers responsible for executing strategy could list three of their company's priorities 1. The lesson: alignment shows in what managers can list unprompted and what they turn down because of it. Asking whether they understand mostly measures confidence.

This check is for when you suspect that gap in your own organization. Twenty statements test alignment where it shows: whether the top team holds one list, whether managers below can name it, whether team goals connect to it, whether it changes decisions, and whether units pull the same way. You get a profile across those five areas and a first move for the weakest.

The people who set the strategy are poorly placed to judge whether anyone else knows it.

Self-assessment

Strategic alignment check

Answer for the organization as it is today. Where a statement asks what others could do, answer from what you have seen, not what you hope. Twenty statements, about five minutes.

  1. 1 If each top-team member wrote down the company's priorities separately, the lists would match.
  2. 2 We have five or fewer company-wide priorities.
  3. 3 The top team has settled, in writing, which priority wins when two compete for the same money or people.
  4. 4 Each function head describes the strategy mainly in terms of their own function's goals.
  5. 5 Managers two levels below the top team could list three of our priorities without looking.
  6. 6 We have checked that by asking people to list the priorities, not by asking whether they understand them.
  7. 7 The top team's direct reports could explain how their unit's goals serve each company priority.
  8. 8 Most of what people know about the strategy comes from town halls and all-hands slides.
  9. 9 Managers explain why their team's goals matter both for the unit and for the company as a whole.
  10. 10 Each team's goals for this year can be traced to a company priority in one step.
  11. 11 Some team goals would make just as much sense under a completely different strategy.
  12. 12 People can say which of their regular activities matter least to the strategy.
  13. 13 Managers can name something they stopped or turned down because of the priorities.
  14. 14 Budget and headcount requests are argued in terms of the priorities.
  15. 15 Our priorities are worded so broadly that nothing would be ruled out.
  16. 16 Our priorities have stayed the same long enough for people to act on them.
  17. 17 When two units' goals conflict, we find out during planning, not during execution.
  18. 18 Units that depend on each other set their goals together.
  19. 19 Different units run competing initiatives aimed at the same customer or problem.
  20. 20 Goals that need several units appear, with the same target, in each unit's own plan.
Start here

Why alignment is tested by asking

Sull, Sull and Yoder found that top executives rated their companies higher than frontline supervisors and middle managers did on every alignment measure in their survey 1. The people writing the strategy hear it every week, so they assume everyone else does. That is why several statements here ask what others could do, and why the strongest advice on this page is to stop asking people whether they understand the strategy and ask them to list it.

DimensionWhat it asksBasis
Agreement at the topOne list, trade-offs settledIn the typical company studied, just over half of senior executives converged on the same priorities 1
Understanding belowCan managers name the priorities?Agreement fell from 51% in the top team to 22% among their direct reports 1
Line of sightDo managers explain why goals matter?The best single predictor of alignment among 69 survey items 1
Priorities that change decisionsDo priorities rule work out?Test concreteness by asking what managers would stop doing 2
Alignment across unitsDo dependent units plan together?Our addition, from practice

The research supports the questions. The statements, the equal weighting and the score bands are ours; they are not validated, and a score here is not a benchmark against other companies.

In practice

Reading your profile

Read the dimensions as a chain from the top down. A weak first link limits everything after it: if the top team does not share one list, no amount of explaining will align the managers below. So when “Agreement at the top” is low, fix it first, even if another dimension scores lower.

Two patterns deserve attention. High understanding with low “changes decisions” means people can recite priorities that are too broad to rule anything out. Sull and colleagues' example of such imperatives includes “be an industry leader” and “look to the future” 2. High line of sight with low agreement across units means each unit is aligned to its own reading of the strategy, which feels like alignment until two units meet the same customer.

In practice

Run the list test

  1. Pick the sampleThe top team, their direct reports and a handful of managers one level further down.
  2. Ask without warning“Write down the company's top priorities for the next few years.” Allow up to five answers, from memory.
  3. Score itCount a person as aligned if they list at least three of the official priorities, the threshold the researchers used 1.
  4. Compare levelsLook for where the share drops. In the research, the steepest fall came between the top team and their direct reports 1.

Then compare the result with your score here. If your answers said “mostly true” and the list test says otherwise, trust the test.

Advanced

When alignment is the wrong goal

The fair objection: perfect alignment around a wrong strategy is worse than healthy disagreement around a right one. Sull and colleagues make a version of the point themselves: a shared understanding of priorities does not guarantee successful execution 1, and they argue for priorities that act as guardrails, leaving managers scope to adapt as circumstances change 2.

So the target is not uniformity. It is one shared list of a few concrete priorities, agreed at the top, that managers can name and use to make local choices. Disagreement about the strategy belongs in the room before the decision, under the rules our disagree-and-commit page sets out. After it, a manager two levels down should be able to use the priorities to say no to a good idea, which is the test our page on communicating strategy applies.

Where to go next

If the break is between levels of strategy, read corporate vs. business vs. functional strategy. If it is between units, the catchball process in hoshin kanri is built for that negotiation. If alignment is fine but nothing moves, take the execution health check. Alignment is not a feeling the top team has about the organization. It is a list the organization can write without help.

Questions

What is strategic alignment?
Strategic alignment is the degree to which leaders and teams share the same few priorities and act on them: the top team agrees on one list, managers below can name it, team goals connect to it, and it changes what people fund and turn down.
How do you measure strategic alignment?
Ask people to list the company's priorities from memory, rather than asking whether they understand them. Sull, Sull and Yoder counted a respondent as aligned if they listed at least three of the official priorities, and compared the share by level of the organization.
Is this alignment check a validated instrument?
No. The statements draw on published research, but the scoring and bands are Stratrix's rubric and have not been validated or benchmarked. Use it to start a conversation and to decide where to run the list test.

Sources

  1. Sull, D., Sull, C., and Yoder, J. (2018). No One Knows Your Strategy — Not Even Your Top Leaders. MIT Sloan Management Review, February 12, 2018. The anonymized “Generex” case (97% of senior leaders reporting a clear understanding; one-quarter of managers surveyed able to list three of five priorities); 124 organizations, 28% able to list three priorities; top executives rating alignment higher on every measure; just over half of senior executives converging on the same priorities; 51% agreement in the top team vs. 22% among direct reports; managers explaining why priorities matter as the best predictor among 69 survey items; town halls unlikely to solve the problem; the three-of-five scoring method; shared understanding not guaranteeing execution.
  2. Sull, D., Turconi, S., Sull, C., and Yoder, J. (2017). Turning Strategy Into Results. MIT Sloan Management Review, September 28, 2017. Testing whether priorities are concrete by asking middle managers what they would stop doing; vague imperatives such as “be an industry leader” and “look to the future”; priorities as guardrails that leave scope for adaptation.

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