Clarity is the difference between strategy that moves and strategy that stalls. If your team doesn’t “get” the strategy, you have no chance of executing it. Yet, clarity doesn’t happen by accident. It requires discipline: cutting through ambiguity, prioritizing what matters most, and ensuring that every person understands not just the what, but the why behind the strategy.

We tend to see agreement as a sign of harmony, alignment, and efficient decision-making.

But when every head nods in unison, I actually get a little nervous. Either we haven’t pushed hard enough—or someone doesn’t feel safe enough to speak up.

Consensus can feel like progress. But it often signals complacency.

I’ve seen it play out over and over. A leader floats an idea. Heads nod. The meeting ends five minutes early. Victory lap, right?

Not really. That’s usually a sign we’re either solving the wrong problem or we’ve just endorsed a half-baked solution. Because if a decision is meaningful, it should spark curiosity, resistance, even discomfort.

You know what spreads fast? Gossip.

And that’s exactly how your internal presentations should work. Not the toxic kind — but the sticky, retellable, easy-to-repeat kind. The kind of story that travels from meeting to meeting without you in the room and still lands the way you meant it to.

Too many internal decks require their creator to personally sherpa the message from team to team. That’s a fail. Your real goal should be to create a presentation so clear and simple that it becomes contagious. Even better — contagious and accurate. You want your audience not only to “get it,” but to become carriers of your story. Ambassadors, even.

Let’s break down what gossip gets right, and how we can borrow its best traits for internal communication.

Simon Sinek famously calls on us to “start with why.” But for strategy to truly stick, we also need to explain “why me?”

People commit when they see how their work matters—when the strategy doesn’t just make sense, but feels personal. That’s when execution takes off.

And behavioral science backs this up.

Every organization wrestles with the challenge of implementing new strategies while keeping the current business running. Teams are already fully engaged in their “day jobs”—what’s often referred to as business as usual (BAU) or run-the-business (RTB) work. This tension between sustaining current operations and pursuing strategic change is one of the most common pitfalls in execution.

While it’s essential to continue delivering results for the existing business, the truth is the status quo isn’t enough. If it were, we wouldn’t need a new strategy. Something isn’t working—whether it’s a current problem or an emerging challenge—and change is necessary. But change doesn’t magically happen in the margins of an already packed calendar. To succeed, we have to intentionally make room for it.

You’re in a leadership meeting, reviewing a critical initiative. A team member brings up a challenge—something that’s slowing down execution.

They lay it out, expecting a conversation. But before the discussion unfolds, someone jumps in with a quick fix:

“Just bring in IT.”

“Sounds like a process issue—let’s put a template in place.”

“ I see the problem—just do X.”

And just like that, the conversation moves on.

The leader thinks they’ve helped. They’ve offered a solution, checked a box, and kept things moving. But in doing so, they may have shut down the deeper conversation that needed to happen.

Maybe the real issue wasn’t the process, but misalignment across teams. Maybe it wasn’t a tech problem, but an unclear priority. But now, we’ll never know—because the discussion ended before it even started.

Communicating effectively is deceptively hard.

Think about it. Most of us struggle to communicate perfectly with our significant others—even after years together. If we can’t nail it at home, with people we know intimately, what hope do we have in a workplace filled with competing priorities, shifting dynamics, and far less emotional investment?

The truth is, good communication doesn’t happen by accident.

It takes intention. Structure. Practice.

When executing strategies, communication isn’t a “nice to have.” It’s the difference between success and chaos—or worse, apathy. Yet, in my experience, too many leaders treat communication as an afterthought, assuming a single email, presentation, or town hall will do the job.

It starts small. A missed deadline. A short-tempered reply in a meeting. A high-performer who suddenly seems distracted and disengaged.

Then, before you realize it, the signs pile up. Turnover increases. Projects slow down. Execution starts to feel like a grind instead of a focused push toward a goal. You can’t put your finger on exactly what changed, but something is different. Your team is running on fumes.

Stress is one of the most underestimated threats to execution. Left unmanaged, it erodes motivation, fractures teams, and derails even the most well-planned strategies. And yet, many leaders don’t see the damage until it’s too late.

No system is immune to stress. Even in the best-run organizations, the pressure of execution can push teams to their limits. That’s why, as coaches, we need to go beyond just setting up the right conditions—we need to actively manage stress on a daily basis, just as we would any other obstacle to execution.

Dr. Jon Ashton, founder of Strata Intel, has spent years studying the interplay between organizational stress and execution capacity. His company measures stress dynamics within organizations using validated, real-time assessments. Unlike traditional surveys that rely on self-reported data, Strata Intel pinpoints where stress exists and correlates it directly with execution performance.

Great communication isn’t a one-time event. It’s a process—a rhythm—that unfolds over time. Messages need to be reinforced, adapted, and repeated to stick. Leaders who miss this risk leaving their teams confused, unmotivated, and misaligned with the strategy.

In fact, the most common communication mistake leaders make is saying too little.

A study published in the Academy of Management Journal found that leaders are 10 times more likely to be criticized for under-communicating than over-communicating. Employees consistently report that their leaders don’t provide enough relevant information to meet their needs. What’s more, leaders who under-communicate are often perceived as less empathetic, less credible, and less effective. 

Simply put: When in doubt, say it again.

We tend to think motivation is about big rewards—raises, promotions, public recognition. But this experiment reveals something deeper. Just acknowledging someone’s effort—even in the smallest way—can be the difference between them staying engaged or checking out.

And the reverse is just as powerful. When we ignore effort, we don’t just fail to motivate. We actively demotivate.

Now, think back to your own workplace. How many times have you unintentionally drained someone’s motivation—by staying silent when you could have acknowledged their work?

When teams and leaders fully commit—when there’s no mental “escape hatch” of half-hearted support—they unlock a different level of focus, resilience, and momentum. This doesn’t mean blind loyalty or ignoring challenges. It means choosing a direction, aligning behind it, and moving forward with conviction.

And commitment has real, tangible benefits. Research shows that when leaders and teams fully commit to a strategic direction, they gain several advantages that boost execution: greater focus, stronger team cohesion, and increased resilience in the face of challenges.

When teams commit to a strategy, even with reservations, they experience powerful effects that strengthen execution. Focus improves, collaboration deepens, and momentum builds—driving both performance and team cohesion.

Accountability is the glue that holds coordinated efforts together. 

When multiple teams and individuals are working toward a shared strategic goal, accountability is a magical force that keeps everything aligned and moving forward. Without it, even our best plans can unravel into missed deadlines, finger-pointing, and confusion about who is responsible for what. 

Accountability is often thought of as something that flows from the top down—a manager setting goals, checking progress, and ensuring results. But in reality, the most effective accountability happens between peers. When teams hold each other accountable, work moves faster, problems are solved more collaboratively, and people are more motivated to deliver.

Accountability, in this sense, isn’t about oversight—it’s about commitment. It’s what ensures that when one person completes their piece of the puzzle, the next person is ready to pick it up and keep going.

When it comes to early communication about change, getting the message right is critical. Change inherently stirs emotions—uncertainty, excitement, fear, and hope. Our message must address these emotions head-on, guiding our audience from resistance to acceptance. 

One of the most critical steps is clearly explaining the Why behind it. Why is change necessary? Why now? Why is this the right path? Without a compelling and well-articulated “Why,” even the best strategies will face resistance.

Over the years, I’ve developed a framework I call “Hook / Scare / Comfort / Inspire” to craft a message that answers these questions. It connects the logic of the change to the emotions of the people who will execute it.

When Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon in 1969, it wasn’t just the result of a lofty idea shouted from the rooftops. It was the culmination of a meticulously connected network of goals that guided every team and individual.[1] NASA’s mission—“land a man on the moon and return him safely to Earth”—was audacious, but it succeeded because it cascaded into precise objectives at every level. By breaking the impossible into achievable steps, NASA turned an aspirational vision into a coordinated effort that worked.

Every organization needs goals that do the same. Effective goals take strategy out of the abstract and turn it into meaningful, actionable work. When properly aligned, goals ensure every individual knows how their contributions matter.

But too often, organizations treat goal-setting as an HR-driven exercise focused on annual performance reviews. If your goals are primarily driven by HR, your strategy is probably doomed. This isn’t a knock on HR—it’s about understanding that goal-setting must be at the core of strategic execution, not just a tool for annual evaluations.

When goals are deeply tied to strategy, they can transform execution. A quality goal-setting process may produce useful performance data, but its real purpose is to bring clarity and motivation to the strategy, making it tangible and engaging for every individual involved.

The most effective framework for achieving this connection, in my experience, is OKRs—Objectives and Key Results.

Reduce, reuse, recycle”is a rallying cry for sustaining our planet’s precious resources. Guess what? We can apply that same mantra to sustain our own organizational precious resources. The limited resources at stake are time, money, and people. By adopting these principles, we can turn scarcity into opportunity, creating leaner, more focused, and more effective teams who have the capacity to execute our new strategies.

We’re naturally wired to believe that adding more is the solution—more resources, more tools, more tasks…more complexity. Yet, as research shows, this instinct for addition can bog us down, leading to diminishing returns. 

Crafting a strategy is hard work. After investing time and energy into crafting a thoughtful plan, it can be tempting to call it done and move on. But here’s the truth: no strategy is perfect, and that’s okay.

The key to success isn’t perfection. It’s pressure-testing your strategy to refine it, uncover blind spots, and build support before execution. This step is called validation, and it’s the secret to turning good strategies into great ones.

Why Validation is Essential

Strategies created in a vacuum rarely hold up under real-world conditions. Without input from diverse perspectives, it’s too easy to miss critical risks or practical realities. That’s where validation comes in.

Have you ever been in a meeting where every voice seemed to clash, ideas spiraled in circles, and no clear decisions emerged? Frustrating, isn’t it? I’ve been in more of those than I care to remember.

Dr. Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats method is here to save the day. Developed in 1985, this simple yet powerful framework transforms chaotic discussions into structured, focused collaboration. By guiding teams to explore every angle of a problem systematically, it fosters open dialogue, minimizes defensiveness, and ensures every perspective is heard—without letting egos derail the process. Doesn’t that sound nice?

We've all heard experts say, "Get the right people in the room" when it comes to building a strategy. But what does that even mean? Vague advice like this isn’t helpful unless we dig deeper. Who are these people, why do they matter, and how do we leverage their insights effectively? Without clarity on this, we risk missing essential voices or creating a strategy that lacks focus.

So, what does it mean to get the right people in the room? Here are three key objectives:

Leadership has traditionally been about calling the shots from the top—a vision set by the leaders, a plan laid out, and the team expected to follow. But recent insights into how humans work best are turning this model on its head. Science says that when we co-create, we boost both engagement and outcomes in a way that top-down management can’t touch.

Let’s be clear: co-creation isn’t just another trendy term. It is a powerful way to improve strategic outcomes that adds both value and loyalty to any plan. When people play a part in creating a strategy, they’re way more likely to support it. And the reason why is rooted in some fascinating science – a mix of psychology, neuroscience, and even economics – that shows why shared creation sticks.

The key to a successful strategy often lies in what you decide not to do. While it might seem counterintuitive, defining what you won't pursue can be more impactful than defining what you will. By spelling out these "why nots" and "what nots," you sharpen your focus and reinforce your distinct position in the market. This process helps both leaders and teams clarify what the organization stands for, ultimately bringing sharper focus and resilience to strategic decisions.