Speaker 1: Helping leaders motivate their people to a higher level of
Speaker 1: performance through strong human relations, team building, and golajving. This
Speaker 1: is the seven minute Leadership Podcast with your host Paul Fellovledo.
Speaker 2: Hello everyone, and welcome to this seven minute leadership podcast.
Speaker 2: It's episode five ninety. Let's talk about something that quietly
Speaker 2: cripples good organizations, bloated strategy. I'm talking about the forty
Speaker 2: page deck, the twelve priorities, the color coded roadmaps, the
Speaker 2: mission statement that sounds impressive but can't be repeated by
Speaker 2: anyone on your team. It all looks busy, polished, and professional,
Speaker 2: but nothing moves. That's not strategy, that's noise. Most bloated
Speaker 2: strategies don't start bloated. They start simple, and then every
Speaker 2: meeting adds as lied, every executive adds a pet initiative,
Speaker 2: every department once representation, and before long, the strategy is
Speaker 2: no longer a tool. It's a museum exhibit. Complexity often
Speaker 2: shows up when clarity is missing. When leaders are unsure,
Speaker 2: they add, when alignment is weak, they document, when confidence drops,
Speaker 2: they explain more. The problem is, strategy doesn't fail because
Speaker 2: people don't understand it. It fails because they can't act
Speaker 2: on it. So how do you simplify a bloated strategy
Speaker 2: without blowing up the organization or bruising egos. First, you
Speaker 2: have to separate what sounds smart from what actually drives results.
Speaker 2: Ask this question, if we could only do three things
Speaker 2: this year that truly move the needle, what would they be?
Speaker 1: Not?
Speaker 2: Ten? Not five? Three? This is where leaders get uncomfortable.
Speaker 2: Cutting initiatives feels like abandoning effort. It isn't. It's choosing
Speaker 2: impact over activity. If everything matters, nothing matters. Second, translate
Speaker 2: strategy into decisions, not documents. A real strategy shows up
Speaker 2: in how money is spent, what gets staffed, what gets delayed,
Speaker 2: in what gets killed. If your strategy can't be seen
Speaker 2: in a calendar or a budget, it's theoretical. One of
Speaker 2: the simplest tests I use is this, can a frontline
Speaker 2: employee explain how today's work connects to the strategy without
Speaker 2: referencing a slide deck? If not, the strategy is too bloated. Third,
Speaker 2: remove anything that requires constant explanation. If leaders have to
Speaker 2: keep clarifying what the strategy means, that's a signal good
Speaker 2: strategy reduces questions. Bloated strategy creates meetings. Strategy should create boundaries.
Speaker 2: It should make some decisions automatic and others impossible. When
Speaker 2: everything requires discussion, the strategy is failing its job. Fourth,
Speaker 2: stop trying to impress people who don't execute. This is
Speaker 2: where bloated strategies love to live boardrooms, off sites and
Speaker 2: executive updates. They look great in those spaces. Meanwhile, the
Speaker 2: people doing the work are improvising because the strategy is unusable.
Speaker 2: A strategy that doesn't help execution is just performance art.
Speaker 2: Simplification means being willing to look less sophisticated on paper
Speaker 2: so you can be more effective in practice. Fifth, build
Speaker 2: strategy around constraints, not wishes. Great strategies respect reality, time, money, talent, energy.
Speaker 2: Bloated strategies ignore limits and assume everything will somehow get done.
Speaker 2: When leader's plan is if capacity is infinite, burnout becomes inevitable.
Speaker 2: Simplifying strategy means acknowledging constraints and designing within them. Here's
Speaker 2: a practical drill you can run this week. Take your
Speaker 2: current strategy and write down every active initiative. Then ask
Speaker 2: two questions for each one. Does this directly support our
Speaker 2: top priorities? And if we stop this tomorrow. Would anyone
Speaker 2: outside leadership notice be honest. You'll be surprised how much
Speaker 2: survives the first question and fails the second. Now, let's
Speaker 2: talk about leadership courage. Simplifying a strategy means saying no publicly.
Speaker 2: It means disappointing someone. It means admitting the past decision
Speaker 2: didn't age. Well. That's not weakness, that's leadership maturity. Teams
Speaker 2: trust leaders who course correct more than leaders who defend clutter.
Speaker 2: When strategy is simple, people move faster when it's clear.
Speaker 2: Accountability improves when its focused, Momentum builds, and here's the
Speaker 2: real payoff. Simplified strategy creates confidence. People know what matters,
Speaker 2: They know where to put their energy. They stop hedging
Speaker 2: and start executing. If your organization feels busy but stalled,
Speaker 2: the answer probably is not a new initiative. It's subtraction.
Speaker 2: Before you add anything else to your strategy, remove something
Speaker 2: so bloated strategy doesn't mean your people aren't capable. It
Speaker 2: usually means your leadership hasn't made enough hard choices yet.
Speaker 2: Simplification is not about dumbing things down. It's about making
Speaker 2: direction usable. If your team can't carry the strategy, without
Speaker 2: a binder, it's time to lighten the load, and as
Speaker 2: I end this, please head over to Paulfallovalito dot com
Speaker 2: for some free leadership resources that you can download, and
Speaker 2: also check out my YouTube channel for even more leadership content.
Speaker 2: The link is in the description of the show and
Speaker 2: also on my website. This has been the seven minute
Speaker 2: leadership podcast and I thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: For more Paul Fello Alito podcasts, visit Paulfellowalito dot com.