Does Everyone Know What Winning Looks Like?
Does Everyone Know What Winning Looks Like?
Why strategy execution depends on translating priorities into everyday work
Last week, I wrote about one of Q4 execution's first challenges: focus.
When everything feels important, organizations must choose what actually matters.
But making those choices at the leadership table is only the beginning.
The next question is harder:
Does everyone else know what those choices mean?
Leaders may be clear about the organization’s priorities.
The strategy might be documented. Leaders might have presented the goals at a town hall. Quarterly targets might sit on a dashboard.
But somewhere between executive conversations and the organization's day-to-day work, clarity can disappear.
And that’s where execution starts to break down.
The Translation Gap
Most organizations don’t lack strategy.
They suffer from a translation gap.
Leaders talk about strategic priorities.
Teams work on projects.
Individuals complete tasks.
But the connection between those layers isn’t always obvious.
Ask an executive what matters most this quarter, and you might hear three clear priorities.
Ask someone several layers into the organization, and you may hear a list of projects, deadlines and deliverables.
Both answers might be correct.
But they aren’t necessarily the same thing.
That’s the problem.
Because strategy isn’t executed at the leadership table.
It’s executed through thousands of decisions made throughout the organization.
What gets worked on first?
What gets delayed?
Which customer issue gets escalated?
Which meeting gets declined?
Where does someone spend the extra hour?
When people understand what winning looks like, those decisions become easier.
When they don’t, people fill in the gaps themselves.
Communication Isn’t the Same as Alignment
Organizations often try to solve this problem by communicating more.
Another town hall.
Another strategy deck.
Another email from the CEO.
Another dashboard.
Communication matters.
But communication and alignment aren’t the same thing.
Someone can have seen the strategy and still not know what they’re supposed to do differently because of it.
That’s an important distinction.
A useful test isn’t:
Have we told people what the priorities are?
It’s:
Could our people explain the three things that matter most between now and year-end, and how their work contributes to them?
If the answer is no, the organization probably doesn’t have a communication problem.
It has a translation problem.
From Strategy to Work
One way to think about alignment is through three simple questions:
OUTCOME: What Are We Trying to Achieve?
Start with the result, not the activity.
What needs to be true by year-end?
What customer, operational, financial or organizational outcome are we trying to create?
Teams shouldn’t have to interpret vague language like “drive transformation,” “improve the customer experience,” or “accelerate execution.”
Make the destination visible.
What would success actually look like?
CONTRIBUTION: How Does Our Work Help?
This is where strategy becomes local.
Every team should be able to connect its work to the larger outcome.
Not every task needs a direct line to the corporate strategy.
But people should understand why the work that consumes most of their time matters.
That creates a different conversation.
Instead of:
What are we working on?
Ask:
What are we contributing to?
That shift matters.
A project is an activity.
A contribution connects that activity to an outcome.
CHOICE: What Should We Do Differently?
This may be the most important step.
If a priority doesn’t change a decision, it probably isn’t influencing execution.
What should teams prioritize?
What should they deprioritize?
What should they escalate?
What should they stop?
What trade-offs should become easier because everyone understands what matters?
Alignment becomes real when strategy helps people make better choices without waiting for a leader to make every decision for them.
OUTCOME → CONTRIBUTION → CHOICE
Put those three questions together, and the path is straightforward:
OUTCOME: What are we trying to achieve?
CONTRIBUTION: How does our work help?
CHOICE: What should we do differently?
The goal isn’t to make everyone memorize the strategy.
It’s to make the strategy useful.
Useful when deciding what to work on.
Useful when priorities compete.
Useful when resources are tight.
Useful when someone has to decide what can wait.
That’s when alignment starts turning into execution.
Leaders Create Line of Sight
One of the most important things leaders can create is line of sight.
People should be able to see the connection between:
What the organization is trying to accomplish
and
What I’m being asked to do today.
The farther those two things drift apart, the more organizational energy gets lost.
People can be incredibly busy while making surprisingly little progress on what matters most.
That’s why alignment isn’t simply an internal communications exercise.
It’s an organizational effectiveness issue.
Leaders have to keep translating.
What does this priority mean for this function?
For this team?
For this project?
For the decisions we’re making this week?
And perhaps most importantly:
What does it mean we should no longer be spending time on?
Try the Three-Person Test
Here’s a simple experiment for your next leadership meeting.
Choose one of your most important Q4 priorities.
Then ask three people from different parts of the organization:
What are we trying to achieve?
How does your team’s work contribute?
What are you doing differently because this is a priority?
Don’t compare their wording.
Compare their understanding.
If the answers point in roughly the same direction, you’ve probably created meaningful alignment.
If they point in three different directions, another strategy presentation probably isn’t the answer.
The priority needs more translation.
The Final Stretch
As organizations move deeper into Q4, leaders will naturally pay more attention to progress.
Dashboards.
Milestones.
Deadlines.
Results.
All of that matters.
But before asking whether everyone is moving fast enough, ask whether everyone is moving in the same direction.
Focus at the top doesn’t automatically create alignment throughout the organization.
Leaders have to connect the dots.
OUTCOME → CONTRIBUTION → CHOICE
So here’s the question I’d take into this week:
Could your people explain the three things that matter most between now and year-end, and how their work contributes to them?
If they can, execution gets easier.
If they can’t, the next step may not be pushing harder.
It may be making winning clearer.
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