Selling your Strategy

Happy Thursday,

Strategy development is a key part of senior leadership roles, and leaders will often spend months developing a well thought through and perfectly crafted strategy to present to the board or company executives. Sounds logical, until it gets thrown back at you for reasons that seem completely irrational. The answer may not be more strategy and perfection, but almost the opposite. Let’s dive in.

🧠 LEARN something.

A few years ago, I was in charge of developing a People and Talent Strategy for a large business. I had spent months creating and refining it with stakeholders and external consultants. But on the morning of the presentation, disaster struck: I lost the entire strategy presentation deck. At 6:45 a.m. in the morning, I found myself sitting in the only café I could find open in Auckland CBD, on my laptop, frantically rebuilding the presentation deck. The result was nowhere near polished. In fact, it was incomplete and full of gaps. I was anxious, as what we were asking was not an easy ‘sell’. Not to my surprise, during the presentation that morning, the Directors immediately noticed the missing pieces. Knowing I’d stuffed up, I simply listened and nodded. What happened next surprised me. After pointing out the flaws and gaps, they began filling them in. Debating, rewriting and improving my strategy. Ultimately landing on the same thing I was meant to recommend, but had missed in this newly frantically created presentation deck. By the end of the meeting, they had approved the entire strategy and budget. Ironically, my least polished version was the one that succeeded.

That was the IKEA Effect in action. The cognitive bias where people place a disproportionately high value on things they’ve helped build. This behaviour is particularly acute among high achievers (which most executives are). When you present a fully polished 100% solution, you leave no room for their competence to shine and deprive them of the pride of ownership. A strategy that is 90% right and 100% supported is better than a 100% perfect strategy that no one buys into. The same logic can be applied to selling the strategy to your team or your peers, in strategy or leadership in general. The lesson is simple: Leave space for people to build it with you, and they will buy into it and own it.

🤔 REFLECT on an idea.

Many leaders chase buy-in after the strategy is finished. The real work happens earlier. Involving people in creation transforms sceptics into advocates, replacing compliance with conviction.

😊 SMILE a little.

Anyone who has built flatpack furniture knows the feeling. You stare proudly at a slightly crooked bookshelf thinking, wondering why there are screws left over, and yet marvel and think “I made that.” Now in your late 40s you still have that bookshelf that you built when you were flatting at age 19! 😂

✅ DO IT to get results.

Next time you present a strategy to your Board, Executives or even your team for that matter, deliberately leave some blank space, even if it’s something that’s small or insignificant. Then, invite collaboration and input. Once they start discussing, debating and exploring the blank space, they’ll begin defending the rest. You’ve effectively activated psychological ownership. Think of the deliberate blank space less as a gap, and more like a glue.

🌱 How we can support you and your team.

We provide strategic leadership solutions tailored to align with your business strategy, size, and budget. We can support your with:

• 1:1 Leadership and Performance Coaching

• Team Coaching, for high performing teams

• 1:1 Health & Lifestyle Coaching for busy stressed leaders.

• Workshops, offsites and team development.

• Or our flagship individual Leadership Coaching Programs.

Kia pai tō wiki

Kenny Bhosale

CEO & Founder, The Bridge Leaders