Internal functions are the strategy engine room

Have you ever heard that cliché about the janitor at NASA?

You know, the guy who knew his job was putting astronauts on the moon? Like most over-repeated stories of dubious accuracy, it carries a powerful message.

Do your internally facing teams feel connected to the big picture, like Old Mate NASA Janitor? If the work I’ve been doing over the last few weeks in Wellington is anything to go by, I’m picking the answer is no. They’re not doing the fancy public-facing work; they don’t see themselves reflected in your posters' aspirational goals and values, so they just get on with ‘doing the work.’

This is a problem – a big problem. Because it couldn’t be further from the truth.

I recently worked with one large public agency that was driving a partnership strategy that empowered stakeholders and communities to deliver their services and initiatives. This was a great strategy that aligned neatly with their big picture. The problem? Internal procurement policies required that all of their community suppliers, no matter how small, should hold large insurance policies and jump through complicated stages to satisfy payment requirements. Oops.

Totally out of line with their ‘make it easy’ and ‘community-led’ values and a good example of how things can come to a standstill if we neglect the process piece of strategy development.

“The capacity of the plant is equal to the capacity of its bottlenecks”
– Eliyahu M. Goldratt, The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement

In the classic management opus The Goal, the central protagonist struggles to understand why his factories aren’t making money. He quickly realises that the easiest way to improve productivity isn’t to expand but to find what is blocking the plant's fast and easy operation.

While I don’t tend to work in many factory environments, the lesson is the same – enabling and support functions can be strategy’s best friend, or greatest foe.

When the way we do business doesn’t align with the goals of our strategy, it’s hard to make real progress. Eliminating all the points of friction inside your operations and getting real alignment in policies, processes, and systems means bringing your internal functions on board and getting internal teams engaged in the strategy process. HR, legal, finance, customer service, ICT, research, policy—all the cool guys.

How to align internal functions with strategy

• Take the time to meaningfully connect teams Don’t leave your support functions out of your engagement planning – or assume that the same messages will resonate for everyone.
• Engage early—When you're putting together new projects, programmes, or change initiatives, Bring key support functions into the room early. This is great for building relationships and engagement and can also improve planning quality. Like construction contracts bring the builders and the architects into the same room during the design phase, pressure-testing ideas across teams means you spot issues early and spark good ideas.

Bonus tip: How do you find the friction points?

Ask people what’s broken! You don’t need a complicated strategy map or an expensive consultant. Ask people what support they need to make strategy happen, and they’ll tell you. Loudly and repeatedly!