Strategies Often Die During Breaks - six techniques to keep your strategy alive and relevant

When strategy is limited to biannual seminars and quarterly reviews, it becomes secondary in everyday work. Embedding strategy as a recurring element of management dialogue creates continuity that infrequent, in-depth reviews rarely achieve.

This does not have to be time-consuming. In many cases, 15–20 minutes is sufficient. The key is consistency.

One simple practice is a short “strategy sharing” session, where one member of the management team shares an observation: What have we succeeded with in our strategic work? What has changed since last time? Are we seeing new movements among customers, citizens or partners? Are there internal issues that require adjustment?

Let this responsibility rotate among team members and avoid long PowerPoint presentations and heavy preparation—they disrupt momentum. What matters is that strategy becomes a natural and integral part of ongoing dialogue.

Strategy is often treated as either fixed or in need of complete revision. In practice, there is a third way: continuous, incremental adjustment.

At Mannaz, we often see teams holding on to priorities that have lost relevance because they are waiting for the “right” moment to change them. That moment may be one or two years away.

Strategic direction can, however, be adjusted along the way without undermining the overall foundation. This may involve scaling up an initiative that shows greater potential than expected, scaling back something that is not delivering value, or opening new opportunities that were not foreseen in the original plan.

A strategy becomes stronger when it can move in small steps rather than standing still between major revisions.Figur

One of the main barriers to ongoing strategic updating is uncertainty about who is authorised to make changes. If no one feels they have “writing rights” to the strategy document, it quickly becomes rigid.

Mandates for adjustments, as well as clear points of contact for input, should be explicitly defined. At the same time, it must be clear which changes can be made on an ongoing basis, and which require broader leadership dialogue, decision-making and approval.

Mandate alone is not enough. There must also be a culture in which it is legitimate to challenge the strategy. Constructively challenging a strategy is not the same as resisting it. Leaders and employees should not hold back when reality begins to diverge from the plan, out of fear of appearing disloyal or difficult.

When people speak up because a priority no longer creates value, or because an initiative conflicts with new external demands, they are not undermining the strategy -they are helping to keep it relevant.

A significant new opportunity for keeping strategy up to date lies in the intelligent use of AI. One of the traditional barriers to continuous strategic updating has been the time required for data collection and analysis.

With AI, this work can take place far more continuously – much like a strategic radar that is always on, rather than a system activated once a year.

AI can support ongoing collection and analysis of market developments, emerging technologies, competitor movements and regulatory changes. It can also be used to explore and test scenarios: What happens if we change priority X? What risks arise if the market moves in direction Y? Which global trends are beginning to accelerate?

This does not mean that AI should define the strategy. However, it can provide valuable input, enrich strategic dialogue and give management a stronger basis for decisionmaking.

Strategy loses relevance when it is not actively connected to the many small decisions made each week. A simple but powerful habit is to consistently ask: How does this decision support our strategic priorities?

If the answer is that it does not, this should at least be acknowledged. The decision may represent a necessary deviation, or it may be a signal that the strategic priorities themselves need adjustment.

When the link between strategy and everyday choices is made explicit, both the quality of decision-making and the organisation’s sense of direction are strengthened. A good strategy should function as a management tool – not by providing all the answers, but as guidance and improving daily decisions.

Quarterly follow-ups often focus on numbers and progress, which is important. However, a strategy’s power lies primarily in the narrative that surrounds it.

If the rationale behind the chosen direction no longer aligns with employees’ experience of reality, resistance grows, and the strategy begins to feel disconnected from everyday work.

Leaders should therefore regularly revisit the strategic narrative: Where do we come from? What has brought us to where we are today? Where do we want to be in three years? And, crucially, how will we get there? Consider whether any part of this story has changed since the strategy was launched.

People tend to remember – and retell – stories more easily than figures and targets. When meaning is continuously adjusted and explained in line with developments, commitment is sustained.