Fortunately, the times when only C-suite managers were involved in strategy-setting are long gone. But that doesn’t mean that you need to involve just anyone in it either, because, as we know from experience, full bottom-up strategic planning leads to superficiality. A general rule of thumb is that just 5 to 10% of the organization is involved in strategy setting. That’s just enough to include a representative cross-section of the organization in coming up with a clear strategy.

Not a formality

Enriching the strategic framework is an all-hands-on-deck operation. Once you have hammered out the strategic framework, it is time to enrich it. Enrichment involves more than just communication. The framework needs reviewing, improving, supplementing and specifying. The word ‘communication’ is an oft-used and far too narrow definition of what needs to happen. If communication is a one-way street—which it often is—it is a lost opportunity at the very start of strategy execution. Enrichment is not a formality whose results you stick in a drawer. On the contrary, it is vital that you open yourself up to all feedback, because that feedback is worth its weight in gold. You want to absorb all feedback and constructive criticism like a sponge. If you can’t take criticism, you won’t succeed.

Embrace feedback

When you have labored with a deliberately diverse group to formulate a new strategy or a new plan, it can be hard to put it “out there” for a larger group that hasn’t made a commitment yet, but do it anyway. If you can’t explain the story of the strategy or plan in simple terms, there’s something wrong. So, you want to get any feedback that can help you improve your story. Nothing stays with you quite like constructively worded feedback and criticism that rescues you from some disaster in the nick of time or dramatically improves the quality of an initiative. That’s the best example of how human synergy works.

Weed out the nonsense

Remember that any feedback and criticism you receive always includes some nonsense that stems from a lack of experience or comes from people whose motives you question. Stay level-headed and dare to weed out questionable feedback and criticism, while holding in the back of your mind that even the most cynical people may have a valid point. In the end, it’s about being able to recognize the most valuable ideas. To that end, surround yourself with people who are smarter than you. And don’t be “the one genius with 1,000 helpers” as Jim Collins calls leaders who fail to do that.

Broad- and narrowcasting

Communication alone is not enough. You have so many wonderful and proven social and technological means at your disposal to creatively, effectively and efficiently involve the whole organization in enriching the strategic framework. Select an appropriate format for every step and target group. It is smart to differentiate; you might want to communicate the strategy to everyone at the same time (‘broadcast’), but follow this up with differentiated interactions per target group (‘narrowcast’).

For example, because middle management often plays a crucial part in many strategy execution initiatives, it pays to organize a number of tailor-made reviewing carrousels for middle managers and pull out all the stops to get and incorporate their input into your strategy. Another example of appropriate differentiation is this: in the upcoming strategic plan, some divisions are hit much harder than others and will need to ‘stomach’ more change than others. You will need to adjust the nature and intensity of your enrichment activities accordingly. See also Figure 1. This is how you give your organization a voice.