How to get 'buy-in'
The seemingly obvious thing to keep in mind here is that people are emotional beings - governed by an ancient Palaeolithic brain that is primarily non-rational.
Almost always strategy falls on deaf ears.
Obviously this is very frustrating for managers and senior leaders who are tasked with delivering outperformance for their organisations. All of their good work unravelled by the time it trickles down to the operational teams, who are ultimately tasked with implementing the resulting action plans emanating from strategic enquiry.
The big problem is people. Messy, mind-of-their-own, unwilling to change...people.
But understanding that strategy is really something that needs to affect the hearts and minds of people, also gives us a better understanding of what kind of strategy communication will earn their enthusiastic buy-in.
The seemingly obvious thing to keep in mind here is that people are emotional beings - governed by an ancient Palaeolithic brain that is primarily non-rational.
To motivate people into taking action the best means through which to do that is through the connection with their emotionally-driven psyche.
Trying to get buy-in to a strategy through rational means will have limited success. But framing either an opportunity, or risk, via the emotional centres of the brain - and you'll have far better luck.
Strategy needs to make its audience feel something.
People must feel excited, raring-to-go, in awe, bowled over, bubbly, hopeful, like a winner. You can also aim to get them to feel scared or induce crying, but fear is a dangerous realm from which to generate motivated action.
Just please god don't, for a single second, assume that a list of bullet points on a slide deck that get barked out by a CEO, who nobody respects, is going to cut it.
Show up with a bit of imagination and creativity otherwise hand the task over to somebody who is a more natural peddlar of propaganda.