Strategy cannot succeed in isolation. It only works - or works best - when it aligns correctly with your organization’s talent. Some leaders mistakenly assume that a strategy that succeeded in a previous setting will work in a new setting. Not necessarily.
That’s because specific strategies require specific talent quality and distributions. Sometimes, a leader’s new organization just doesn't possess the talent level of his or her previous team. This often dooms efforts to implement a once-successful strategy, also bringing with it the risk of the new leader being seen as a resistant-to-change "one trick pony."
Retired NFL quarterback Dan Orlovsky tells a good story about this phenomenon. Joe Lombardi was the new offensive coordinator for the Detroit Lions in 2014. He tried to implement a strategy that worked extremely well when he was the quarterbacks coach for the New Orleans Saints, but turned out to be a complete failure in Detroit.
Orlovsky was the Lions’ back-up quarterback. He said the gaping problem with Lombardi’s approach was that the Lions’ talent was vastly inferior to the Saints’ championship-caliber personnel. Detroit’s talent just couldn’t cash the checks his strategy was writing, and Lombardi was blinded by his previous success. He refused to understand that what counts most is not strategy in isolation but the alignment between strategy and talent. It's always about context.
The same could be said of Mike Martz. He tried to replicate his Super Bowl-winning St. Louis Rams’ “Greatest Show on Turf” offensive strategy with the 2006-2007 Lions and 2008 49ers. His strategy didn’t work at these subsequent stops, either, because those two squads lacked the talent and types of personnel needed to carry it out. Yes, you can always remove, add, and adjust talent, but it takes time and has real human implications.
Creating effective strategy means finding and developing the appropriate talent needed to carry it out. If doing so is too disruptive, then consider revising your strategy to better fit the team and the moment. Either way, you can’t simply assume that what worked for you in the past will automatically work again. And, by the way, strategic plans that fail to account for talent and the organization's ability and willingness to carry out the strategy are decidedly unhelpful if not downright harmful.
Image courtesy of MIT Sloan Management Review.