When "We want to grow" passes for a business strategy
If you're anything like me, you'll have been presented with countless "business strategies" over the years. Some are straightforward and to the point, some are extensive PowerPoint presentations full of data, charts and far too much information, some are verbally shared and some are simply assumed.
Most of them aren't actually strategies at all.
They're usually a mix of visions, goals, objectives, desires, wishlists and outcomes — all things you might want, but not a plan for how you're going to get there.
When I was consulting in HR, I remember asking the CEO of a small engineering and manufacturing company what the business strategy was. His reply was "we want to grow."
Previously, I think I would have accepted this in some of my in-house roles. It remains the most frequently quoted 'strategy' I hear. But think about it — this isn't a strategy. It isn't even a goal. It's far too vague.
If someone tells you this is their strategy, here's what to ask
What kind of growth? Revenue, headcount, number of clients, something else?
How much would you like to grow by?
How far do you want to get this year?
Where are you today?
How easy has it been to grow by this amount in the past?
What might slow this down?
What would speed this up?
How will you know when you get there?
What will you need to do more or less of to make it happen?
What happens when you do get there?
It's the answers to these questions that start to form something you can actually follow.
In this particular case, the CEO wasn't able to answer most of them. I remember breaking it down further and asking which of their three services generated the most consistent revenue. They weren't measuring that. I asked about margins on their products and how they billed for services. They weren't measuring that either. So we had nothing to build from.
I had to take things right back to basics — establish a clear picture of where they actually were before we could even begin thinking about growth and what it might realistically look like.
Why this matters for HR
This was a small business, but it had been in operation for over 40 years. They'd had a conveyor belt of Operations Managers who left fairly quickly, frustrated by the lack of process, measurement and data. Planning was almost impossible. They just responded to whoever called in and worked reactively.
There's no clarity on where they are, no definition of where they're going, and no real plan for how to get there. Just a vague idea of growth and a lot of reacting.
And when that's the level of clarity a business is operating with, it's no wonder HR ends up focusing on activity rather than impact. You can't shape work that moves a business forward if the business itself hasn't defined what forward looks like.
This is one of the things I find most underestimated in conversations about strategic HR — it's not just about understanding what strategy is. It's about being able to sit in a room with a leadership team, break down what they've told you, question it properly, and work out whether there's actually enough there to build on. That's a skill, and it's one most HR professionals were never taught because nobody expected them to need it.
