Setting Strategy When the Path is Unclear

A recent Harvard Business Review newsletter presented management tips on setting strategy when the path is unclear. Given the current political, economic, societal, and technological changes impacting us personally and professionally, it seems unlikely that any leader would feel confident in predicting the future.  https://hbr.org/2026/07/our-favorite-management-tips-on-setting-strategy-when-the-path-is-unclear
Pick an Organizing Principle or Cherry Pick from the List of Management Tips?
The newsletter presented five options:
1.Find Your Organization’s Strategic Center
2.To Increase Resilience, Become an Octopus Organization
3.Turn Strategy into Action
4.Ground Hope in Your Organization’s Reality
5.Eliminate False Alignment on Your Team
To be honest, each one resonated with me, so I’m going to share at least one tip from each option.
1.Find Your Organization’s Strategic Center
Center on the mission and your organization’s purpose. Begin with the why. The Baldrige Excellence Framework has long emphasized the importance of creating, deploying, and reinforcing the mission of an organization. Employees want to be a part of something bigger than themselves. They want to have purpose in their work. And customers develop loyalty to organizations that clearly state their commitment to serving them.
Center on friction erasure. I loved that phrase. It reminded me of an interdivisional team I served on in my years in corporate America. We were chartered as the Barrier Busters. Our tasks focused on identifying broken or bureaucratic processes that reduced efficiency and increased effort and frustration. Senior leaders, this may be your most important role in your organization because, for the most part, you are the only ones with the perspective and the authority to address these impediments to collaboration and productivity.
2. To Increase Resilience, Become an Octopus Organization
An “Octopus Organization” is one that’s adaptive, decentralized, and built for change. The re-imagined Baldrige National Quality Award has as its stated mission these attributes. To receive the award, an organization must demonstrate organizational resilience and long-term success.
One hallmark of an Octopus Organization is that the leaders create the conditions for resilience, a culture where ideas and practices to flow organically, empower the people closest to the work to identify the problems, experiment with solutions, and embed learning into daily work.  When your employees are engaged in your why, they contribute to your long-term success.
3.Turn Strategy into Action
We’ve worked with several clients who used to have a beautifully designed Strategy Development Process that results in a Strategic Plan that gathers dust on a shelf or resides in a drawer, never to be taken out and implemented. What’s needed is the development of action plans to accomplish the strategic objectives with clearly defined owners, milestones, leading and outcome (lagging) measures, assigned resources, a scope statement, and a SMART goal. And another key to success is regular and frequent reviews to assess progress and reinforce accountability.
4.Ground Hope in Your Organization’s Reality
There’s a fine line between creating ambitious visions and overwhelming people with a daunting future that doesn’t seem achievable. Your employees want to get on board, but they need you to acknowledge their current reality. It’s also important to find small wins early in your journey to achieving your longer-range strategic objectives and SMART goals. Relating those back to your  purpose is another way to motivate and inspire.
5.Eliminate False Alignment on Your Team
Focus on creating clarity before attempting to execute on your action plans. And encourage different perspectives early in the process. I used to use the following as one of the ground rules in my meetings: No unexpressed skepticism. This helped to eliminate the “pocket vetoes” of people who appeared to be in agreement but wouldn’t support the decisions made after they left the meeting.
Another important aspect of gaining and maintaining alignment is to document the strategy, action plans, and key decisions made. This document should be used as the single version of the truth across and up and down the organization. It isn’t even intentional at times to tell a different story, but if people are allowed to communicate using their own words, they have shared a different version of the truth. And one of my favorite movie lines is, “Harry, the truth doesn’t have versions.” (from Something’s Gotta’ Give)
Your Next Steps in Setting Your Organization’s Strategy
  • Do some of these tips resonate with you? And
  • Which ones need to influence your next Strategy Development Process to help you navigate through these uncertain times?
Baldrige Foundation
“Join as an individual or organization and start receiving unique access to industry thought leaders and practitioners, exciting networking opportunities, technology tools, and educational resources that will help foster employee growth.”
The Institute for Performance Excellence is a thought leader on performance excellence, leadership, and management. Our team carries out this mission in a number of ways: undertaking research projects, hosting conferences and activities, conducting executive-level training, and publishing and distributing a wide variety of educational materials. Its mission is to improve the practice of leadership and management in pursuit of performance excellence and its impact in an ever-changing world.

Find out more about the Institute here https://www.baldrigeinstitute.org/home.
Communities of Resilience & Excellence (C.O.R.E.)
Today’s most complex challenges don’t fit neatly within the boundaries of a single organization, sector, or community. More leaders are recognizing that lasting progress requires stronger partnerships, shared learning, and systems that continuously improve. That’s the common thread running throughout our Summer 2026 Newsletter.
In this issue:
• How our partnership with The Alliance for Performance Excellence is creating new opportunities for communities nationwide
• Why organizations and communities are finding common ground through performance excellence
• Welcoming Methodist Healthcare Ministries as our Diamond Sponsor and 2026 Conference Title Sponsor
• A preview of the 2026 Baldrige Conference: The Rhythm of Excellence
• Updates and opportunities to engage with C.O.R.E. programs and events
Preview the first page below, then click to read the full newsletter on our website.
Read the Full Newsletter.
13 Finalists to Receive Site Visits for 2026 Baldrige Award
Phoenix, AZ — Thirteen 13 U.S. businesses and organizations – the highest number in nearly a decade – have been named finalists for the 2026 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award and will receive site visits this fall. The Baldrige Award identifies national role models of excellence among U.S. businesses, other organizations, and communities.
The Award is presented by the U.S. Department of Commerce, overseen by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and is now being administered by the Alliance for Performance Excellence on behalf of NIST.
The 13 Finalist organizations will receive rigorous evaluations of their performance against criteria that examine organizational results and the processes used to achieve them. Evaluations focus on leadership, strategy, customer focus, organizational intelligence, workforce, and operations and culminate with hybrid site visits that will include both virtual and on-site interviews of organizational leaders.
This is the first year that all applicants automatically receive finalist status and a national site visit, having either received an Alliance Top Tier Award (recognition of excellence within their state, region, and/or sector), a recent national Baldrige site visit, or demonstrated high performance with a pre-application screen. The new 2026 Award eligibility standards were released last March and are found here.
The 13 Finalists represent a mix of size and sectors, including nine healthcare organizations, two nonprofits (one of which is a government entity), and one each in service and small business (a manufacturer).  Applicants range in size from 450 to 5500 employees and come from every region of the country.
A volunteer Board of Examiners will conduct evaluations.  This year, 132 examiners were selected from more than 230 who applied and average 10 years’ Baldrige experience.  Examiners represent a broad range of sector and industry expertise.
Baldrige recipients will be announced later this fall/winter and will be recognized at the 2027 Quest for Excellence Conference, hosted by the Baldrige Foundation in Baltimore.
About the Baldrige Award
With the passing of Public Law 100-107, the Baldrige Award was created by Congress in 1987, with the purpose of recognizing and raising the importance of performance excellence in driving the U.S. and global economies; providing assessment tools and criteria; and educating leaders in all types of organizations and communities. The Baldrige Award recognizes the nation’s top-level performers in seven categories: manufacturing, service, small business, healthcare, education, nonprofit, and community. The Baldrige Award is not given for specific products or services, but rather overall organizational or community performance. Since the first Baldrige Award recipients were recognized in 1988, 144 awards have been presented (including 11 two-time award recipients and two three-time award recipients).
In the first year administered by the Alliance, the 2026 Baldrige Award cycle introduces several meaningful enhancements designed to simplify participation, strengthen feedback, and increase value for applicants and examiners. Those changes were announced last March; click here for more information.

To learn more about what Baldrige can do for your business, your organization, and your community, consider attending the 2026 Baldrige Conference – October 12-13 this year in New Orleans (information here).  For more information on the Baldrige Award itself, visit here or to get started on your journey to excellence, find your Alliance member program here.
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