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Forbes
7 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
4 Strategic Imperatives That May Be Lacking In Your Business Strategy
In today's fast-moving business landscape, it can be difficult for leaders to identify and act on their strategic imperatives. Nevertheless, they should understand the strategic priorities that will determine future organizational success – as well as how these are likely to evolve – so they can keep pace with both customers and competitors. Here are four areas that leaders may be currently overlooking in their strategy, but which are critical considerations in the current business climate: 1. Using AI to challenge routine ways of working Such is the hype around artificial intelligence (AI) that most leaders would say it's impossible to not have it on their radar. But if they are to capitalize on the full potential of AI, leaders must actively challenge existing ways of working to boost productivity. 'Providing access to AI tools isn't enough to achieve this,' explains Sebastien Kirk, CEO and co-founder of AI-powered sustainability platform GaiaLens. 'Instead, the strategic imperative for leaders is fostering a culture that truly integrates AI tools into daily workflows to drive efficiency at every level of the business.' Kirk argues that the organizations that truly lead in AI will be those that not only encourage their people to use new solutions but expect them to adopt AI-first habits every day. He suggests that employees 'should consult a GenAI chatbot before emailing a colleague or searching online, implementing AI-powered tools as their starting point'. As AI technology matures, leaders will have an ever-improving resource at their fingertips, one that their employees can continually learn from, according to Kirk. 'As leaders consider their business strategies, offering the right skills training – coupled with hands-on use of AI – provides the best opportunities for upskilling among staff,' he explains. 'This leads to AI proficiency and will drive efficiencies, empowering employees to focus on higher-value, more strategic activities.' 2. Safeguarding trust as the true business currency Building customer, investor and employee trust should be a major priority for leaders, according to Rene-Sylvain Bédard, author of Secure By Design and founder of security service provider Indominus Managed Security. What's more, a commitment to trust should be embedded across all facets of business strategy. 'Trust can't be taken for granted,' argues Bédard. 'It's the true currency of every business.' He points out that once trust is lost, it can be very difficult, or even impossible, to regain it. For example, the ripple effects of a cyber breach or widespread online criticism can be far-reaching. 'Immediate damage may materialize through outage to key services or public backlash, but it's the loss of trust that causes long-term damage to the foundations of a business,' Bédard maintains. Bédard says that trust management, as a strategic priority, means adopting approved modes of operation across communication, cybersecurity and beyond, woven into every aspect of the business so that it's protected against external threats and shocks. 'Too often, leaders neglect the fact that trust is a deliberate choice, something that is earned and not automatically present,' he says. 'Companies must be managing and investing in that trust across the entire business, as without it, they will struggle to survive.' 3. Strengthening talent strategy In the face of budget constraints, talent poaching and skills shortages, companies must step up their efforts to attract and retain top talent if they want to remain competitive, argues Serena Palmer, executive coach, talent strategist, and founder of Serena Consulting. Palmer says that when faced with employee turnover, companies too often default to recruiting externally instead of nurturing existing talent. 'This missed opportunity undermines retention and stalls talent progression,' she explains. 'To stay ahead, businesses need a talent strategy that both identifies future needs and invests in developing current employees.' A positive employee experience creates an attractive company, according to Palmer. She recommends providing employees with growth-focused conversations, bite-sized learning opportunities, and clear, accessible career progression. This not only boosts engagement but also builds a culture that retains and attracts top talent – essential for organizational success. 'When you are attracting talent, it's all about the human element,' Palmer points out. 'Top candidates are drawn to companies that align with their values, offer clear growth opportunities and foster a sense of belonging. Sharing authentic employee experiences reflects a culture that values internal development, which enhances both retention and reputation. Continuous talent development should be part of the culture, not an annual box-ticking exercise.' 4. Building risk intelligence Amid global geopolitical turmoil, cyberattacks and the rise of widespread misinformation, leaders should not underestimate the significance of risk intelligence as a strategic imperative. 'These events have the power to completely disrupt your business,' says Paulo Cardoso do Amaral, author of Business Warfare. 'Yet too many organizations remain passive and reactive in the face of risk or changing circumstances.' To build risk intelligence, Amaral recommends that leaders start with an assessment of 'tactical weaknesses'. These could be any situation or condition that could be exploited by others for reasons such as overconfidence, a lack of preparedness or a lack of adaptability. They should then establish alerts linked to events that could trigger such vulnerabilities. 'The format of these 'alerts' will depend on your strategic priorities and the signals you are looking for within emerging events,' Amaral explains. 'The leadership team must be responsible for proactively selecting the right sources to monitor for those particular signals. For example, an automated online search agent could flag a price change in a competitor's offerings, or an external consultant could compile reports on potential shifts in business or political dynamics.' Finally, leaders need to cultivate tactical agility to respond swiftly and effectively to the threats they face. 'Companies must understand their operating context as it changes, being able to ascertain potential threats, spot opportunities and remain adaptable,' notes Amaral. 'This level of intelligence must be baked into the organization at a strategic level.' Strategic imperatives While the strategic imperatives outlined above are relevant across sectors, organizations are also likely to have other strategic imperatives that are specifically relevant to the sectors and markets where they operate. Leaders will need a plan for identifying and responding to all these imperatives – a challenge that will be made harder if they are operating with squeezed budgets and stretched resources. It is therefore critical that leaders deliberately carve out some time to think about their organization's strategic imperatives, and their desired response, so they can set it on course for future success.
Forbes
30-07-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Three Steps To Empower Organizational Agility
Elaine Pulakos, Ph.D., is CEO of PDRI by Pearson, and an internationally recognized contributor to the field of I/O psychology. In today's volatile business landscape, organizational agility has become essential. In the first part of this series, I outlined the six critical traits an employee needs for agility: resilience, creative problem-solving, adaptability, continuous learning, interpersonal savvy and cultural versatility. However, even when an organization hires the nimblest employees, this alone is insufficient to develop agility within teams and organizations. Contrary to popular belief, agility doesn't emerge from chaos. Rather, agility thrives only when certain organizational conditions exist to support it. This was the key finding from the Agility Project, which my colleagues and I published in Consulting Psychology Journal in 2019. We studied 300 companies globally, large and small, in the public and private sectors, across a broad spectrum of industries. The Agility Project found that agile organizations do things differently from others, and the benefits are substantial. For instance, we found that agile organizations achieved a 150% higher return on invested capital and a 500% higher return on equity. Three conditions rise above the rest as essential for building agility: creating stability, rightsizing teamwork and empowering self-correcting teams. 1. Creating Stability The most important—and paradoxical—condition for agility is stability. Teams and organizations simply cannot be agile if they are not stable first. Leaders build stability by doing five essential things: When priorities shift weekly or remain ambiguous, employees waste valuable time working to determine what matters most. Effective leaders articulate business priorities clearly and reinforce them consistently, which enables teams to make rapid, aligned decisions when responding to change. Leaders must systematically identify and eliminate obstacles that prevent employees from getting things done. Examples include outdated tools that force employees to devote mental energy to navigating systems rather than accomplishing work and overly complex processes that create friction and slow response times. How organizations handle failure dramatically affects agility. When employees fear punishment for unsuccessful initiatives, innovation stagnates because everyone is afraid to take even reasonable risks. Forward-thinking leaders look for opportunities in failure and treat these as essential components of agility. This doesn't mean denying reality. In fact, dishonest positivity breeds cynicism that undermines trust. The best approach is to transparently acknowledge difficulties while focusing on pathways forward. This helps maintain morale while harnessing the organization's problem-solving energy. Amid economic headwinds, organizations often cut staff without fully considering the impacts on those remaining and how destabilizing this can be. It is important to balance the resources with the work requirements. Otherwise, people get burned out and mistakes occur, which undermines agility. 2. Rightsizing Teamwork The second important condition for agility is rightsizing teamwork. Instead of assuming that teamwork is always good, the most agile organizations approach teamwork more judiciously by following three principles: This means carefully considering how much and what type of collaboration is optimal for the team's work. Some tasks require nothing more than doing a piece of work independently and handing it off to the next person. Other tasks require people with different skills, such as a critical care team, to coordinate extensively with each other and adjust together to provide optimal care. Defining what teamwork means in each situation helps avoid overdoing it. This starts with valuing people's time and is accomplished by keeping meetings small and purpose-driven, cutting unnecessary rules and tasks and streamlining decision-making by letting individuals or majorities decide when appropriate. Teams should regularly review how they work to ensure it's efficient and adjust as needed. In times of rapid change, team members must be empowered to manage collaboration wisely. This is accomplished by giving people permission to say no to unnecessary teamwork, prioritize enough individual focus time and be intentional about whether meetings are truly needed. Leaders model this kind of efficient collaboration by setting clear meeting goals, encouraging opt-outs when contributions aren't needed and ending meetings early when possible. 3. Empowering Self-Correcting Teams The most agile organizations have cultures in which people feel encouraged and secure enough to raise performance issues when they occur and to work together with team members to quickly resolve them, without finger-pointing or blame. These self-correcting teams are built by doing three things: Teams thrive when they're empowered to openly address what's not working, supported by leaders who foster trust and psychological safety. This requires understanding people's natural defensive reactions when things go wrong and encouraging problem-solving rather than unproductive blame. Leaders enable this by modeling constructive responses to issues, listening openly to concerns and creating a culture where raising issues is valued and rewarded. Tracking clear, objective metrics helps teams spot issues early, reduce emotional reactions and focus on problem-solving. The right metrics—simple, shared and tied to both processes and outcomes—enable real-time insight and keep teams aligned and proactive about what is working and what isn't. The complexity of work today often leads to misdiagnosing issues by jumping to quick, surface-level conclusions and missing root causes. Slowing down and using structured methods like the "Five Whys" helps teams identify root causes of issues. Leaders can support this by encouraging deeper analysis and leveraging tools that support continuous improvement. The Leadership Imperative Agility is vital for organizational survival in uncertain times like these. And while it's critical to hire employees with the traits that confer agility, ultimately, it's management practices that determine whether this potential is realized to create agile, high-performing teams and organizations. Companies need to train their leaders to build the conditions for agility: creating stability, rightsizing teamwork and empowering self-correcting teams. Leaders who focus on these things will create environments where agility can flourish, transforming uncertainty from a threat into a competitive advantage. Forbes Human Resources Council is an invitation-only organization for HR executives across all industries. Do I qualify?
