Page 64 - HBR Leader's Handbook: Make an Impact, Inspire Your Organization, and Get to the Next Level

54 HBR Leader’s Handbook

and other relevant players in the external environment. (You’ll
have to balance the risk of potential competitors being alerted to
your ideas through such external discussions with the benefit of
gaining valuable input.)
At PBS, Kerger coached Rotenberg that the strategy, though
ultimately aimed at children and parent viewers, would have to be
built by—and ultimately be embraced by—both the broader orga-
nization of PBS and the leaders of the network’s local stations.

• Scope, constraints, and potential implementation implications.
What arenas and unit of analysis must the strategy be situated
within? (That is, is the strategy for a particular business unit,
initiative, or a broader part of the enterprise?) Are there limits or
boundaries to what can be pursued from the outset? If the strategy
is accepted, what ripple effects will follow? What are the implica-
tions for other corporate units? Customers? Brand identity?
And so on.
At PBS, the new channel began as a service strategy within
the children’s educational unit, but as it evolved, it touched most
other parts of the organization. From the start, it was always seen
as supporting the broader vision of the network. At the same time,
Kerger imposed important constraints on the level of investment
that would be available for the new service.

• Participants, engagement, deliverables. What kind of team
will work to create the strategy? How will its members work with
one another and the broader universe of stakeholders? Will there
be off-sites, virtual meetings, multiple strategic planning ses-
sions? How many, when, and so on? And what final form will the
strategy take?

The creation of any strategy demands finding the right balance be-
tween involving key stakeholders and experts in the problem solving but
also keeping the effort small enough to remain nimble and practical. The
best projects, as the PBS team represented, are a hybrid: organized as a