Psst….
Remember that whispering game from back in the day? The whole class sat in a circle. The first child was whispered a sentence from the master or teacher and had to pass it on. That's how it went all round. With the last child, nothing of the original sentence made sense. Hilarity everywhere! A variant of this game is with gestures. There are many examples on Youtube. Take this one for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDo7R-9EYfk
These are the gestures one starts with:
The person at the beginning of the row is shown gestures of starting an engine and then riding it for a while. At the end of the row nothing of this remains (for those who are impatient: here the result https://youtu.be/zDo7R-9EYfk?t=214).
Why is the entire message lost? Two reasons:
Not the meaning, but the form is central
The game is actually very simple. You just have to imitate the gestures of your predecessor. That's the instruction. The result is that people only look at those gestures, the form. However, if you really look, you see what is portrayed. You see the meaning of the gestures. And when you see the meaning, the gestures may change, but the message remains the same.
complacency
The second reason is that people take it way too lightly. They don't look closely enough and then they don't imitate the gestures very precisely. The result is a chain of small changes, which together lead to a huge change. The game is simple, but if you play it easy, hilarity and chaos are the result. Fun as a group activity, but less fun if the message is very serious.
The lessons for communicating vision and strategy
The whisper game is played regularly in many organizations. A strategy is developed at the top, which is then implemented in the organization. Department and team plans are made based on the organizational strategy. But often very little remains of the promising strategy in the workplace. So what can we learn from the whispering game?
Consistency between plans: departments contribute to the whole
Focus on the meaning
Far too often, even those directly involved do not know exactly what the strategic plans mean. What exactly do we want to achieve? What choices do we make to achieve that? If you do not have the content sharp with each other (if you do not know that you are going to ride a motorcycle), this will never become clear to others. So always translate a beautifully expressed objective into concrete and measurable goals. For strategies, consider which concrete (interim) results they should deliver. This way everyone has the same idea of what you want to achieve. Departments and teams then consider how they can best contribute to this.
Make sure you formulate very precisely
Step 2 is to formulate the plan very precisely. Don't be complacent. Do not assume that the formulations of strategies and actions are clear, that someone else knows what you mean. Small differences in interpretation can lead to a completely different story with a few links. Check carefully that formulations are not multi-interpretable and that what you write is exactly what you mean.
Start the conversation with each other
Ultimately, of course, more dialogue is the best solution to the whisper game. Ensure as few long chains as possible in your organization, but start the conversation with each other. Not only in the creation of strategic plans, but also in the execution: What have we done? What are the results? What do we think of that? What does that mean for our plan?
Do not stand in a line, but stand in a circle, then everyone will immediately see that it is about motorcycling.