The organization had real execution strength, and leadership had recently started thinking of itself as running several distinct businesses rather than one. What it didn't have was agreement on what those businesses actually were, how each created value, or which one deserved growth first. A prior engagement with an outside firm had named five businesses and stopped there, leaving leadership with a list but no way to act on it. The gap wasn't a shortage of ideas about where to grow. It was the absence of a shared basis for choosing between them.
Case Study
From fast execution to strategy the organization could actually run.
This financial services organization had strong execution but no shared clarity on the five distinct businesses it was running. We helped leadership build a strategy for each one, and the internal capability to keep running the process without us.
Engagement at-a-glance
Industry:
Financial Services and Insurance
Organization size:
~ 1,500 employees
Services:
Strategy Creation
Office of Strategy Management
Facilitation & Experience Design
Office of Strategy Management
Facilitation & Experience Design
The Challenge
Execution wasn’t the problem. Direction was.
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Five businesses with no shared definition
Leadership had begun describing itself as operating multiple distinct businesses, but that framing hadn't moved past conversation. There was no agreement on what each business was for, how it created value, or how it connected to the others. A previous consulting engagement had identified the five businesses by name and left it there.
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Growth risk outpacing operational readiness
Leadership had specifically identified the risk of pushing growth through the organization's banking business before the rest of the organization was ready to support it. Left unaddressed, that kind of misaligned growth push risked straining operational capacity and morale in parts of the business that had nothing to do with the decision.
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No mechanism connecting strategy to execution
Enterprise and functional strategy work already existed, but nothing tied those layers to business unit level decisions or measured whether the organization was actually moving on them. Without that connective structure, strategic intent had nowhere to land before execution took over.
Our Approach
Slowing leadership down before building anything.
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1
Assessed strategic maturity across each business
Ran a structured business maturity assessment and interviews across leadership, division heads, and managers to understand where each of the five businesses actually stood and where shared understanding was missing.
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2
Facilitated five parallel business unit strategies
Led 26 leadership sessions, including a multi-day executive retreat, using hypothesis-driven strategy development to build each business's strategy from evidence rather than assumption.
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3
Connected each strategy to a shared enterprise framework
Applied a strategy pyramid to link enterprise, business unit, and functional strategy, and introduced objectives and key results as the mechanism for measuring progress in place of traditional KPIs.
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4
Built and handed off an Office of Strategy Management
Developed an Office of Strategy Management playbook and worked in parallel with the client's own strategy team so the function was staffed and operating internally before the engagement ended.
Value Delivered
A working strategy system, not a one-time exercise.
Five business unit strategies built where none existed
Each of the five businesses now has a defined strategy grounded in evidence rather than assumption, replacing a list of business names with an actual direction for each one.
OKRs replacing KPIs as how progress gets measured
The organization adopted objectives and key results as its measurement approach, giving leadership a way to track strategic progress rather than only operational output.
An Office of Strategy Management operating inside the organization
The strategy function is staffed and run by the client's own team, continuing to guide business unit strategy after the engagement ended rather than depending on outside support.
A leadership team able to have the harder conversations
The Executive Leadership Team's ability to work through contentious decisions together improved, with leaders reporting more trust and cohesion as a group.
Results that reflect the work behind them.
5
Business unit strategies developed and delivered
26
Leadership sessions facilitated, including a multi-day executive retreat
10 months
From engagement kickoff to five completed business unit strategies
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Work With Us
The firms that move fastest don’t wait for clarity. They create it.
We help leadership teams cut their ambiguity, align around what matters, and build the momentum to transform their business.