How mature is your organization’s strategy management system?
In an era marked by volatility, uncertainty, and rapid disruption, many organizations invest heavily in strategic planning without taking the time to understand their true strategic maturity. The result? Plans that look strong on paper but lack the organizational capabilities, rhythms, and discipline required to execute effectively. Most organizations think they are strategic, but our experience indicates otherwise. Consider:
- Does your organization have a plan, yet still operates in a reactive mode?
- Does your team value strategy, yet struggles to prioritize initiatives or align around shared strategic direction?
- Do your leaders talk about vision, and yet constantly get pulled back into operational firefighting?
If you want your strategy to drive performance, it may be time to assess your organization’s strategic maturity. Many organizations don’t need a new strategic plan; they need a more mature strategic management system.
Strategically mature organizations understand competency builds capability, capability enables process, and process delivers performance.
Why Strategic Maturity Matters More Than Ever
At LBL Strategies, our perspective on managing strategic performance in turbulent times is clear, strategic management and performance is driven by the overall strategy management maturity of the leadership. Process matters. Tools matter. Frameworks matter. But process alone will not make you strategic. To deliver results consistently, through change, disruption, and uncertainty, organizations must build the strategy management capabilities and competencies that enable future-oriented decision-making, disciplined implementation, and rapid agility. This is where your leadership team’s strategic maturity makes all the difference.
High-maturity organizations have:
- Stronger strategy discipline
- Better scenario planning capability
- Robust and ongoing risk assessment
- Clear alignment across teams and functions
- A shared language for strategy, learning, and continuous improvement
- The agility to respond to, and capitalize on, change.
Low-maturity organizations often have the opposite: chasing every new shiny object, fragmented initiatives, unclear priorities, stalled execution, and inconsistent results.
Navigating turbulent times requires more than process, it requires mature strategic agility. High-maturity organizations build rhythms, data systems, and leadership habits that allow them to adapt quickly while staying aligned to core purpose.
The Building Blocks of Strategic Maturity
To elevate strategic maturity, leaders must focus not only on process but also on the deeper organizational capabilities that power strategy execution. As competency increases, capabilities grow which strengthens an organization’s capacity to take advantage of the process. Strategic maturity grows through three interconnected layers:
- Strategic Planning and Management Competencies (the foundation). These are the essential skills and behaviors that leaders and strategy teams must possess.
- Capabilities (the engine). These are the collective strengths that allow an organization to execute strategy consistently and effectively.
- Process (the structure). These are the systems, tools, and methods (including strategic planning, reviews, performance scorecards, initiative management, alignment) that provide rhythm and discipline.
Many organizations jump straight to process (annual planning, SWOTs, KPIs) without strengthening the competencies and capabilities that make those processes truly effective.
The 10 Core Strategy Management Team Competencies
The following ten competencies form the foundation of strategy management maturity, and represent the DNA of a high-performing strategy management team:
- Strategic Thinking - Does your leadership team think strategically and guide teams to become strategy-focused?
- Culture & Values – Do your leaders identify, articulate, cultivate, and live out a core set of shared organizational values?
- External Analysis – Does leadership convert environmental scanning into actionable strategic intelligence?
- Core Competency – Do leaders understand which organizational capabilities create the most value for customers, and how to leverage them toward new opportunities?
- Strategic Direction – Do leaders share a defined purpose and compelling desired future state?
- Strategy & Objective Setting – Do leaders effectively evaluate alternatives, select strategic priorities, and craft meaningful outcomes?
- Performance Measures – Does leadership utilize ongoing strategic metrics with targets to guide decision-making?
- Initiative Prioritization – Can leaders apply a disciplined approach to selecting and resourcing initiatives.
- Execution & Alignment – Do leaders monitor ongoing strategic implementation throughout the organization?
- Teamwork & Team Building – Does leadership foster collaboration, alignment, and a culture of shared accountability?
Want a Quick Snapshot of Your Maturity Level? Start Here.
Before you improve, you must understand where you stand today. Take our free 5-minute Strategy Management Team Competency Assessment:
www.research.net/r/StrategyManagementCompetencyAssessment
You’ll receive immediate insight into strengths, gaps, and opportunities for improvement.
Ready to Elevate Your Leadership Team’s Strategic Maturity?
If you’re serious about elevating your organization’s strategic maturity, and strengthening your team’s abilities in environmental assessment, scenario planning, setting strategic direction, identifying and leveraging core competency, strategic planning, execution of your business strategy—then the next step is clear: Enroll in LBL Strategies’ Mastering Strategy 10-Week Live Online Program.
Mastering Strategy: Strategic Planning & Management Certification Program
This comprehensive course on the discipline of strategic planning and management helps leaders:
- Build the competencies that drive strategic maturity
- Strengthen organizational capabilities
- Apply proven strategy management tools and frameworks in real-time
- Develop strategic agility to navigate turbulence
- Enhance credibility by earning professional and/or university certification in strategic planning and management
- Build a repeatable, enterprise-wide strategic management system
- Improve strategic maturity enhancing every dimension of your business strategy, from scenario planning and risk assessment to clarifying KRA meaning (Key Result Areas) that drive organizational performance
Your organization can thrive, even in turbulent times, if leaders grow the maturity needed to think, plan, and act strategically. Again: Competency builds capability. Capability enables process. Process delivers performance.
Start today:
✔ Take the free maturity assessment
✔ Enroll in Mastering Strategy 10-week live online
✔ Begin building a truly strategy-focused organization