258. Beyond the Boardroom: Creating Strategy Through Co-Creation with Mick Spiers

Have you ever wondered why brilliant strategies often fail to deliver results? The answer might lie not in the strategy itself, but in how it's created and communicated throughout your organization.

When frontline employees don't understand why they're doing their daily tasks or how those tasks connect to the bigger picture, even the most brilliant strategic plan will falter. This reflective episode explores the concept of "humanized strategy" – a transformative approach championed by Britt Hogue, founder of The Collective Good.

Strategy with a soul isn't about replacing logic with emotion; it's about integrating human experience into how we craft, communicate, and live our strategic direction. Rather than a static blueprint delivered from the boardroom, truly effective strategy emerges as a co-created dialogue that resonates throughout the organization. As Mick explains, "When people are part of creating something, they own it, they connect with it, they find their place in it, and they align their own purpose with the broader mission."

The episode unpacks three powerful insights: First, strategy should be something you invite people into rather than something you merely present. Second, strategic listening goes beyond words to understand body language, energy, and what's being said in silence. Third, organizational healing is often a necessary precursor to strategic clarity, as unresolved wounds and broken trust create barriers to alignment.

What makes a strategy truly great? It includes clear impact on the world, articulates what you will and won't do, remains dynamic yet resilient, aligns macro and micro purpose, and most importantly – resonates on a human level. When strategy speaks to both head and heart, it becomes something everyone can believe in and work toward with genuine commitment.

Ready to transform how your organization approaches strategy? Listen now to discover how bringing more listening, trust, and humanity into your strategic process can create alignment that powers breakthrough results. Because when strategy is built with people, not just for people, the impossible becomes possible.

Chapters

• 0:00 Questioning Traditional Strategy
• 1:20 Introduction to Humanized Strategy
• 2:08 Purpose Alignment: Macro to Micro
• 3:34 The Collective Good Approach
• 4:53 Key Takeaways from Britt's Method
• 6:33 What Makes Strategy Truly Great
• 8:31 Upcoming Episode Preview

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

What if the people doing the work every day don't understand why they're doing it? What if the organisation's strategy feels distant, even irrelevant, to those on the front line? And what would change if we invited everyone into the conversation about where we're going and why? Today's episode is going to be a solo cast where I reflect on the wonderful conversation with Britt Hoag, founder of the collective good and champion of a concept she calls humanised strategy. Welcome back to the Leadership Project. I'm your host, mick Spears.

Speaker 1: 0:37

Today we reflect on the wonderful conversation with Britt Hoag about humanised strategy. With Britt Hogue about humanised strategy, let me ask you something. When you hear the word strategy, what comes to mind? For most? It's numbers, data plans, powerpoint slides, forecasts, a vision crafted in the boardroom, pushed from the top and measured in quarterly targets. But Britt invites us to ask what if strategy could feel different? What if it was grounded in human experience, not just business objectives? She calls this humanized strategy. I call it strategy with a soul and I believe it might be one of the most important shifts we can make as leaders today. So what is humanized strategy? Humanized strategy is not about replacing logic with emotion. It's about integrating the human element into how we craft, communicate and live our strategy. Britt shared that strategy should not be a static blueprint. It should be a living, breathing dialogue, a co-creation, a shared story that lives not just in the heads of executives but in the hearts of every person across the organization. In humanized strategy, listening matters more than talking. Curiosity is more powerful than control, and alignment comes from meaning, not mandates.

Speaker 1: 2:05

One issue I see in many organisations is that people on the front line feel completely disconnected from the strategy. They're told what the strategy is, but they don't understand it. Worse still, they can't connect it to their daily work. A great strategy should have purpose alignment. That means clarity, not just at the organizational level, but all the way down to the task level. It should include macro-wise what's the purpose of this organization? What's the purpose and mission of the team that I'm in? And then through to micro-wise why am I doing this task today? What's it connected to? How does it help the strategy? Does it help someone else to do their part as part of the bigger picture, and what's the rationale behind the decisions that affect me? And there's an interesting thing here People will do almost any ethical task that there has to do and they'll accept almost any decision that's made, if they understand why they're doing that task and they understand the rationale behind that decision. The disconnect can be addressed through Britt's brilliant approach of inviting people to co-create the strategy, because when people are part of creating something, they own it, they connect with it, they find their place in it and they align their own purpose with the broader mission. That's strategy with a soul.

Speaker 1: 3:38

So what is this collective good that Britt talks about? What stood out to me about Britt's journey is why she left the corporate world. She didn't walk away from strategy. She brought it with her, but she brought it to a different kind of table With the collective good. Britt now partners with organizations that are focused on societal impact social enterprises, non-profits, purpose-led businesses and what she found is that these organizations need strategy just as much as corporations do. But the strategy has to fit. It can't be imposed, it has to emerge.

Speaker 1: 4:16

Now here's what I love. The name, the collective good, carries a double meaning. Yes, it refers to the work being done being for the collective good of society, but it also speaks to the collective of people who come together, bringing complementary talents, ideas and experiences, to co-create something greater than any of the individuals could have achieved alone. That's the essence of leadership. That's the essence of strategy with a soul, bringing people together for a greater good. So what are the key takeaways from Brit? Strategy isn't something you present. It's something you invite. You don't reveal strategy like a magician pulling back the curtain. You convene it, you co-create it, because people are far more committed to what they helped build.

Speaker 1: 5:11

Number two listening is strategic. Brit said something that really landed. We need to listen beyond words, to body language, energy, what's being said in silence. As leaders, our presence, our ability to slow down and really listen can shift the entire strategic direction of a team or organization. Number three healing and strategy are connected. This was interesting this might be the deepest insight Britt shared that many organizations are carrying invisible wounds, old patterns, unspoken pain, broken trust. You can't build clear, aligned strategy on top of a disconnected culture. Healing is not separate from strategic clarity. It's a precursor to it. Have got a history, you've got baggage, you've got some damage there in the organization. This deep listening work will be a way to uncover some of those issues and to fix them once and for all through this co-creation, through this inclusion, through inviting people to the table, and you'll be addressing things that have been holding the organization back, that you didn't even know about.

Speaker 1: 6:30

Now, as we land the plan, let's think about this what makes a great strategy? Let's zoom out for a moment. What are the essentials of a great strategy? A truly great strategy includes its impact on the world. How will we leave things better than we found them? It has a clear purpose and vision. What are we trying to achieve and why does it matter? It states what we will do and, equally, what will we not do. Which markets, which geographies, which domains will we serve and which ones won't we serve? A great strategy is dynamic enough to adapt in a rapidly changing world, but resilient enough to stay the course when it matters. This means small, frequent pivots, not massive course corrections that leave people confused.

Speaker 1: 7:22

A great strategy is co-created, so it's owned and embodied across the organization, not just understood by the executive team, and it aligns this macro and micro purpose that I speak about helping every purpose know how their individual work contributes to the bigger picture. And, above all, it resonates on a human level. It speaks to the heart, not just the head. Britt's message is clear Strategy doesn't need to lose its edge to find its soul. It can be rigorous and relational, bold and compassionate. So here's my challenge to you for this week Take a look at the strategies you're building or living and ask yourself where is the soul in this strategy, who helped shape it and how might we bring more listening, more trust and more humanity into the process? Because when strategy is built with people, not just for people, it becomes something we can all believe in. All right, that's it for today's episode.

Speaker 1: 8:31

In the next episode, I'm going to be joined by the amazing Henrik Bresman, professor of Organizational Behavior at INSEAD and a board member and advisor, keynote speaker and co-author of the top-selling book X Teams. And X Teams starts looking at our organization, as to whether we're very inwardly focused or are we outwardly focused, and there's lots of powerful takeaways in this amazing conversation with Henrik. Please join us for this. It's going to be game-changing for you. Thank you for listening to the Leadership Project at mickspearscom. A huge call-out to Faris Sadek for his video editing of all of our video content and to all of the team at TLP Joanne Goes On, gerald Calabo and my amazing wife Say Spears. I could not do this show without you. Don't forget to subscribe to the Leadership Project YouTube channel where we bring you interesting videos each and every week, and you can follow us on social, particularly on LinkedIn, facebook and Instagram. Now, in the meantime, please do take care, look out for each other and join us on this journey, as we learn together and lead together.