Why Organisations Drift

Organisations rarely lose direction because of one big decision. More often, strategy and reality simply move apart.

Most organisations have a strategy.

There will be priorities, objectives, investment plans and probably a fairly clear idea of where the organisation wants to be in three or five years.

And yet, a few years later, things can look surprisingly different.

Not necessarily because the strategy was wrong. And not because somebody made a terrible decision.

More often, the organisation has simply drifted.

Drift happens gradually

Organisational drift is rarely dramatic.

A new opportunity appears. Funding becomes available. A project is approved. A new technology is introduced. A senior leader leaves. A new partner comes along. A department solves an immediate problem.

Individually, each decision can be entirely reasonable.

But organisations make hundreds of these decisions.

And when those decisions aren't continually connected back to the bigger picture, something interesting happens.

The organisation being built starts to become different from the organisation described in the strategy.

The problem isn't necessarily the individual decisions. It's the space between them.

Strategy has to survive reality

Creating a strategy is relatively straightforward compared with delivering one.

Once implementation begins, strategy encounters reality.

Budgets change. Funding comes with conditions. Procurement influences what can be bought. Technology evolves. People have different priorities. Buildings impose constraints. Partners bring their own objectives. Operational pressures demand attention.

Compromise is inevitable.

In fact, compromise is often sensible.

The danger comes when a series of perfectly understandable compromises gradually changes the original objective without anyone consciously deciding that it should change.

• A project becomes about spending the available budget.

• A new learning environment becomes about selecting equipment.

• A partnership becomes about satisfying the individual organisations involved.

• A digital programme becomes a collection of technology projects.

• Activity continues. Things get delivered.

But the connection to the original purpose becomes weaker.

Activity can disguise drift

This is perhaps the most difficult part.

An organisation that is drifting doesn't necessarily look unsuccessful.

It can be extremely busy.

Projects are running. Meetings are happening. Procurement is progressing. New systems are being introduced. Partnerships are being announced. Buildings are being refurbished.

There is plenty of activity.

But activity and progress aren't the same thing.

A useful question is:

If we successfully deliver everything we're currently working on, will it actually take us where we said we wanted to go?

The answer isn't always as obvious as it should be.

Alignment isn't a one-off exercise

Organisations spend considerable time developing strategies, but often much less time checking whether subsequent decisions remain aligned with them.

That matters because alignment isn't something that happens once.

It needs to be revisited.

Not through another lengthy strategy exercise, but through regular moments where the organisation reconnects the pieces.

• What are we trying to achieve?

• Has that changed?

• Do our current investments support it?

• Do our spaces and technology enable it?

• Are the right people and partners involved?

• Are individual projects contributing to the same direction?

• And, perhaps most importantly, would we make the same decisions today if we started again?

Those conversations can expose drift surprisingly quickly.

Sometimes the answer isn't another strategy

When organisations recognise that things have become disconnected, the instinct can be to commission another strategy.

Sometimes that's necessary.

Often it isn't.

The organisation may already know where it wants to go. What's missing is the connection between that ambition and the decisions being made around it.

In those situations, the more valuable exercise can be to bring the pieces back together.

• Strategy.

• People.

• Investment.

• Spaces.

• Technology.

• Partners.

• Delivery.

Look at them as one system rather than a collection of separate projects.

That can reveal duplication, gaps, conflicting priorities and opportunities that are difficult to see when each initiative is considered independently.

Drift isn't failure

No strategy survives contact with reality completely unchanged.

Nor should it.

Organisations learn. Markets change. Technology develops. New opportunities emerge. Priorities evolve.

Changing direction deliberately can be exactly the right thing to do.

Drift is different.

Drift is when the direction changes without anyone really deciding that it should.

The strongest organisations aren't necessarily those that never drift.

They're the ones that notice when it's happening.

Because strategy isn't just about deciding where you want to go.

It's about making sure the decisions you make along the way are still taking you there.