The Playbook Problem: Turning Strategy into a System that Works

Chris Homa

I read an interesting thought posted on Twitter by a football coach over the weekend.  He said, “most playbooks don’t fail because of the scheme.  They fail because they’re built like a buffet instead of a system.” 

During my almost 12 years at Red Rock Strategic Partners, we’ve reviewed dozens of playbooks our clients have shared with us on everything from operations to sales to professional development. This quote rings true for over 90% of them. 

A tremendous amount of time, effort, and resources are spent creating these playbooks. While one or two of the plays within are undoubtedly run successfully, they tend to end up on a shelf or in a file cabinet collecting dust as time goes by. 

In our experience helping financial services firms execute their most vital strategic initiatives to drive results, we have observed 4 common missteps when it comes to the utilization of playbooks:

1. Are the plays aligned with the system?  Most playbooks start with a review of mission, vision, and values.  However, they rarely explain how the execution plan aligns with these principles. It’s been 16 years since Simon Sinek told us to Start with Why, yet much of the collateral created to execute important strategic initiatives still lacks the why.

   
   

2. What truly enables the play to be run properly and repeatably?  For most strategic initiatives there is a catalyst that enables successful implementation.  Your playbook needs to leave no doubt about what the catalyst is, whether it's technology, product, service, or people. The prioritization often gets lost, especially the more complex the play gets.

   
   

3. How do we know the play is working?  Anyone who has ever played a sport understands you get instant feedback about whether what you are doing is working.  While playbooks often describe the desired results, they often do not focus enough on how to capture the information that will lead to those results.  You must mandate data capture in no uncertain terms.

   
   

4. How do we adjust when the play is not working?  Most playbooks are a one and done undertaking.  Whether you are having success or not, you must identify issues, adjust the execution where necessary, and update the playbook to reflect learning.  A playbook is a point in time, running the play is dynamic and ever-changing. Make the playbook dynamic as well.

Leaders want to call the game as best they can, teams want to execute plays with precision, and we all want to win in the end.  Playbooks can be a tremendous tool to help accomplish our goal of driving better results, but they need to be written with greater intention and attention paid to the bigger picture.