STRATEGYCOACHING 193
what and why, where skeletons are hidden and where opportunities are wait-
ing, as well as which ideas are part of the organizational politics and which
are being put for ward as genuine strategic opportunities. There is a lot of
noise over whelming nuggets of opportunity.
The CEO must build momentum for the future direction of the company
without killing the natives or going native himself. During this phase, strat-
egy coaching and personal effectiveness coachingbecome very intertwined.
Having a strategic point of view allows the CEO to work deftly with his or
her leadership team, asking discerning questions, listening in a nuanced way,
and challenging assumptions without necessarily threatening the people af-
fected by those beliefs. It is, after all, very difficult for people to question
the ideas that made them successful. Nor do senior managers rush to tell the
CEO, “If I were you, I’d shut down my business.” The coach helps the CEO
develop processes that allow people to begin changing their own dominant
logic as a means of coming on board.
Strategy, at best, is nothing more than a coalition of the powerful and the
willing who all share a point of view on how to compete. Building that coali-
tion requires a great deal of personal effectiveness. But personal effective-
ness without strategic understanding does not create value for shareholders.
Deploying the Strategy
Within six months, the typical honeymoon period, the CEO must build a co-
herent theory on how to compete and create a consensus with senior leaders
and managers who now form the coalition of the able and willing. That con-
sensus—the corporate strategy—must then be translated into divisional and
business unit strategies. The concepts must be deployed throughout the or-
ganization and made operational at all levels.
During this phase, coaching for strategy and coaching for organizational
changecome together. Tactics are needed for deploying the strategy and
making it real. What are the implications of the strategy to individual divi-
sions and individual managers, all the way up and down the system? Eventu-
ally, all individuals need to make sense of what the strategy means to them
within the context of the overall scheme.
Creating Vitality
An organization is energized when its people are empowered and au-
tonomous within the broad framework of where the company is going. Dur-
ing the vitality phase of strategy deployment, the organization attains the