Turning Tactical Requests Into Visionary Department Plans

Emily shares a story about someone who gave their boss a basic org chart when asked about their department’s future, but missed the bigger picture the boss wanted. She explains how to shift from being just a task-doer to a strategic leader by connecting department changes to the company’s new vision, outlining system upgrades, communication plans, and several org chart options that align with that vision. Emily encourages thinking beyond simple answers and looking for ways to add value at a higher level.

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Who Am I?

If we haven’t yet before - Hi👋 I’m Emily, Chief of Staff turned Executive Leadership Coach. After a thrilling ride up the corporate ladder, I’m focusing on what I love - working with people to realize their professional and personal goals. Through my videos here on this channel, books, podcast guest spots, and newsletter, I share new ideas and practical and tactical tools to help you be more productive and build the career and life you want. 

 

Time Stamps:

00:25 Introduction: From Doer to Strategic Leader
01:53 Understanding the Boss's Request
04:01 Context and Company Background
05:34 Revisiting the Org Chart
06:40 Vision Casting for the Future
09:21 Implementing the Vision
11:44 The Difference Between Tactical and Strategic Thinking
16:31 Encouraging Strategic Leadership
18:29 Conclusion and Takeaways

Episode Transcript

emily-sander_4_08-12-202 (00:25):
Here's an example of going from a
tactical operational doer to ahigh level strategic leader.
So here's the example.
I was speaking with thisindividual, and this individual
had received a request fromtheir boss, and their boss had
said, Hey, so and so, tell mewhat you want your org to look
like.
And so the individual.

(00:45):
Went and prepared a very welldesigned and professional
looking org chart on a slidedeck and gave that back to the
boss.
And from the boss's overallresponse and reaction, it was
clear that that wasn't quitewhat the boss was looking for,
so then this individual and Iwere speaking and it became
apparent that the org chart,while not wrong, was not the

(01:12):
fulsome answer.
The boss was looking for contextfor this.
There were conversations beforeand around this request that
made it apparent that the bosswasn't just asking for an org
chart, so the context and theconversations were this boss
came in and was trying tooverhaul.

(01:35):
This company, because thecompany was kind of archaic, old
processes, old systems, oldtools, stuck in an old mindset,
very reactive.
And this new boss was brought into make this company cutting
edge, to be at the forefront ofthe industry, to incorporate AI
into what they were doing, to bea thought leader and to not be

(01:58):
as reactive.
And so the boss was goingthrough to all the different
main departments and saying.
What do you need to revamp andoverhaul and how, you know, tell
me what you need to get us tothat cutting edge.
And all these very seniorleaders were putting together
proposals and going through allthese different contingency
plans and how this wouldinteract with these teams and

(02:20):
how this would interact with theother players in the market, et
cetera, et cetera.
And so the boss had gone throughtwo main teams before this
individual's team.
And so when they got to thisindividual and said, what do you
want your org to look like?
And the individual gave them anorg chart.
It was kinda like head, headtilt, like, mm, what?

(02:42):
No, no, I, I wanted a bit morefrom that.
So in this individual's mind, itwas, well, what do you want this
org to look like?
In kind of a literal sense washere's the org chart.
I don't really think anythingneeds to change, per se,'cause
it seems to be working okay nowwas kind of the gist and kind of
the sentiment of the answer ofthe response.

(03:05):
And in the discussion with thisindividual, I said, okay, let's
think bigger picture, because Ithink a different question is
being asked here.
I think an org chart is part ofthe answer, but certainly not
the entire answer.
So we talked about.
What is the vision for theoverall company?
This boss has a new vision forthe company, and we talked about

(03:25):
that, which was very well statedin, in presentations, in
different meetings thisindividual had been in.
And so this was pretty, this waspretty, you know, cutting edge
AI thought leadership out in theindustry.
We're responding to ourcustomers in a different way.
We're responding to each otherin a different way.
All these different things thathad been said.
Okay, so the, to the individual,individual, how does your

(03:48):
department feed into thatvision?
What does your department needto do to contribute to that
vision and this specificdepartment?
Had a lot of interaction withthe other teams and they were,
uh, feeding the other teams alot of information and then
asking, receiving a lot ofinformation from the other teams
to assimilate that and producedata sets that the leadership

(04:13):
team and the board could look atthat were useful.
And so this was, this was kindof the behind the scenes machine
that had a lot of valuable inteland information if you collected
and then.
Sliced and diced data indifferent data sets for
different constituents andgroups to take action on.
So this was a very powerfulteam.
If, if it was done right and.

(04:34):
We talked about connecting it tothe overall vision of the
company.
We talked about the interactionthat would be had with the other
teams.
We talked about the, you know,the vision for this department.
What does it look like?
What does it smell like?
What does it, you know, tastelike, all these different
things.
What does it sound like when youwalk through the, this area of
the.

(04:55):
Of the building, what is, whatshould it sound like?
All these different things.
Just to paint the picture here.
And this got us to a more robustand vibrant, okay, here's what
we needed to be.
And I had to nudge this personand kind of pull this out of the
person.
'cause this person had beenthere for quite some time and
they were a little bit stuck inthe old, archaic way of doing

(05:18):
things.
Well Emily, we can't do that.
'cause this is how these teamswork together.
It is now, but in the newvision, what does that look
like?
Uh, you know what, what needs tohappen with this data set?
Well, we can't pull that.
'cause this system's old.
It doesn't do that with thedata.
Okay.
It doesn't do that now.
But how can we do that in thefuture?
If you could do anything withthe data, what would that look

(05:40):
like?
And we went through an exerciseof let's capture what's
happening in the current state,And then let's vision cast the
future state, which I think iswhat the boss is asking around
what's the future state?
What's the ideal state?
If you could have anything foryour department, what would that
be?
Because it's kind of a catalystcarte blanche moment right here.

(06:01):
Maybe not like to, you know,billions of dollars, you know,
to fund your department and allthe changes, but it looks like
there's some fresh blood here.
It looks like there's someopportunities to ask for what
you want.
So create that vision foryourself and for your
department.
And when we did that, then thislarger conversation and this

(06:23):
larger vision, then informed.
Multiple pieces of the answerand of the recommendation back
to the boss.
Some of it was updating systemsand tools like, look, this thing
is old and ancient.
There are dozens of othersystems and software that we
could move to.
It'll take an initiative.
It'll take at least a quarter,if not two, to move all of our

(06:46):
information over to this newone, but it's well worth it.
That's the baseline.
There was talk about, Hey, weneed a communication plan for
this team to be talking to otherteams while we're all moving.
Right?
Everything's moving.
We're all trying to revamp andoverhaul our respective teams
and departments.
We don't want anything to get.
To get dropped.
So an interim communication planwas proposed as well.

(07:09):
So like let's just keep intouch, like we're gonna do
manual, keep in touches beforewe get this stuff automated.
But as we roll this stuff out,we don't want anything to drop.
And then part of that answer wasindeed the org structure.
So to support the new vision andlike what this department could
do and how it could thrive, andhow it could be robust and what

(07:30):
kind of amazing data we caninform our internal folks with,
we can inform external vendorsand constituents with.
That would be really useful andvaluable.
From that, informed by that wedo indeed need to do a reorg.
And in this case we, you know,we're talking about pods versus
functional areas.

(07:50):
Do we wanna make this functioninto actual two roles?
So then we split people off intothose two functions.
There were different contingencyplans and options for, Hey,
here's option A, B, and C forthe org chart.
I recommend option A for thesereasons, but there's other ways
to do this as well.
I wanted to get those on thetable.
All of these three, option A, B,and C are in support of this new

(08:14):
vision for where I think thedepartment needs to be to
support the overall company'sgoal and objective.
So can you see the difference?
Can you hear the difference ofwhat do you want your org to
look like?
Here's the org chart.
Versus Here's the vision for thedepartment.
If we're going this direction asa company, I'm so excited
because this department has beenunderutilized.

(08:35):
We can do this, this, and this.
Here's what it would take to dothat.
I think out of the seven thingsthat I would love to do, I know
we can't do all of them now.
I would pick these two, like ifyou can give me three, I can get
you this.
So saying, if you give me thisand this and this.
I will get you this part of thevision that is the conversation,
that is the answer that I thinkthis boss was looking for.

(08:56):
Part of that was therecommendations for the new
system and the new org structureand the interim communication
process.
But just handing this person,just handing the boss an org
chart, Was not the high levelstrategic answer.
It was an org chart, which isneeded at some level, at some

(09:18):
stage of this thing.
But, but it, it wasn't, it was,it was a task.
It was check, check.
I have it on my to-do list todeliver this thing to the boss.
I got it off my list.
Now it's done.
That's tactical.
The larger conversation andconnecting the dots is where the
strategy piece comes in, iswhere you add value as a
strategic leader.

(09:39):
And part of this too, a big partof this for this individual was
they were used to getting a morespecific ask.
If someone wanted something,they would detail, I want it
like this.
I'm looking for this, this, andthis.
It needs to be this, not that.
Make sure you don't do that.
They, they put parameters andput kind of guideposts around
it.
In this case, it was more likeyou tell me.

(09:59):
You tell me what it should looklike.
That is also a big jump fromtactical operational doer.
I complete tasks to, oh.
You want me to paint the outlineof what this department should
look like or could look like, orwhat I think it should look
like?
Right.
That's a different, that's awhole different animal.

(10:21):
It's not, I'm giving you thebox.
Fill the box.
It's like you tell me the box,you tell me the parameters.
Oh, okay.
That takes more thought.
That's not a check.
Check.
Cross off my list.
That takes like, think about it,like where do you see the
department?
Where do you think it could getto?
Where do you think it could addthe most value?

(10:41):
And maybe you're not doing thattoday.
Maybe it's a brand new way toadd value.
So what can you conceive of?
What can you imagine?
What's your vision for yourdepartment that's higher level
thinking?
Right?
And then they gotta back intoand reverse engineer into, okay,
how do we make this thinghappen?
Which does include tactical andpractical things.
Which does includeoperationalizing that strategy.

(11:02):
So you have to have both.
Sometimes you delegate,sometimes you do it yourself.
There is that component, butfirst and foremost is the larger
question, is connecting the dotsis going okay.
The boss has basically given mea blank slate and a blank check
for what I wanna do with thisdepartment.

(11:23):
I'm not just gonna hand them anorg chart, I'm gonna have this
larger conversation and.
This individual ended up havingconversations with their team,
so their direct reports like,Hey, like what is your vision?
What are your ideas?
Having it at their level.
'cause they're closer to some ofthe things.
on a day-to-day level than thisindividual.
And then incorporating and kindof sizzling all of that into,

(11:44):
okay, and here's what I wasthinking about and here's what
I've heard the boss say.
And here's what I've seen otherpeople do when they're
overhauling their departments.
And here's some conversations Ihad with some other leadership
team members over on the sidehere.
I'm taking this all in, I'mtaking the best parts of it.
I'm discarding what's notuseful.
I am, I'm formulating thisfulsome robust, vibrant answer.

(12:07):
And then delivering that to theboss.
And then maybe as a later partof that conversation, or maybe
even a subsequent conversation,or maybe even 4, 5, 6, 7
conversations down the line, itbecomes, and here's the specific
or chart.
Do you hear the difference?
Do you see the difference?

(12:28):
And sometimes it's interestingpeople go, Emily.
They just don't see me as astrategic leader.
They don't take me seriously.
And sometimes that's on them.
That's external reasoning, butsometimes it's because you are
answering the question with anorg chart, you're answering the
question in a small way.
It's not wrong, it's notinaccurate per se, but it's not

(12:50):
the full answer.
And a lot of times, bosses andpeople are looking for, oh, she
gets it.
She gets the big picture.
She gets what we're trying todo.
Oh, he's able to make that jump.
He's able to say, we'refirefighting this stuff right
now, but in 18 months we'vegotta get here.
And I have ideas about how toget there.

(13:11):
He does that, he's gonna come upand be a high level leader at
this company.
There's a difference.
So I think think through foryourself, think through in the
next week, in the next month,where can you be answering some
questions in a more fulsome wayversus just the, here's the org
chart.
And, and the org chart issymbolic in the sense of the

(13:33):
small answer.
So if you think back, you, maybeyou can think backward too, in
the last week, in the lastmonth.
Or even last quarter, like, oh,you know what?
That's what was happening lastquarter when I gave'em this
thing.
And they were kind of like,okay, whatever.
We'll take that and then we'llcome up with the answer
ourselves.
I guess that's kind of what washappening there.
I didn't give'em the fullanswer.

(13:55):
What might have that full answerlook like?
Can I do a follow up now or isit maybe too late?
If it's too late?
Okay.
Going forward when I get theseopportunities again.
When I get these questions orrequests or prompts again, how
can I answer in a more fulsomeway?
How can I tie that to the bigpicture?
Alright, so that can be yourtakeaway in the next week, in

(14:15):
the next month for you.
Keep an eye out, look foropportunities to move from a
tactical operational doer to amore high level strategic
leader.
And one way to do that is toanswer in a more fulsome way and
put the big picture in place.
Alright, hopefully that washelpful and I'll catch you next
week on leveraging leadership.