When it comes to crafting strategy, leadership often leans on traditional closed-doors, top-down methods—but what if that approach is limiting your organization’s potential? Let’s tackle 5 common myths and uncover why bottom-up strategy might be the smarter, faster, and more effective path forward.
“Why complicate an already challenging process by involving everyone in the company? Strategy should be kept streamlined and focused.”
While strategy is undoubtedly complex, involving the entire organization isn’t about adding unnecessary layers of difficulty—it’s about enhancing the process with invaluable insights. Employees at every level are often closest to the realities of daily operations, customer needs, and emerging market trends. By engaging them, you gain perspectives that no single leadership team can fully capture on its own.
It’s true that asking everyone to participate brings a flood of opinions, insights, and even noise. However, with today’s tools, diving into this treasure trove and searching, organizing, and validating the most valuable contributions can be done in minutes.
“The leadership team knows best—why dilute their expertise by involving people who might not see the bigger picture?”
In our experience, people throughout the organization are not only smart but also often well-versed in strategic thinking. It might be a tough pill to swallow, but leaders aren’t always the smartest—or the most informed—people in the company.
While leaders have a vital bird’s-eye view, a strategy crafted solely from the top often risks missing the practical, real-world insights that come from the ground level. Employees working directly with customers or on the front lines are often the first to notice emerging challenges, shifts in customer needs, and operational hurdles. By tapping into these perspectives, leaders can ensure their strategy isn’t just visionary but also grounded in reality and better equipped to adapt to the fast-changing world. Involving others doesn’t dilute leadership’s expertise—it amplifies it.
“A prolonged strategy process will slow us down. We need to act fast and keep the business moving.”
It’s important to ensure you’re looking at the right time frame when evaluating the speed of a strategy process. In the traditional top-down approach, you might declare the strategy “done” once the slides are finalized or when the press release is issued, and the company town hall meeting announces the new direction.
However, if you consider implementation as an integral part of the strategy process, bottom-up strategy is the clear winner. When people are involved from the early stages, implementation begins immediately, running parallel to the strategy team’s work. This approach significantly shortens the overall timeline from initiation to full execution. Moreover, because employees have had a voice in shaping the strategy, resistance and friction during implementation are greatly reduced. Bottom-up strategy doesn’t slow you down—it speeds you up where it truly matters.
“If everyone has a say, the strategy will lose its sharpness and become a bland compromise.”
While employees are invited to share their insights, offer comments, and even help prioritize ideas, it’s crucial to communicate that their role is to support the strategy team in making the best decisions possible—not to make the final, often difficult, calls themselves.
Most employees understand and appreciate this division of responsibility. In fact, few would even want the pressure of making the tough trade-offs that the strategy team must handle. A good strategy is, by its nature, a simple and focused one—and when the process is guided correctly, involving more voices enriches the strategy rather than diluting it. Everyone values clarity and simplicity, and a well-facilitated bottom-up approach helps deliver exactly that.
“Strategy comes first, then implementation. Communication must flow in the proper order, starting with senior leaders and gradually cascading down to the rest of the organization.”
The traditional “cascade” approach to strategy communication assumes that information must flow hierarchically—starting with senior leaders, then moving to division heads, team leads, and finally the wider organization. However, a bottom-up approach challenges this notion by treating employees as equal contributors throughout the process, not just as recipients of decisions.
Official announcements can still follow official channels, but the real power of a bottom-up strategy lies in its collaborative implementation. Instead of a one-way flow of information, divisions and teams engage in dialogue sessions to explore what the new strategy elements mean for their work and their clients. This approach respects everyone’s expertise and fosters a shared sense of ownership. With modern technology, this dialogue can be run efficiently while maintaining an equal and humane touch. Implementation doesn’t have to be a rigid cascade—it can be a dynamic and inclusive process.
Bottom-up strategy challenges traditional leadership assumptions by involving employees at all levels in shaping the future of the organization. While some may worry this approach complicates the process, slows things down, or leads to diluted outcomes, the reality is quite the opposite. By leveraging modern tools and tapping into the insights of those closest to daily operations, bottom-up strategy fosters alignment, reduces resistance, and accelerates implementation.
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