Organizations whose strategy is valid and clear (high on content) but whose employees don't trust leaders' credibility, courage, competence and care (low on context) will at best produce an environment of uninspired adherence. While employees will understand the plan and believe it is right, they won't believe their leaders will be able to implement it (or implement it without harmful effects). Hence, they will resort to 'going along' with little ownership, enthusiasm and commitment. In the absence of ownership and accountability, the leaders will resort to managing through dictate, mandate and command and control. This will undermine people's desire to go the next level of performance and produce great results.



Conversely, if context is high and content is low, employees will be highly motivated to make a weak strategy work. Eventually, however, their enthusiasm won't be enough to overcome the bad plan and this will result in failure plus cynicism and resignation.

Of course, when both content and context are low, employee morale will hit rock bottom. Believing in neither the plan nor the leaders behind it, employees will be hugely cynical and often oppositional.

But when content and context are both high, everyone will believe in the plan - and in leaders' ability to make it happen in ways that aren't injurious to people's careers. This will produce a state of strategic commitment, one in which everyone understands and believes in the strategy, and feels total ownership and accountability to make it happen.

Leaders can turn apathy into strategic commitment - if they know how to detect, address and transform content and context issues quickly and effectively. We bring an approach that has been honed over more than 20 years of field work. Our approach has turned some of the most hostile and dysfunctional corporate environments into workplaces of uncommon spirit, respect, dedication and performance at all levels.