Companies often produce strategy work that feels compelling but never turns into meaningful execution. The ideas make sense in theory, yet the day-to-day work continues unchanged. This happens because most strategy efforts do not include the practical “how” that teams need to move from intention to action.
A simple way to fix this is to pair the Playing to Win framework with a clear annual planning process. Playing to Win is real strategy work. It forces you to make hard choices about where you compete, how you win, and what capabilities you must build. It is one of the most useful strategy books for operators and worth reading if you have not already done so.
Once the strategy is set, you translate it into a small set of strategic themes and a focused set of company initiatives. From there, departments build their plans by mapping their work directly to those themes. When this is working well, everyone from the CEO to an IC can explain how their work connects to the strategy for the year.
Here is how the approach works.
Begin by completing the Playing to Win framework. This includes defining your winning aspiration, where you will play, how you will win, the capabilities you must build, and the management systems that support alignment.
In the example strategy document, these choices are highly specific. The company outlines its priority markets, core differentiators, and the capabilities that support its strategy, including product delivery excellence, integration leadership, and deep domain expertise.
This creates a real strategy. But the strategy alone does not tell teams how to apply it. You need an approach that connects these decisions to the work the company will focus on over the next twelve months.
Next, convert the strategy into three or four themes that define the company’s focus for the year. These themes serve as the bridge between strategy and planning.
A strategic theme is not a project and not an OKR. It is a broad area of focus that expresses what the strategy requires this year. Good themes reflect the “how to win” choices and provide direction across functions.
In the FlowSecure example, the annual plan uses four themes that tie directly to the strategy: Close the Gap, Lead in Security and Trust, Strengthen Our Data, and Operate with Excellence. Pages 3 to 5 of the example slides illustrate how each theme is described and why it matters.
Three or four themes is usually enough. More than that dilutes focus. Fewer than that rarely captures the full strategy.
Once strategic themes are set, identify the key company initiatives that will bring those themes to life. This is where the “how” begins to take shape.
You can think of the structure like this:
Goals → Strategy → Strategic Themes → Key Initiatives
Each initiative should map to a theme, have a clear outcome or metric, and reflect work that is important enough to require company-wide visibility. The example slides show this clearly for initiatives like launching a Customer Command Center, refreshing the brand narrative, and creating company dashboards. Each one is tied to a theme and includes the success criteria for the year. Pages 5 and 6 outline this format.
These initiatives become the anchor for cross-functional planning. If something does not support a theme, it should not be a company-level initiative.