Walking the Floor: Where Strategy Meets Reality

Hello KSKOers

Every Friday, I write a little LinkedIn post, reflecting on my week. One of the things I wrote about on Friday, was the importance of leaders getting out and about, visiting frontline staff and talking to them about what’s going on, and meeting service users. In this week’s blog, I wanted to talk to you about the research behind my advice to leaders to go out, go visit and get talking.

Looking forward to joining you on your learning journey

This is what I wrote in my end of the week round up on Friday:

🔹 I realised that I hadn’t left the office to visit our front line services since week 1 of my time at Maggs Day Centre. This was week 3! I visited our Day Centre and Clothing Project in Worcester and Day Centre and Hub in Redditch. I think it’s very easy to become engrossed in paperwork, red tape and organisational bureaucracy to the detriment of meeting and talking to the real people who are using the very services your planning and protecting. If you have a corporate role and you haven’t visited the services, day centres, facilities, hospital, schools and homes of your service, please do set aside time next week and get out there to remind yourself why you do what you do.

When I encourage leaders to get out from behind their desks and visit frontline services, it isn’t just because it’s good to be visible. It’s grounded in the research behind my book, The Self-Awareness Superhighway.

One of the strongest themes in my doctoral research was what I called strategic-level disconnect. People I spoke to consistently described a gap between those making decisions and those delivering them. Strategic ideas made sense in executive meetings. They were rational, well-intentioned and often financially necessary. But by the time they reached the frontline, it was clear that in many cases, assumptions hadn’t been tested. Practical realities hadn’t been considered and the emotional impact on staff and service users hadn’t been fully understood.

The result?