Strategic Planning Analogy #574: Don’t Be a Jack Strategist

THE STORY

Early in my career I worked for a retailer who was considering expansion into Utah. The company was concerned, because most people in Utah at the time were Mormons (members of the Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints religion, or LDS). We did not know how the culture of the Mormon religion would impact our success. I was given the task of investigating this concern.

I found out that, yes, the majority of those in Utah claimed to be Mormons. And yes, many of them took their religion very seriously. But there was also a very large percentage of these Mormons who were referred to as “Jack Mormons.”

A Jack Mormon is a baptized member of the LDS Church who rarely or never practices the religion, but is still friendly toward the church. Alternatively, it can be used to refer to someone that is of Mormon descent but unbaptized or non-religious. For these people, the culture of the outside world has more influence on how they lived their lives than the teachings of the Mormon Church.

Given the preponderance of Jack Mormons in Utah (especially in Salt Lake City), the culture in Utah was not as different from the rest of the western US as one might originally think. The differences were more subtle. And they tended to be something that would benefit our company. So we expanded into Utah and had success.

THE ANALOGY
This phenomenon is not just limited to the LDS Church. Most religions have these two types of adherents: the zealots and the Jacks. The zealots become fully dedicated to the religion and are transformed. All that they think, do and say is influenced by the teachings of the religion. Then there are the “Jacks,” the ones who claim the religion in name, but are only minimally influenced by it.

The zealots are the ones that are so passionate for their beliefs that they go out and try to change the world. These are the ones who impact the culture around them. Just look at the zealots today in Islam. People may not agree about whether their impact is good or bad, but the Islam zealots are definitely having an impact on the world.

By contrast, the Jacks are more influenced by the outside culture than that of their religion. They just sort of drift along and just do the minimum necessary to keep from getting kicked out of the church.

Employees have a similar types of relationships with their company and its strategy. Some are strategy zealots, who are passionate about the strategy. Everything they think, do and say is highly influenced by the strategy.

Other employees are only “Jack Strategists.” They may claim to believe in the company strategy, but they act as if it doesn’t exist. The outside world influences their actions more than the internal strategy.

THE PRINCIPLE
The principle here is that the role of the strategist does not stop when the strategy is completed. The strategist needs to go to the next step and create a company full of zealots for the strategy.

The Benefits of Having Strategy Zealots

There are three major benefits to having a company full of employees who are zealots for the strategy. First, strategy zealots are better employees than Jack strategists. The strategy zealot has passion for the company and what it is trying to do through its strategy. For the zealot, their occupation becomes more than just a job. It becomes a mission. The strategy zealot will work harder and longer to accomplish the strategy than others, because of this passion for the mission.

By contrast, the Jack strategist is mostly at the company just to get a paycheck. They work because they need to, not because they want to. Their passion centers more around their life outside of work than inside of work. They will essentially ignore the strategy and just do what is in their own personal best interest. There is not enough money in the company to afford to pay the Jack strategists to be as incented to work as hard as the strategy zealots.

This is one of the advantages of companies like Google. Technology zealots are drawn to them because they have the reputation of being a place where these types of zealots can thrive. As a result, Google gets to choose from a pool of the best of the best employees.

The second benefit of creating a company full of strategy zealots is that it makes the strategy self-perpetuating. When a company is full of strategy zealots, the strategy group does not have to keep reminding people of the strategy and coming up with ways to get the strategy embedding into the everyday actions of employees. The zealots are already doing that for them. The zealots have already passionately bought into the strategy, so they will naturally keep the strategic momentum going without additional prodding on your part.

The third benefit of a company full of strategic zealots is that it tends to make your company’s brand more desirable to customers. Studies have shown that if all other things are equal, customers prefer to buy products from brands demonstrating a mission to do more than just make a profit. This phenomenon is just getting stronger with each succeeding generation. Zealots will show the world that your company stands for a higher purpose, and will improve customer preference and loyalty to your brand.

Implication for Strategists

Since having strategic zealots is so important to strategic success, creating a company full of these zealots needs to be a part of the role of the strategist. This can take three forms.

1) The Mission Statement

Do you see the mission statement as a bunch of fancy-sounding words that look good on paper or do you see it as the call to a mission that people can be zealous towards? You won’t get people zealous towards your strategy if it has nothing in it to inspire that kind of passion. If your company’s mission is little more than just to make a lot of profits, then you will attract Jack strategists. However, if you can combine profits with attaining a higher purpose, then the zealots will be knocking at your door begging you to hire them.

This year, protestant Christians celebrated the 500^th anniversary of when Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the church. This began the protestant reformation of Christianity, which changed the world.

If you want a world-changing strategy, you need to think of your mission statement as being more like those 95 theses written by Martin Luther. Think of your strategic writings as something that sets the tone of a new “religious” movement.

2) The Hiring Process

What does your company screen for when looking for new employees? If you’re like most companies, you are screening for people with the skills necessary for the position. But is that really the best way to screen for employees?

People with the requisite skills might be natural zealots, but they may just be “Jack” employees. At some point, it may be irrelevant if the employee has the skills if they do not have the passion to use them to the benefit of the strategy. Therefore, it may be more important to screen for zealousness than to screen for skills.

After all, it has been shown that companies can teach people skills. However, it is almost impossible to teach people passion. As a result, it is easier to hire people with natural passion and teach them the skills than it is to hire those with the skills and teach them to have passion.

So how much input does the strategist have in your company’s hiring process? Are you screening for people who would naturally have more zealousness towards your strategy. If you aren’t, then you are missing a huge opportunity.

3) Strategy “Evangelism”

As mentioned earlier, creating the strategy should be just the beginning of the role of the strategist. The next step is to convert Jack strategy employees into strategy zealots. This is more than just making sure everyone knows what the strategy is. It is making people so believe in the strategy that they are willing to become zealots for it.

Are your strategy meetings more like a church revival meeting or more like a dull review of stacks of words and numbers? Stacks of words and numbers do not inspire zealots. Inspirational stories do. Have you turned your strategy into an inspirational story that motivates zealots?

SUMMARY
Just as there are both dedicated Mormon zealots and Jack Mormons, there are those who are dedicated strategy zealots and “Jack” strategists. Successful companies tend to have a higher proportion of strategy zealots. These zealots make a company more successful because they tend to work harder, they are more committed to following through on attaining the strategy, and they make a company more desirable to its customers.

To get a higher proportion of strategy zealots, strategists need to:

a) Create a Business Mission people can get passionate about;

b) Get their company to screen for zealots during the hiring process; and

c) “Evangelize” their company in order to convert more Jacks into zealots.

FINAL THOUGHTS
There’s an old saying that “Culture eats strategy for lunch.” The implication is that cultural norms have more impact on how your employees act than what your strategy says. Well, that may be true if your company is full of Jack strategists. But if your strategy becomes a true mission, it will form its own culture. The zealots will then make sure that this new culture replaces the old cultural norms. When that happens, strategy will eat culture for lunch.