Sustaining Strategy Beyond the Kickoff: What Leaders Must Reinforce After Q1

Strategy is a universally accepted business practice. 

I’ve come across more ways of building and implementing strategy than I care to count, but I’ve yet to interact with a company that doesn’t have some form of a strategy in place.

For organizations that kicked off a new fiscal year in January, the strategy you spent months building is likely still top of mind…for now.

January is full of momentum. Company kickoffs. Clear communication of priorities. A shared sense of optimism about the year ahead.

And yet, time and time again, we see the same pattern play out as organizations move through Q1.

Teams slowly slip back into old ways of operating.

Decisions are driven by the loudest voice in the room. Reporting takes hours to assemble and only highlights lagging indicators. Cross-functional silos limit visibility into priorities. And eventually, the cost of saying “yes” to a new initiative derails progress on a mission-critical Objective. 

This drift doesn’t happen because teams forget the strategy. But because the discipline required to sustain it fades.

And for all of these behaviors, it starts at the top.

Sustaining Strategy Requires More Than a Strong Kickoff

Leaders enable execution when we stay disciplined in how we review priorities, surface insights, and make decisions together. Strategy lives or dies in the routines Leadership teams reinforce week after week. 

As we move deeper into the year, there are two areas that matter most if you want your strategy to stay relevant: how you review it, and how you run your Leadership meetings. 

A Quarterly Review Cadence That Prevents Strategic Drift  

As Leaders, it’s easy to believe that once the strategy is set and communicated, the hard work is done. 

After all, months were spent defining Objectives, refining goals, and building an operating plan  approved by the Board. At that point, it can feel like execution is simply a matter of teams doing their part. 

That assumption couldn't be further from the truth. 

The real work begins after the plan is launched. 

Strategic drift usually happens when Leaders lack a clear cadence for reviewing whether the strategy itself still aligns with where the business needs to go. Without that discipline, priorities shift quietly, decisions become reactive, and momentum erodes quarter by quarter.

One of the simplest ways to prevent this is to establish a quarterly review rhythm, even if your organization primarily operates with annual Objectives. 

In a previous edition of the Pulse, I shared a cadence we’ve seen work well for teams that set quarterly Objectives and need a clean way to transition between them. For organizations operating on annual Objectives, we still recommend a quarterly review, but with a slightly different focus.  

At the Leadership level, this means reviewing each Objective and asking a simple question: 

“Should we persist, pivot, or pioneer?” 

We first heard this language from a customer a few years ago, and it stuck because of how practical it is. 

• Persist if the Objective is still aligned with your strategic direction and has clear goals.
• ‍Pivot if market conditions, internal changes, or new information require a shift. The pivot itself matters just as much as the shared understanding of why it’s happening.‍
• Pioneer if a new Objective needs to be added, with the explicit acknowledgement that something else may need to come off the plan. 

The last point is where many teams struggle. 

Organizations are often willing to add new priorities without sunsetting existing ones. But pioneering without removing something almost always does more harm than good. Capacity doesn’t magically expand, and focus gets diluted fast.

This exercise does more than adjust the plan. It reinforces that strategy is not static, and that Leadership is actively responsible for protecting it. 

But quarterly reviews alone aren’t enough. The week-to-week execution still lives inside Leadership meetings. 

Leadership Meetings Are Where Strategy Lives or Dies

A few weeks ago on LinkedIn, I received this question: 

“I've struggled with how to respond when people don't come prepared and expecting to be spoon-fed. Cancel the meeting until everyone can come prepped and ready to discuss? What strategies have you found successful in promoting a healthy pre-meeting investment from all participants to aid in making the time together short and productive?” 

This question hit home. 

Leadership meetings are the most expensive use of time in the organization. They bring together the people with the most context, experience, and influence, and they often determine what the rest of the company focuses on next.  

So when those meetings turn into status read-outs or repetitive updates, the opportunity cost is enormous. 

One of the most effective ways I've seen Leaders drive preparation is by structuring the agenda around decisions and action items. Not updates. 

Instead of walking through every update live, ask Leaders to submit updates ahead of time. Build the meeting agenda around the issues, risks, and choices surfaced in those updates. 

If that feels like too big a leap, even a smaller shift helps: focus discussion on what the update means, not what it says. 

Far too often, teams spend valuable meeting time repeating information everyone already has. We call this “Leadership Roll Call.” It fills the calendar, but rarely moves the business forward.  

When Leadership meetings are structured around action, the decisions made in those rooms are felt throughout the organization. 

In the last edition of the Pulse, I wrote about how organizations are using AI to identify strategic risk earlier than ever before. When that insight actually turns into action (ie. when Leaders remove obstacles, resolve dependencies, or make tradeoffs), employees notice. 

They feel the difference.

When teams see that Leadership is reviewing Objectives regularly and taking action based on real signals, they’re far more likely to provide meaningful context in their updates. Especially in cross-functional work, where challenges often go unspoken until it’s too late. 

Maximizing Leadership meeting time isn’t just about efficiency. It’s about reinforcing that strategy is alive, and that Leadership is actively stewarding it. 

Building the Discipline That Sustains Strategy 

A culture of strategy doesn’t happen overnight. 

It’s built through consistent behavior, clear operating frameworks, and an intentional cadence for review and decision-making. 

Most executives already understand that misalignment, poor communication, and siloed execution hurt performance. What’s often missed is that these issues tend to originate at the Leadership level in how strategy is reviewed, discussed, and reinforced. 

As the initial energy of the new year fades, the operating cadence you’ve put in place will determine whether the momentum carries forward or stalls.

Strategy doesn’t fail because teams stop caring. It fails when Leaders stop creating the conditions that keep it relevant.

If you’d like to learn more about the operating cadences and Leadership practices we see working across organizations, or want to pressure-test your current approach, I’d love to connect.