Do Tank partnered with a large health system to translate its enterprise strategic plan into coordinated, department-level action across the organization. By designing a structured approach to cascading strategy through cross-functional teams, the engagement helped move priorities off the slide deck and into operational practice — strengthening alignment, clarifying ownership, and accelerating execution.
Like many organizations, the health system had developed a clear enterprise strategy but faced challenges integrating it into day-to-day operations. Strategic priorities were understood at the leadership level but lacked a consistent mechanism for translation into departmental goals and workflows.
Without structured engagement, strategy risked remaining abstract — with limited visibility into how teams should contribute, uneven alignment across departments, and missed opportunities to coordinate efforts across the system. Leaders recognized the need for a more intentional approach to embedding strategy into operating plans.
Do Tank’s Role:
- Designed the system-wide approach for cascading enterprise strategy into operational planning
- Facilitated cross-functional working sessions within a standing Leadership Development forum
- Introduced structured design tools to connect system priorities to departmental action
- Guided teams through identification of enablers, barriers, and cross-department dependencies
- Supported leaders in shifting from review roles to active engagement in strategy activation
Do Tank worked with the organization to reposition strategy cascading as an active, structured process rather than a downstream communication step. Using an existing Leadership Development forum, 25 cross-functional teams were convened to translate enterprise priorities into actionable plans within their areas of responsibility.
Design methods were used to help teams identify the practical conditions required for strategy to take hold — including operational enablers, barriers, and dependencies across departments. Because teams were cross-functional, they were able to surface coordination challenges and opportunities that would not have been visible within siloed planning processes.
Custom tools were introduced to explicitly connect system-level priorities to SMART goals, supported by structured exercises such as “keep, improve, start, stop” to guide decision-making. Senior leaders participated as resources and collaborators, creating space for dialogue and refinement rather than acting solely as reviewers.
Importantly, teams treated their outputs as early prototypes — sharing plans with their departments, gathering feedback, and iterating before formal integration into the organization’s performance management systems.
The engagement enabled the organization to move from a static enterprise strategy to a more dynamic, coordinated approach to execution. Departments gained clarity on how their work contributed to system priorities, while cross-functional alignment reduced duplication and strengthened shared accountability.
By embedding strategy into operating plans and performance platforms, the organization created a more direct connection between long-term priorities and day-to-day decision-making. The process also built internal capability — equipping leaders and teams with practical tools and a repeatable approach for translating strategy into action over time.
What had previously been a top-down communication effort became a participatory system for aligning and activating strategy across the organization.
This work highlights that strategy does not become real through communication alone — it requires structured opportunities for teams to interpret, adapt, and operationalize priorities within their own context.
When organizations create space for this work, provide clear tools, and engage leaders as active participants, strategy becomes embedded in how teams plan and act. The result is not just better alignment, but a stronger organizational capability to execute in complex environments.