How a People First Approach Can Maximize Your Strategy

In this episode of our Strategy and Leadership Podcast, Ryan Ouwehand, joins us to share his tips on motivating teams and leading strategy. With a love of people and a diverse background in sales, marketing, management, and brand strategy, Ryan explains why your people (both employees and clients) and business strategy are so closely linked.

Focusing on the importance of relationships, and with a people first approach to strategy, Ryan dives into his best practices for leading teams through the strategic planning process. Some of his tips include:

• Take some time to get to know your leadership style and understand who you are as a leader.
• Strategy needs to be built from the bottom up, with a strong foundation. Understand what your organization offers and wants to achieve (its vision and mission), focus on hiring and engaging the right people within your organization (developing culture), and ask questions to develop strategy further.
• Develop a process and agenda for meetings to make the most of them and avoid having “meetings about meetings”.
• When hiring new team members, focus on candidates who fit your culture and are passionate about the work you do. You can teach people new skills, but you can’t teach them to care more.

Listen to the entire podcast below to find out more about building a winning team to successfully carry out your organizational strategy: