What is strategy work for you?

For me, working with strategy is finding the balance between describing the overall mission and vision and at the same time concretizing in a strategic plan of action. The trick is to make a strategy that is neither too overarching nor too narrow.

“Strategy work is to set a direction and create a framework for the direction, which can then be carried out and translated into action in practice. It has to be a fairly broad strategy.”

An important point of attention in strategy work is:

“Maintaining focus and not inventing new things when there is an eagerness for new initiatives. Especially in politically oriented organizations, you can quickly get into a culture that is very action-oriented. So that's why strategic lighthouse projects are important.”

The four markers that I have helped to define when I started in the Health and Care Administration are:

• Citizens first
• The frontline staff in focus
• Innovation and new solutions
• Shorter distance from frontline worker to political level

Rather than position myself as a new top leader by embarking on a comprehensive process of vision, strategy and organizational change, I chose to work with four guiding strategic landmarks that we link to both operations and development activities on an ongoing basis. However, it may be that after the upcoming municipal elections we need to involve the political committee in making a new strategy for the next 4 years.

What is the biggest challenge in your strategy work?

A challenge in large organizations is that you forget what you have put in place. There strategy work is a good handle. Therefore, it is crucial to continuously follow up on what has already been put into action by looking back before looking forward.

Another challenge is getting cut off. After all, both top management and politicians are accustomed to new thinking, which is not always what it takes. By contrast, it takes persistence and patience to stick with the long term development and the implementation processes in the operation.

“The difficult thing in strategy work is to keep the focus on the fact that it is easily accessible, easy to understand and not too much. I need to be able to tell it on a slide. And I need to be able to support the strategy with real-life examples, very concrete, down-to-earth examples.”

In large organisations, 'the whipped cream can fill more than the cake', so it is crucial to get the whole core operation involved in the change of strategic direction, including through de-bureaucratisation and through the work on the labour challenge:

“The few employees we have, need to spend their time right.”

How do you manage your strategy?

My main task as a top manager is to keep saying the same strategic messages: “repeat, repeat and repeat” until it's almost too much.

It is important that top management 'walk the talk'. I do this concretely, among other things, by sharing and posting on LinkedIn. I am sincerely interested in listening to our many talented employees and managers out in everyday practice.

One way to lead the strategy work is: “To make some models with paths and goals that you want to achieve, as well as objectives about what we are going to achieve in, for example, 4 years. It's important to keep it simple.”

Finally, management of strategy realisation is also stakeholder management and the recognition that we have different knowledge bases and perspectives, for example, in relation to creating an active civic life where citizens live. For example, we recently gathered 150 actors to discuss the City of Copenhagen's strategy for the well-being of children and young people.

Partnerships are absolutely crucial for future welfare development, for example, with DGI around the +55 citizens' group compared to getting this group reactivated in association life.

We also cooperate with the housing organisation BL in relation to the future housing conditions for the elderly, where classic nursing homes are not the whole solution. We need to think of a housing policy through, for example, in the public housing areas, where we can 'turn neighbours into relatives' in conjunction with more advanced home care.

“It is important not only to invite external actors into the strategy development, but also in the strategy implementation.”

Cross-cutting strategies in the City of Copenhagen

It is important to focus on the outside world, the lives of citizens and strategic partners in strategy work, but strategy is also about linking cross-cutting areas of management together in close interaction on challenging core tasks. In the City of Copenhagen, for example, we have succeeded in creating a strategy for the well-being of children and young people across our administrations. Here we have created a guidance document based on the agreement of political parties to allocate funds across the subject areas for the task.

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