I was recently in touch with a team implementing performance management in a large technology company. To their frustration, the project stalled when the company’s executive team refused to roll out the strategy maps to the rest of the organization on the grounds that it was "confidential"…
Given this type of behavior, is it really any surprise that 95%* of a typical workforce does not understand their organization’s strategy?!
To be fair, there was apparently a confusion among the executives between sharing the strategic objectives (which is the whole point of strategy maps) and sharing specific metrics (which may indeed even be illegal, e.g. insider financial info).
Let’s hope they get it straightened out…
* Kaplan & Norton, The Balanced Scorecard