Making Reason Louder: Building Systems That Connect Strategy to Action

Eric Olsen
Jul 7
5 min read

Updated: Jul 21

In flat organizations, you face a fundamental challenge: how do you ensure good ideas and strategic thinking rise above the noise? As (now former) Zillow Chief Economist Skylar Olsen recently shared with me, "You can't make crazy quiet—so you have to make reason loud."

But what do we mean by "crazy" in organizational contexts? It's not just noise or confusion—it's often the seductive pull of a charismatic leader or misaligned priorities that feel urgent or appealing in the moment but diverts resources from core objectives and capacity. The strategically disconnected leader dragging their feet on decisions. The compelling but ultimately bad data that spreads like wildfire through the organization.

This "crazy" has magnetism precisely because it often comes from influential sources or addresses immediate pressures. The challenge isn't eliminating these forces—it's building systems that make strategic reasoning more compelling and audible than the attractive distractions.

This is precisely why Central Coast Lean's upcoming 7 Habits of Highly Effective People workshop (July 23-24, 2025) offers such a powerful antidote. Stephen Covey's second habit—"Begin with the End in Mind"—provides the foundation for making reason louder than organizational noise.

Why This Matters More Than Ever

In today's rapidly changing business environment, organizations struggle with two competing needs: maintaining strategic alignment while enabling rapid response to emerging opportunities. Traditional command-and-control structures can't keep pace, but pure flat organizations often lack the systems to ensure strategic coherence.

The solution isn't choosing between top-down strategy and bottom-up innovation—it's building systems that make the connection between strategy and action visible and audible throughout the organization. This starts with personal effectiveness and extends to organizational systems.

The Power of Beginning with the End in Mind

Before diving into organizational systems, consider how the 7 Habits framework addresses the root of organizational "crazy." When individuals and teams lack clarity about their ultimate objectives—when they haven't begun with the end in mind—every urgent request becomes a priority, every charismatic voice carries equal weight, and strategic reasoning gets drowned out.

The 7 Habits workshop teaches participants to:

Create personal and professional mission statements that align with organizational strategy
Distinguish between what's urgent and what's truly important
Build proactive habits that amplify strategic thinking
Develop interdependent relationships that strengthen organizational coherence

This personal foundation is essential for the organizational systems that follow.

The Zillow Model: Strategy Stacks and Tracking Systems

Skylar's approach at Zillow demonstrates how to operationalize this principle at scale. A large complex organization, Zillow created a "strategy stack"—a cascading framework that made organizational priorities clear at every level. But the genius was in the Zillow Economics tracking system.

Every initiative her team undertook was tagged with a single-select field connecting it directly to Zillow's core strategy stack. This wasn't bureaucratic overhead—it was strategic amplification. When leadership questioned resource allocation or project priorities, the team could demonstrate exactly how their work implemented organizational strategy.

This system enabled three critical capabilities:

Visibility: Leaders could see how strategy translated into action
Accountability: Teams could justify their work in strategic terms
Agility: The framework supported both planned initiatives and responsive actions

From Personal to Organizational Effectiveness

The connection between personal effectiveness (as taught in the 7 Habits) and organizational systems (like Zillow's strategy stack) is crucial. Central Coast Lean's approach recognizes that sustainable improvement requires both:

Personal mastery: Individuals who understand their purpose and can prioritize effectively
System design: Organizational structures that amplify strategic reasoning
Cultural alignment: Shared habits and practices that reinforce strategic focus

When team members have internalized "Begin with the End in Mind," they're better equipped to use tools like strategy stacks effectively. They can distinguish between the truly strategic and the merely urgent.

Implementation Across Improvement Approaches

Whether you're implementing Lean management systems, deploying Six Sigma projects, or managing organizational change, the core principle applies: build systems that make strategic reasoning audible and actionable.

For Lean practitioners, this means connecting improvement activities to value stream objectives and organizational hoshins (strategy deployment). For improvement teams, it's ensuring project selection and scope clearly link to strategic priorities. For change management professionals, it's creating feedback loops that demonstrate how tactical changes serve strategic goals.

Central Coast Lean's integration of the 7 Habits with continuous improvement methodologies shows how personal effectiveness principles amplify organizational improvement efforts. When individuals are grounded in their purpose and priorities, they become powerful agents for making reason louder.

Building Collaborative Strategy Systems

This connects directly to both the Future of People at Work mission and Central Coast Lean's community-building approach. The challenge isn't choosing between methodologies—it's building systems that allow different approaches to work together while maintaining strategic alignment.

The most effective organizations create space for individual creativity and responsive action while providing clear frameworks for connecting that work to broader organizational purposes. This requires both the discipline of strategic planning and the flexibility of adaptive systems—and crucially, it requires individuals who have developed the habits to navigate this balance effectively.

Your Turn: Making Reason Louder

Consider your own organization: What systems do you have for making the connection between daily work and strategic priorities visible? How do you balance responsive capability with strategic alignment? And most importantly, have you and your team developed the personal effectiveness habits that make these systems work?

The goal isn't perfect control—it's building platforms that amplify good reasoning and strategic thinking throughout your organization. Whether you're using Lean daily management, Six Sigma project tracking, or other improvement approaches, the principle remains: create systems that make strategic reasoning louder than organizational noise.

Start by developing your own effectiveness. Join Central Coast Lean for the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People workshop on January 23-24, 2025, and learn how to begin with the end in mind—both personally and organizationally.

Take Action

Ready to make reason louder in your organization? Here are your next steps:

Register for the 7 Habits Workshop: Join us July 23-24, 2025, for Central Coast Lean's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People workshop. Learn more and register at http://CentralCoastLean.org

Join the Broader Conversation: Check out the Future of People at Work (FPW) other innovative approaches to improvement methods. Learn more at https://www.fpwork.org/

Check out Skylar's YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@TheSkylarOlsen

Connect with us:

Follow the FPW LinkedIn page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/future-people-work/
Register for monthly FPW conversations: https://forms.gle/yXPbCXURdfvYtjmn9
Check out this FPW related event from our partner organizations: https://www.fpwork.org/fpw-events

#FutureOfPeopleAtWork #ContinuousImprovement #LeanEducation #Performance #LeanSixSigma #7Habits #PersonalEffectiveness #StrategyDeployment #OrganizationalAlignment #CentralCoastLean #BeginWithTheEndInMind

This post was developed through collaboration between the authors, Eric O Olsen, PhD and Skylar Olsen, PhD and synthesized with Claude.AI assistance, demonstrating the potential of human-AI partnership in knowledge sharing while maintaining authenticity through author review and validation.