Every week from August through January, millions of Americans tune in three nights a week to watch modern-day gladiators battle over a single objective – strategically progressing an oblong ball down the field in 10-yard increments towards the finish line at the 100-yard mark (the end zone, for the growing number of people not tuning in). We can use the word “strategically” here because the offensive team’s endeavor involves an objective (moving the ball into the end zone); a scope or domain (inside the touch lines and based on field position); and an advantage the offense will try to utilize (a dual-threat QB, for instance).

As we know at Corona from our strategic consulting experience, any effective strategy needs to have these three aspects clearly delineated to succeed.  Even the best strategies, though, can fail when it comes to measuring the progress of its execution. This is as true in football as it is in organizational strategic planning. What organizations and football teams don’t always account for in measuring the progress toward a strategic plan’s execution is the human experience—the engagement side of strategy execution.

In the case of measuring the strategic progress of an NFL team advancing (or not) towards the end zone, the engagement comes in the drama of the struggle between the two teams and the theatrics that go into measuring each team’s progress. With all of its resources as an organization, why else would the NFL continue to use measurement techniques—like having a referee “eyeball” the spot of the ball and then trotting out crews of men with 10-yard-long chains to verify said spot—that are technically neither precise nor accurate if not to engage viewers in the theater of strategy execution, of collectively progressing towards a clearly defined objective?

The lesson is not that precision and accuracy are unimportant—my coworkers would be especially unhappy with that conclusion.  Instead, it is that organizations should be imaginative and intentional not only in how they wish to engage customers and employees around an inspiring strategy, but also how they can incorporate techniques of measurement and naturally occurring data that encourage customers and employees to experience the drama that goes into measuring an organization’s progress towards accomplishing its strategic objective(s).

This gels with some of the research on millennials, who, in addition to being a substantial set of consumers both now and into the future of the American economy, exhibit several characteristics indicating their receptiveness to being engaged throughout the process of strategic planning, including in the measurement of its execution. As previously noted by Corona’s resident millennials expert, millennials often seek to be engaged in nearly every aspect of an organization – from co-creating products to prioritizing the experience of an organization over even the products themselves (pdf).

Though this might be an off year for the NFL, now is an ideal time for organizations to consider taking a page out of the NFL’s playbook and make an effort to engage customers and employees in the drama of measuring strategic progress.