I was wondering whether you have any ideas on how one helps a group of people articulate their intent? I will blog this idea later but I think you need to take an organisation through three journeys: 1) the development of the strategic intent by a leadership group (might be people throught an organisation not just the most senior people); 2) the involvement of the staff in developing the mud map based on experiences (stories); and 3) actually going on the change journey in the full knowledge that it wont look like they way it was planned.

On first glance, I suspect the articulation of strategic intent is a chicken-and-egg thing. The group needs to know what the higher-level strategy is (make money now and in the future; increase shareholder value; increase profits; increase production at the production facility; etc) to know how to make sense of their own strategies.

In my work with clients, it is also quite helpful to see what is "good enough" to get people moving in the right direction. Specifically, along with the strategic plans they need to uncover and consider the negative ramifications and obstacles of the approach. This is where the stories and their built-in sense about how the organization works are very helpful. It is hard to uncover the specifics issues without getting the longer descriptions and stories about why things have worked (or not) in the past. Once you have those, then there is a clearer path to building a pathway.

I may be getting too deep into the tactics here, while you want to stay up at the strategic level.