Who should own your strategic Objectives?

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So you've established your mission, locked in on 3-year strategic pillars, and you've set up annual Objectives & Key Results (OKRs) that are going to change the world (at least a small part of it!). Now it's time to implement - and an important question emerges:

Who should actually own these strategic objectives?

Here's what I've observed after working with dozens of organizations, there are two approaches to assigning ownership of strategic objectives:

Solo ownership: One person carries the full responsibility
Cross-functional teams: A diverse group collaborates toward the outcome

Let me be crystal clear: Cross-functional doesn't mean no one is accountable. Every objective still needs a single, clearly defined owner who is ultimately responsible for its success. But that owner leads a diverse team rather than working solo.

Think of it this way: Accountability is singular – someone must answer for the results. Responsibility can be shared – multiple people contribute to the work. The magic happens when you maintain clear accountability while distributing responsibility.

The solo approach seems more efficient to our productivity-obsessed brains. Clear accountability. No meeting overhead. Direct line of responsibility.

And guess what? It rarely works well, and the reasons are hiding in plain sight

Why solo ownership falls short

Groups of people create alignment by accident. When one person owns a strategic objective, the alignment has to be manufactured afterward. AKA, when people aren't involved in the decision-making, they need to be convinced why it matters. When they're part of the process, they already know.

Solo ownership creates knowledge silos. The institutional learning happens in one person's head, not across the organization. AKA, your organization's resilience is directly proportional to how widely knowledge is distributed. It would be weird if the solo ownership approach actually worked for complex strategic objectives.

It's cruel: The seemingly efficient approach is actually inefficient. It saves time upfront but costs exponentially more in implementation, buy-in, and creative problem-solving.

The cross-functional advantage

The alternative is the team-based approach: We build our strategic execution around diverse perspectives from day one.

The components of the cross-functional model:

Builds natural alignment across the organization. When people from different departments collaborate, the solutions they create naturally account for interdependencies and ripple effects.
Creates sustained buy-in through the entire process. We know plans improve when team members help create them, but the magic really happens when those same people help execute. Initial buy-in created during planning transforms into sustained commitment during implementation, dramatically increasing follow-through.
Diversity of thought leads to creative problem-solving. Different backgrounds and expertise mean your team will see angles and opportunities that a single owner would miss.
Develops leaders throughout your organization. Cross-functional work is leadership development in disguise. It creates opportunities for people to step up outside their comfort zones and build new skills.
Shared responsibility lightens the load. Strategic work is demanding. When the weight is distributed, burnout is less likely, and execution is more sustainable.

But what about small organizations?

I hear this question a lot: "We only have 1-2 people per function. How can we build cross-functional teams?" This isn't about having large teams—it's about having diverse perspectives. In a small organization:

Have one accountable owner but enlist 1-2 others as collaborators, even at 25% capacity
Consider including board members or volunteers with relevant expertise
Look for people with diverse thinking styles, not just different job titles
Create "thinking partnerships" where two people with different backgrounds collaborate regularly. Involve your beneficiaries or clients in the process—their perspective is invaluable

The smallest effective cross-functional team is two people with different perspectives. Don't let size be an excuse.

Real-world impact: What we see with clients

Nonprofit A: As they reviewed their performance, they identified that turnover was a challenge. They built an annual objective to improve employee satisfaction and reduce turnover - with their HR leader being the accountable owner, but they built a cross-functional team of mid-level leaders from across the organization, folks in the trenches who are familiar with employee concerns. Because they've taken a collaborative approach, they have drastically accelerated their pace of learning what's really going on - allowing them to start testing interventions in just a few months rather than the year-long process they initially anticipated.

Nonprofit B: With a good deal of their revenue coming from federal funding, they identified a critical need to improve their internal fundraising performance to raise more unrestricted funds. While they have a Director of Development, their breakthrough was building a cross-functional team including members from finance, marketing, and operations. This team is working to identify ways to integrate development into their daily operations. Marketing now creates content with fundraising touchpoints in mind, and finance provides real-time insights that help the development team tell a more compelling story to donors.

Breaking down silos, building up results

As organizations grow, the temptation to divide into functional silos gets stronger. We organize by department for efficiency, but then struggle to solve problems that cut across those boundaries.

Cross-functional teams are the antidote to this fragmentation. They're not just about getting work done—they're about weaving your organization back together around what matters most.

Remember: There is no strategy transformation without people transformation. Strategic objectives don't execute themselves—people do. And people work better when they work together.