Strategy Execution and Execution

When I ask audience members at my seminars and speeches “What is your biggest strategic planning problem right now?” I inevitably hear the answer “Implementation.” Without a doubt, this is one of the biggest problems for any company trying to achieve something on a strategic level: execution seems inevitably to fall short of our stated intentions. As one CEO put it, “We say we’re going to do something and get excited about it, but a month later, it’s forgotten and we move on to the next thing.” Perhaps this is true even when trying to implement non-strategic goals, but it is much worse with strategic ones. Why? Because nothing is more postponable than a strategic objective, until it is too late to think strategically. Furthermore, strategic goals are much more likely to introduce powerful changes in your organization and thus meet much greater resistance than more operations-oriented goals.

You can improve your effectiveness in implementing strategy by the things you choose to do in your strategic planning process. There are three key areas where you can do this:

1. Implementation planning,

2. Allocation of resources and

3. Implementation monitoring.

The approach we take to these three areas is quite different from the norm in strategic planning and produces superior results. According to Robert Half Associates, most companies achieve about 30% of the goals they set in a process like strategic planning. With Simplified Strategic Planning, you should be able to achieve an average closer to 80%. It’s the unusual way we handle the three key steps of deployment management that makes the difference.

First, in planning the implementation, it is important to set the goals well. This means using the SMART approach: the objective must be specific, measurable, achievable and the results must be established in a timely manner. Also, you should make sure you set a reasonable number of goals. We find that many companies improve the effectiveness of their execution simply by limiting the objectives they set in strategic planning. Second, you need to write a good, clear action plan that is helpful in directing and tracking the implementation of your goals. The approach illustrated in the Strategic Planning Simplified seminar and book is a solid way to ensure this.

In resource allocation, we find that most organizations already pay close attention to the money required for effective implementation. This is the first resource you should check out. Money is important, but it is usually less important in strategy implementation than time. Ironically, few companies pay half as much attention to time as they do to money.

Finally, monitoring the implementation of the strategy is vital, although sometimes difficult. This implies two important things. First, you need to write your action plans to be trackable, which means that the steps need to be set out as clear, finite actions that are clearly completed at some point, and also that each step needs a clearly stated start and end date.

Make sure your team follows the recommendations in these three areas and you’ll find that your execution improves dramatically.

Copyright 2007 by Center for Simplified Strategic Planning, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan – Reprint permission granted with full attribution.