Over the years, I’ve noticed the subject of ‘strategy’ appears to raise more questions than answers with many companies and clients. It’s not necessarily the ‘need’ for a strategy; everyone agrees a sound strategy is invaluable and key to the success of a company. The question becomes, “Why do some companies, businesses and clients seem to develop, follow and execute an effective business strategy while other seemingly similar companies fail in this area?”
While strategy itself can be defined in many different ways, most reasons for poor execution tend to revolve around three key areas: Lack of leadership commitment; Poor internal communication; Absence of an organizational monitoring process.
While strategy itself can be defined in many different ways, most reasons for poor execution tend to revolve around three key areas: Lack of leadership commitment; Poor internal communication; Absence of an organizational monitoring process.
Leadership Commitment - Determining a strategy requires not only the discipline to develop an appropriate and effective plan, but also requires courage and commitment when faced with inevitable market and business distractions. If management directs resources away from the original strategy effort, the long-term focus can become compromised. Furthermore, management credibility can be questioned if this occurs too often which further undermines plan support. While any business must react to market dynamics, sacrificing long-term vision for short-term gain can undermine the eventual goals of an organization. Before embracing any new ventures, business leaders must understand the impact to the long-term strategy know matter how tantalizing the opportunity appears.
Internal Communication - If not clearly communicated, workers may loose faith not only in the initial plan but any subsequent efforts. They see their past efforts cast aside and therefore become suspicious of future plans. Historically, fundamental changes in strategy are driven by significant market shifts, major competitive activity, new technology introductions, regulatory/legal impact or key end-user trends. While legitimate reasons often warrant change, management should examine and be sure the reasons aren’t reactionary but legitimate one that require change. Likewise, employees should not mistake and overreact to subtle plan modifications. Any plan requires adjustments and course corrections. The key is to communicate changes throughout the organization to ensure understanding.
Internal Communication - If not clearly communicated, workers may loose faith not only in the initial plan but any subsequent efforts. They see their past efforts cast aside and therefore become suspicious of future plans. Historically, fundamental changes in strategy are driven by significant market shifts, major competitive activity, new technology introductions, regulatory/legal impact or key end-user trends. While legitimate reasons often warrant change, management should examine and be sure the reasons aren’t reactionary but legitimate one that require change. Likewise, employees should not mistake and overreact to subtle plan modifications. Any plan requires adjustments and course corrections. The key is to communicate changes throughout the organization to ensure understanding.
Organized Monitoring Process - Businesses invest significant time and resources in developing a strategy only to then fail to monitor plan performance. Without timely reviews, a plan grows stale. Focusing on a new opportunity may make sense, however the impact to the original plan should be reviewed before taking action. Assess the urgency of the new opportunity. Likewise, a strategy that's revised too often and tinkered with too excess becomes diluted, ineffective and compromised.
When addressing changes to a strategy, be sure to review these areas below to properly assess the change, communicate it effectively and have a process in place to monitor the results:
1. Evaluate the Impact ─ A new opportunity is always exciting but measure the plan impact in ‘dollars and time’. How will it affect existing projects, time lines and customer commitments? Will existing resources be re-assigned? Are new resources available? If too complex, consider adding it to next year’s plan.
Take the necessary steps to evaluate and predict the impact. Don’t invite a ‘Trojan Horse’ into your current strategy only to regret it later...
2. Communicate Effectively ─ Ideally, including key departments in the early stages of the evaluation can help with the decision and create employee ownership. Reach out to employees using newsletters, direct mail, work place signage, web site postings, payroll statement stuffers and staff meetings to gain appreciation and confidence.
Thorough discussions may help uncover and identify issues that otherwise might go unknown. An informed workforce now ─ is a productive workforce later...
3. Monitor and Measure ─ Frequent review of a strategic plan is imperative to achieving success. Identify early where a plan may be off target. Taking corrective action steps early before problems escalate can save valuable time and money. While it’s rare for a plan to achieve all stated goals, knowing where the ‘misses’ are helps future process and planning improvement.
Discovering root causes early can alleviate more catastrophic results. If it can’t be measured – it can’t be improved...
A well-defined ‘strategy’ serves as a road map to achieving identified goals. Travel without one and chances are you may still get where you going but you’ll waste a lot of time, use a lot of gas and make some wrong turns along the way.
When not immersing himself in strategy and branding “black holes”, Matt Klein can usually be found working on marketing strategy, brand development , account planning and new business efforts at Cross + Associates Advertising Agency in Raleigh, NC.
Linked In Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/moparman
