How to implement Your Strategy
The promising outcome of strategic planning days are rarely delivered in practice. So how do you defy the odds and have your strategy deliver the results they promise?
The key to implementing a strategy includes:
Clear and consistency decision-making and communication
Concrete, realistic plans
People being clear on their roles and responsibilities
Open, transparent, unfiltered information flows
Continuously monitored performance
Leadership
1. Clear and Consistent Communication
It is hard to implement a strategy if people don’t know what it is. People need to understand the strategy well enough to apply it.
Distilling the strategy into a clear, memorable, actionable phrase is key. For example, Walmart distils their strategy into the mantra ‘low prices, every day’. Team New Zealand America’s Cup success is underpinned by ‘will it make the boat go faster?’
This clarity enables people to make decisions with confidence, innovate with purpose, respond to emerging opportunities and, as importantly, decide what to do and not to do.
2. Concrete, Realistic, Integrated, Prioritised Plans
Implementation plans are often too general, have growth curves resembling hockey sticks, are not grounded in market or organisational resource reality and try to boil the ocean.
Plans should be concrete and grounded in reality. They should be agreed and integrated by all business functions and prioritised.
3. Clear Roles and Responsibilities
People must be clear on their roles and responsibilities in executing the strategy. This includes clarity on the decisions they are able to make.
Once the clarity of roles and responsibilities is in place, people then need to be enabled, empowered and trusted to get on with it and held accountable for the performance and decisions.
People want to get on with the job they are being asked to do, have an influence on how it is done and given room to bring their full selves. This will result in motivation, innovation, ideas, opportunities being seized, and an energy that will be felt by suppliers and customers alike.
The connection between desired performance and rewards/recognition must be clear and aligned to the strategy.
4. Open, transparent, unfiltered information flows
The more open, transparent and unfiltered information flows, the better.
Information is the lifeblood of strategy implementation. Everyone, from the frontline to the CEO, has a piece of the puzzle that, when shared, creates a clear picture of competitor activity, market trends, customer needs, priorities and performance. People must have the information they need to make good decisions.
All too often, information from the front-line is filtered to the point leaders at the top are told what they want to hear, not what they need to hear. Leaders sit on ‘confidential’ performance information that, if shared, would make sense to decisions and priorities. Or business units and functions share a fraction of what they know without appreciating they know a lot more information that is valuable to others than they think.
5. Continuously Monitor Performance
Data is evidence of progress. Measure the key drivers of performance in real-time and monitor the implementation of strategic projects in a timely way. Celebrate success. Acknowledge and reward performance.
6. Leadership
Leadership is the key enabler or disabler of strategy. Leadership is hard. It is nuanced. Even the most well-intentioned leader can get in the way of a successful strategy implementation.
The most impactful leadership is strategic leadership. A strategic leader provides clarity, communicates consistently and often, and creates a culture that is aligned to the strategy.
Strategic leaders build aligned, unified, high trust leadership teams, are open and transparent, enable, empower and trust others, make decisions that are aligned and consistent with the strategy, and are role models for the behaviours expected of others.
In Summary
The promising outcome of strategic planning days are rarely delivered in practice. There are six key elements to strategy implementation. All six are required for success.
First, distil the essence of the strategy into a clear, memorable, actionable phrase and communicate it relentlessly. Second, develop a concrete, realistic and prioritised plan. Third, provide clear roles and responsibilities and enable, empower and trust people to get on with their job. Hold them accountable and reward/recognise desired performance. Fourth, create a culture of open, transparent, unfiltered information flows. Fifth, continuously monitor and transparently report performance. Finally, and arguably most importantly, be an enabler of strategy by being a truly strategic leader.
Need help implementing your strategy? Talk to us today.