Do You Create Implementable Strategies for Your Team?
Strategies that do not get implemented are frustrating for everyone. To move forward, leaders need to create implementable strategies for their team that are clear, believable, and possible in your unique circumstances. Effective strategies set you and your team up to get from where you are to where you want to be.
To be implementable, strategies must be clear and simple enough to communicate and aligned enough to execute effectively across the organization.
The Research on Strategic Implementability
The research on the success rate of strategic implementations is not encouraging.
- A recent McKinsey survey of almost 2,000 senior executives found that only 26% rated their strategy transformation as successful.
- According to Wharton’s Mack Institute of Innovation only 5% of managers fully understand their company’s strategy, and a whopping 75% do not feel like they have any stake in the strategy.
- That is not surprising to us as our organizational alignment research found that leaders are spending a small fraction of their time discussing, aligning, and adjusting strategies.
The Top Strategy Implementation Mistakes to Avoid
Based on project postmortem data, the top strategy execution mistakes to avoid are:
- Lack of Involvement
Not actively involving those expected to implement the strategy in the strategy design and planning process is the most common, and most detrimental strategy execution mistake. Research by Bain found that the ability to effectively engage stakeholders has a 50% higher impact on strategy execution success than any other factor, including clarity of strategic direction.
Sadly, too many executives make the mistake of thinking that the involvement of others will slow things down — when in reality, active involvement speeds things up in the long run.
- Overreliance on Strategy Communication
Many companies feel repeated strategy communications are required for employees to get it. But strategy repetition does not equal strategy understanding or strategic believability. Research by Gartner found that what leaders “say” only has a 1% impact on strategy implementation.
How leaders “behave” combined with how work gets done (i.e., business practices) have a 23 times greater impact on successful strategy execution than communication.
- Not Being Agile Enough
When it comes to strategy execution, flexibility is needed in order to adjust to new and changing market demands. Our organizational alignment research found that how responsive leaders are to relevant market and industry changes combined with how well employees respond to key changes rate in the top 3 strategy implementation success factors.
- Weak Accountability and Decision Making
The C-Suite cannot be solely responsible for driving the strategy forward at scale. The level of cultural accountability and effectiveness of decisions made at all levels throughout the organization will play a much greater role in determining if the strategy is properly executed.
3 Ways to Create Implementable Strategies for Your Team
The fundamental way to achieve strategic success is to use a corporate strategy retreat to get everyone on the same page and then to break strategic goals into meaningful, worthwhile, and challenging but achievable objectives that can be tracked and measured. Sounds easy — but this is where so many leadership teams fall short. They don’t know how to craft good strategic objectives. Without them, there is no true guide to follow and no way to assign enough accountability.
- Agree Upon Where You Are
While this seems elementary, we are surprised at the number of leadership teams that do not spend the time to get on the same page about the current assumptions and market realities. Without common context from a current state analysis, it is almost impossible to create implementable strategies for your team.
— Do you have a common understanding of what “Point A” represents?
— Do all key stakeholders agree upon the key complications that the company faces?
— Can everyone describe the critical few implications of not successfully executing your strategic vision?
Is the current situation clear enough to all key stakeholders?
- Agree Upon Where You Are Going
By and large, low performing teams have unclear goals and accountabilities, roles, success metrics, and processes.
— What does “Point B” represent?
— Are you hoping to enter a new market to diversify your offerings?
— Grow your revenues by 20% and your margins by 15%?
— More fully engage your workforce to decrease attrition?
Whatever your ultimate goals, a successful strategy clearly defines what success looks like and how both success and failure will be measured at the individual, team, and organizational levels. Without strategic clarity, it is almost impossible to align performance management and reward systems with strategic objectives.
Does everyone agree with where you are headed and why?
- Break Strategic Goals into Concise Objectives
Every strategic objective and initiative should 100% align with and drive toward a strategic priority. Strategic objectives should:
— Be specific.
— Have one clear owner.
— Set a specific date for completion.
— Be measurable.
We have found that the best strategic objectives are communicated in a single sentence that begins with a verb, a success metric, and timeline. Recent client examples include:
- Increase the executive sales team by two members in the next six months.
- Improve employee engagement from 76.5 to 82.3 in twelve months.
- Decrease attrition of A Players by 50% in six months.
- Hire and onboard 250 new employees in the next 18 months.
- Grow our top 5 accounts by 18% by the end of Q4.
- Improve average client satisfaction ratings by 3% by the next quarter.
Some Tips About Approach
- Don’t Create Too Many Strategic Goals
We have found that there should be no more than two to three major strategic goals for the year. This allows people to focus on the few critical strategic bets that will make the biggest difference. Too many goals spread valuable resources and mindshare too thin.
- Actively Involve Key Stakeholders
Strategy is the time to go slow to go fast. When you co-create the strategies with your key stakeholders, you engage them in the process and gain their commitment to succeed. This is not the time to work in an ivory tower. Actively involve the team in strategic planning to avoid problems down the road.
- Ensure Clear Decision Making Rights
Follow decision making training best practices and ensure that everyone know how to clarify the decision to be made, follow a proven decision making process, unlock stakeholder commitment, take action, and communicate decisions for greater commitment.
- Have One Owner Accountable for Each Objective
Having multiple people accountable for big strategic bets causes nothing but confusion and problems. Do not have “two in a box.” While multiple people will most likely be responsible for completing the task, only have one executive project sponsor accountable for the final results.
- Create an Effective Exposure Mechanism
When it comes to strategy implementation, a cadence of accountability is critical. There should be regular leadership team meetings to monitor, report on, and assess progress. Be as transparent with the organization-at-large as you can. Every single employee should have a clear understanding of the company’s strategy and a line of sight into how their contribution fits in.
The Bottom Line
With clear, believable, and implementable strategic objectives, you will know where to play and what actions to take. This is how a company strategy comes to life, effective decisions get made, and resources get allocated to the right priorities.
To learn more about creating strategies that will be successfully implemented across your company, download 3 Big Mistakes to Avoid When Cascading Your Corporate Strategy
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