Article:
Bridging Strategy and Execution
By Marla Rosner, Principal Marla
Rosner & Associates
"We spent a week off-site to formulate our strategic plan, and six months
later, nobody's using it!"
Execution Pollution
Whether you spent a week away with your
management team or several sessions behind closed doors at the office to crank
out a plan, you're not alone if you've discovered that "working the
plan" is more challenging than getting it on paper.
The sources of execution pollution - that gray fog that blurs the results in
the horizon - are many. How the plan is generated and how management
communication and decision making are structured are often significant parts of
the problem.
Most organizations commit to regular weekly or monthly meetings of top
managers and assume that this accomplishes the necessary alignment among
functions to execute the plan. These meetings do not however ensure that the
right information is being communicated across departments to support effective
execution.
If managers are not required to share their function's objectives, strategies
and progress on their respective projects in a standard written format (that
their colleagues are required to review), it is likely that they will be
communicating what is top of mind for them. Each manager uses his/her own
discretion as to who else needs to know "their" critical information.
This often leaves critical communication to hallway "catch-up"
sessions.
The unintended outcome of this type of communication may be that
interdependencies, obstacles or conflicts between functions that should have
surfaced in a management meeting with all key players present may not become
apparent until it's too late; manufacturing can't meet the expectations set by
sales and marketing or training can't provide timely support to rolling out the
new product to retail units. These are costly failures in execution that are
preventable.
There is a Fix
Revisit the process of developing and implementing the strategic plan. Start
with how the consolidated plan is articulated. The plan you present to your
bankers or investment groups is not the same plan that should inform your
organization. The wording of your working plan should be crisp and to the point
so that the guy in the mail room of your company can read it and get it. I am
not suggesting a plan using only 3-letter words, but rather a plan that brings
discipline to the word-smithing process: think "less is more". Go for
one page (yes it can be done) for articulating the company's vision, mission,
measurable objectives, strategies and key projects. Bullet points are fine and
in fact, are a must in describing objectives, strategies and projects.
In addition to your approach to writing the plan, think about strategic plan
implementation. This should be a process that occurs over a designated period of
time (6 weeks to 3 months). Once you have upper level management agreement about
the consolidated plan, each functional head should then be required to
articulate their own one-page plan for his/her unit. These plans are then
presented to peers at management meetings specifically scheduled to focus on
alignment.
All functional leaders should be present at alignment meetings to engage in
dialogue about possible interdependencies, obstacles or conflicts. If
manufacturing cannot produce to meet a sales objective, then sales needs to
modify its objective or manufacturing may need to retool, expand resources or
change priorities. If marketing cannot produce an ad campaign for a new product
roll out because of competing projects, several people in the group may have
input into what projects take priority and how to integrate schedules. Gaining
alignment on the objectives, key strategies and projects across functions is
essential for execution.
Once the plans have been aligned you're near the end of the
"cascading" process that starts at the top and works its way down
through the organization. Now managers should share the consolidated plan as
well as their unit's plan with each of their teams. There may be substantive
input at the department level that will continue to refine that function's plan.
Comments should then bounce back up to the management team level for
consideration and refinement to the department plans.
Update and Communicate
Avoid the common pitfall of losing discipline in the process by not holding to
rigorous updating and continued cross-communication between departments about
their plans. Software is available that allows for all managers to view one
another's plans - a fabulous efficiency in the process of sharing information.
For the elegant and efficient one-page emphasis, check out the One Page Planning
and Performance System at www.onepagebusinessplan.com
.
Simple documentation in plain language creates a working tool that keeps the
important things on everyone's radar and enables you to manage the results of
your people and your business.
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