Five Barriers to Executing Your 2003 Plan...
   and Proven Methods to Overcome Them

Bob Zagotta

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BARRIER #4 The Plan Has Not Been Actively Deployed

Many executives complain about the difficulty in aligning their organizations around a specific vision or strategy. When asked what they actually do to deploy the vision or strategy to the organization, responses range from puzzled looks to explanations of employee communications programs. In either case, there is opportunity to more actively set a strategy in motion.

Issues of strategic complexity and importance require more than a 60-minute group presentation in order for people to internalize and act on them. At first hearing, most employees will not understand a strategy or plan enough to apply it to their activities and responsibilities. Although trying to bring clarity, the executive team treating complex issues in this manner usually reaps confusion at best. At worst, the result is mismatched expectations regarding what management has actually committed to. To do their jobs, managers need an opportunity to actively apply the strategy or plan to their part of the business in a safe, no-nonsense business environment. Ideally, this is accomplished working shoulder-to-shoulder with the executives who are the primary authors of the strategic plan.

What To Do: Mobilize the Troops

A first step in execution (or a last step in planning) should be a series of Deployment Workshops during which leaders will articulate the new strategy or plan to a group of managers. Both leaders and managers participate in planning exercises in which the managers, who are experts in their part of the business, make decisions regarding what they must do differently as a result of the new strategic plan. This is a very powerful approach that truly aligns the organization while motivating and mobilizing the troops to execute.

In most medium to large organizations, Deployment Workshops can be done at the business unit level and cascaded down into the organization as the need arises. While planning and conducting Deployment Workshops in several parts of the business represents an investment in time and money, many executive teams often cite this step as the most crucial. To some, it is considered more important than the development of the strategy itself, as it builds momentum “where the rubber hits the road.”

CASE EXAMPLE: FORTUNE 100 PRINTING COMPANY

In working with a Fortune 100 printing company, we recommended an active deployment approach. After completing a Strategic Framework, the President of a key division and his key lieutenants spent two days in each of their facilities actively deploying the strategy and execution plans. While there were communications sessions for each of the plant shifts, the focus of the deployment was workshops with the executive team of each site. In these workshops, the CEO took the opportunity to clearly articulate the content of, and basis for, the strategy. He also got to work side-by-side with the team, helping them adjust their priorities and create plans to support execution. It was a profound experience for the site managers. They had never had the opportunity to think through and question the direction of the company -- and get answers straight from the horse’s mouth. The deployment effort was also a clear signal to the organization that planning was indeed over and focus was now on execution.

BARRIER #5 The Plan is Static (in a dynamic world)

Within many of the high priced plans that end up in overstuffed binders locked away in the credenza, there is an unspoken assumption that nothing happening either inside or outside of the company can change the validity of the plan.

We know, of course, that this is not true. In fact, in today’s environment, significant changes in the competitive landscape and economy, as well as in other key strategic areas, must be assumed - even inside the bounds of a 12-month planning horizon. More than ever, strategic plans that are static -- that do not account for change -- are doomed to the credenza. In these situations, as internal and external conditions drive changes in priorities and resource allocations (as they should), one of three things impedes use and management of the strategic plan:

1. The strategic plan is not visible – after planning, it was literally and figuratively locked away, forgotten, and therefore disconnected from the decision-making process;

2. The strategic plan is not accessible – it is held in secret and restricted to the strategy department or the most senior executives; or

3. The strategic plan is not changeable – it is a dense, hardcopy amalgam of many plan fragments, some very detailed and some very high-level, making it difficult to update and manage.

If any one of these situations exists, the effort required to maintain the plan becomes too unwieldy and the plan becomes obsolete -- quickly. The effect is serious: executives who are leading day-to-day battles must do so without the benefit of the analysis encompassed in the strategic plan or an understanding of how resources are to be applied to aid quick decision-making. It is like driving in a cross-country race – where speed is important and wrong turns have real consequences -- without the aid of a roadmap.

What To Do: Create an Execution Process

Companies that are accomplished in execution use strategy as a weapon to drive progress, manage accountabilities, evaluate performance and support decision-making. In order to do this, they make the plan visible, accessible and changeable. These companies use annual planning not to develop static plans, but to create dynamic processes for execution. Thick binders become single page Executive Dashboards. One thousand task project plans become single page Management Action Plans. Weekly staff meetings become Strategy Progress Meetings. A dynamic planning and execution process helps an executive team understand progress, make decisions based on that progress, and take action to effect the decisions in the organization.

CASE EXAMPLE: LARGE PROFESSIONAL SERVICES FIRM 

A large professional services firm received a 50-100 page strategic plan from each of its 22 global offices.  As a result, the corporate executive team found it nearly impossible to understand the relative direction of each office, hold anyone accountable for progress, or implement company-wide changes in direction. Making coordinated progress and replicating successes was difficult.

We worked with each office to understand its plan and boiled each down to a one-page integrated dashboard. We also worked with the corporate executive team to design a process that allowed them to understand progress in the field, make decisions based on that progress, and turn those decisions into coordinated, company-wide actions. The resulting Progress Management Process required each office to submit a monthly updated dashboard which, in turn, could be reviewed by the corporate executive team prior to their monthly meetings. Decisions made in the monthly meetings were fed back to the offices via email in real time. The revised dashboards were posted to an employee database so each employee could understand ongoing progress and priorities.  This process enabled the organization to clarify their strategy, coordinate activities and optimize resource allocations, while remaining extremely nimble and efficient from a decision-making standpoint.

Conclusion

Successful strategy execution is a living, dynamic process.  Strategy itself begins life as a set of agreements about markets, products, revenues, growth and the like.  The rest is execution.  Unless there is an ongoing process for evaluating execution, making decisions about it, and closing the loop with the original strategy, the effort dies.  That’s why it is important to distinguish between strategic planning (those high-level agreements) and execution -- an ongoing process for reviewing and maintaining strategic progress.

Now, before the end of this annual planning cycle, take the time to refocus your planning activities on execution of plans, not on the plans themselves. Assess your own organization’s performance against the five barriers and make changes to manage or overcome them. Use your planning process to create a dynamic set of levers for steering your organization around these barriers and on to success.