Your Strategic Plan for 2020 - Let's Get Started!
If your strategic plan is tied to the calendar year, we have entered the fourth quarter of 2019. Now is the time to begin pre-planning efforts for 2020.
The end-of-year strategic plan review should include lessons learned from the previous quarters so that you can continuously improve your planning efforts and drive your organization closer to the established goals and, ultimately, the vision.
Begin your 2020 pre-planning efforts with an overall review of the 2019 strategy. Gather the leadership team to discuss observations, impacts, successes, and failures. This type of discussion can benefit greatly from hiring an outside facilitator, as such a resource brings not only objectivity but also facilitation skills and communication techniques to help further the discussion. Topics to cover in this review include the following:
Those aspects of the strategic planning and management efforts that worked well. Be sure to identify the reasons for these successes, and which you want to replicate in 2020.
Conversely, those aspects that did NOT work well. Again, identify the causes of these shortcomings or failures as well as ideas for eliminating them.
Those aspects that the organization could have handled differently to improve the entire experience for everyone.
The information gathered during the session and the decisions made regarding improvements to drive a successful 2020 strategic planning and management process effort.
Like the challenges that often arise in project efforts, some common pitfalls tend to plague planning and delivery efforts related to strategy management. The lessons learned during the 2019 strategy review with the leadership team may reveal that your organization has fallen prey to this phenomenon. Following are some potential pitfalls along with suggestions for neutralizing the related negative effects.
Pitfall: The leadership team was on board at the beginning of the year, immediately following the planning process; but as work got in the way, their interest and excitement for the strategy waned.
The Evidence: Only 8% of executives are credited for being effective at both creation and implementation of strategy.1
Suggestions for Improvement:
Incorporate strategy into each executive level meeting. Discuss status, challenges, successes, and failures to help keep the strategy on the forefront among the leadership team.
Identify a strategy point of contact within the organization. If the organization does not have a point person for the strategy, assign someone or hire someone to focus on the strategy. This measure helps to channel the various activities, reporting, and overall management to someone who can report in to the leadership team.
Pitfall: The strategic plan was unrealistic and did not align well with the organization
The Evidence: 9 out of 10 organizations fail to meet all of their strategic goals.2
Suggestions for Improvement:
Engage a professional strategic planner to facilitate strategy sessions and help define the strategic goals that are most appropriate for your organization.
Focus on those outcomes that are meaningful to your organization, existing customers, potential customers, and other stakeholders important to the organization’s future, as well to your operating environment. This measure helps ensure that your strategic planning efforts are practical and relevant.
Pitfall: One or more executives were unsure on ways to rally the troops and get everyone engaged and working toward a common goal: the vision.
The Evidence: 90% of employees do not fully understand their company’s strategy and what is expected of them.3 “Research indicates that workers have three prime needs: Interesting work, recognition for doing a good job, and being let in on things that are going on in the company.”4
Suggestions for Improvement:
Use surveys, forums, and meetings to include all employees in the design of the strategic plan and solidify understanding of the vision throughout the organization. Successful strategies include buy-in at all levels of the organization. A top-down approach is ineffective and will not meet with success.
Train supervisors and managers to help staff understand their roles and responsibilities in contributing to the overall strategy and success of the organization. Emphasize the benefits to them, individually, as well as the organization overall.
Incorporate strategy elements into the staff meetings, performance reviews, and the organizational culture.
Develop a comprehensive communication plan to continuously provide details, to the organization. This measure ensures that the staff remain engaged and can recognize the ways their efforts are contributing to the overall goals of the organization.
Pitfall: Lack of metrics or measurable results tied to strategic goals prevented identification of achievements and shortfalls.
Case in Point: A strategic goal of “Increasing customer satisfaction” without defined metrics related to measuring that satisfaction.
Suggestions for Improvement:
Use the SMART criteria (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timebound) as a starting point for establishing meaningful metrics for your strategic goals.
Ensure that your staff understands the measures of success so they will know whether the organization is on track to achieving the strategic goals.
In planning for your year-end strategy review, consider incorporating some of these ideas into your discussions. Doing so will help you develop a robust and comprehensive strategy plan to build on the lessons learned from 2019 and solidify your roadmap to your vision.
2020…here you come!
Strategy+Business - PwC; 10 Principles of Strategy through Execution
Brightline Institute; Closing the Gap: Designing and Delivering a Strategy that Works
Harvard Business Review: Robert Kaplan and David Norton
Zig Ziglar: Inc. Magazine: 13 Quotes That Define Employee Engagement