Avoiding the Strategy Gap
High performing organisations tend to have one thing in common – they have a strategy, but more importantly they know how to execute that strategy.
Knowing what to do does not necessarily on its own lead to success. Having a strategy without the ability to implement it, to make it a reality, is also all too common. I call this the Strategy Gap. The result is unfulfilled expectations and all too often a falling out around the Board Room table! So what can be done to “mind the gap”?
For me the first step is to make sure the strategy is not just words. A good strategy should contain some real and meaningful objectives, expressed in numerical terms that can be broken down and given to the team below. This provides each division, department or element of the organisation with practical targets that can in turn be cascaded down to managers and team leaders. From this each person with responsibility for a target can derive their own small number of critical KPIs to allow them to measure, monitor and analyse progress to meet the overall strategy.
The result of this is an organization with a good understanding of what it needs to do, able to respond to changing needs. It will reflect back up to the leadership how far they have travelled, how they are responding to external influences what changes might need to be made to the strategy as time moves on, with decisions being made supported by facts and figures – hard data, not supposition!
Strategy Execution with Continuous Improvement built in!
A very important point. Most organizations may have a strategy but are very poor at execution. I have noticed that the first step after a strategy is created is to document it in a format that can be easily understood by the entire organization. My recommendation is to document the strategy on one page, using a strategy map. This way the strategy becomes actionable as it can be communicated in all areas of the organization very quickly. The question then for each area is "what is your contribution to the strategy", and "what measures (KPIs) are you using to demonstrate that you are on an appropriate path".
ReplyDelete