Over the years we have worked with numerous business owners who have specific challenges within their business, and its interesting to hear their views on strategic planning. There are some people who truly believe in having a plan, and others at the opposite end of the scale. It would be interesting to know your thoughts.
Here’s our take on why we believe it’s important to have a strategy and some of the pitfalls to be avoided.
Do you have a strategy?
The world, including business, is changing more rapidly now than ever before. For some people, that may be an excellent reason for not having a strategy … after all, if you have a plan and external issues, which are out of our control, come along, then the strategy may get thrown out of the window.
Is that a good enough reason not to have one?
We’re strong advocates of strategic planning, even in such volatile and fast-paced times. Before, strategic plans were normally developed for the next 10 or 5 years, depending on the industry.
However, a 3-year strategic plan is becoming the norm and, of course, the business needs to be agile in the way it is delivered, so that it can flip in times of turmoil.
So, our questions for you are:
- How do you feel about having a strategy?
- Do you have one?
- When was it last updated?
- How have your people been engaged in the production of it?
- How has it been communicated within the business?
- Do your team understanding their role and responsibilities in delivering their part of the plan? And how do you know?
What’s the benefit of having a plan?
You may have heard about the study undertaken between 1979 and 1989 of Harvard Business School MBA graduates. In 1979, at the end of the programme the Graduates were interviewed and one question asked was “Have you set clear written goals for your future and made plans to accomplish them?” The results found that:
- 84% had no specific goals at all
- 13% had goals but they were not committed to paper
- 3% had clear, written goals and plans to accomplish them
In 1989, the graduates of that class were interviewed again. You can guess the results:
- The 13% of the class who had goals were earning, on average, twice as much as the 84 percent who had no goals at all.
- The 3% who had clear, written goals were earning, on average, ten times as much as the other 97 percent put together.
Why are we telling you this? Because even individuals need to have a clear direction of travel of what they want to achieve a goal successfully.
In business it’s no different. Actually it’s even more important, because there are more people involved in delivering the plan.
It’s not good enough just to have a plan
Okay, so we have a plan, but that’s not good enough. We need to engage individuals in the plan. This might mean seeking people’s contributions and thoughts for creating the plan. You also need to clearly communicate the plan and excite people with the vision of the future, so that they will follow you on the journey. Everyone also needs to understand their role and responsibilities in delivering their part of the plan.
So these things are all easy to say, you need to understand how you’re going to execute the plan so that it’s implemented and delivered upon.
The plan will enable you to chart progress of the business and your people; you therefore need to monitor and measure progress, report on it and regularly engage with your people to track their progress in delivery of it.
Alignment
And that’s not all, before putting pen to paper, you need to consider your purpose, vision, and values. These are key factors in considering your strategy, the language used to communicate, with clarity, internally and externally, and implemented.
You’ll no doubt be aware of the evidence that purpose and fulfilment is becoming higher on the criteria list for those in or seeking employment.
So, in essence, you need to consider all of these factors so that there is alignment throughout. And, of course, what you say, such as your values, should be lived and breathed by everyone within the organisation.
You can see there are several elements to consider prior to creating the strategy and then through the implementation.
The consequences of doing nothing
And what happens if you don’t have a plan, have a plan but don’t communicate it, or feel that because of the external environment it’s best to forget it? You only have to consider what happened to the Harvard MBA graduates to have a guess at what may happen in the future!
In summary
We believe that having a fully thought-through strategic plan, with people involved in the creation of it, is the way to go.
Of course, the plan needs to be aligned to your business’s purpose, vision and values. Engage your people in the creation of it. And communicate it with clarity, so that everyone understands the direction of travel. Be specific about roles and responsibilities, and individual contributions to delivery of the plan and the purpose of the business, which means taking them on the journey with you.
One final statement … celebrate successes regularly, recognise individuals and teams for their contribution and efforts, and make the journey fun!
We provide strategic facilitation, using appropriate models and by asking pertinent questions, used to unlock different perspectives, that will help you and senior leadership team plan your strategy more effectively. For more information contact andi@clcpro.co.uk.
An independent perspective …
We provide strategic facilitation. Through the use of appropriate models and asking pertinent questions, we can help you unlock what matters for you as a business and consider different perspectives. The facilitation will not only help you and the senior leadership team plan more effectively, it will also help you consider how you engage your people so that they feel motivated and inspired to deliver the results!
Schedule a call with us for an exploratory discussions, no strings attached!