Training

Strategic planning is a process, not a one-time event. A key element in this process is the engagement of all levels of employees throughout the company. Employee engagement generates additional momentum and helps build their commitment to the overall concept. It is important to involve employees in planning the strategy and direction of the company. Employee input will give you insight into issues, challenges, concerns and opportunities that may not have been known or fully understood. Secure his or her "buy-in" to help implement the strategies. The senior management team won't implement the strategies - the employees will. When you involve them, the success rate of your strategy implementation increases dramatically.

Strategic planning processes are successful when a bottom up and top down communication approach is taken. It starts with communication at all levels to employees, informing them that a strategic planning process is underway. It also includes how they will be involved in that process. This is bottom-up communication. Employees provide input through feedback surveys, focus groups, meetings, etc. input to the strategic planning process regarding their ideas on organizational direction, etc.

Top-down communication follows. Top management will share the strategic plan with employees. They will communicate to all employees how their involvement will help ensure success in implementing these strategies.

"Companies need the courage to try something risky that they don't know will work. Why? Because if they know it's going to work, they're just getting an improvement on what they already have. But if they try something that's a little dangerous and new, they'll realize true innovation."

Michael Stanleigh

Some strategic plans include strategies to develop a new product or provide a new service or restructure a department, etc. They assemble teams of individuals to work on these important initiatives and give them investment dollars to ensure success. Over time, however, it becomes apparent that this team will not achieve the strategic goal given to them and the strategy itself is deemed to have failed. This is wrong!!!!

This is not a failure of execution. It is the lack of an innovation process to guide the strategy that led to the failure. Top management developed strategies that required innovation to achieve. Unfortunately, this is very common.

Many companies tell their employees that they are more innovative. They develop strategies for new products and services. However, they do not develop an innovation strategy that includes transforming the company culture into innovation, implementing a process to manage innovation, etc. Research in Motion is a classic case. They will tell you they are very innovative. They market it and promote it. But look at their strategic plan. They lack a clear innovation strategy - but they do have strategies for new product development. But they haven't released a single innovative product since the development of Blackberry. You will disagree, of course. The Playbook is an Ipad with less functionality. It is not an innovation.

However, there are many examples of companies pursuing an innovation strategy that helps drive their new product and service strategies. These include Apple, Google, Zodiac and BMW.

"Most devastating, 95 percent of employees don't understand their company's strategy. (How are they supposed to execute a plan if they don't understand it?)"

Harvard Business School

Once the strategic plan is in place, there are two critical elements related to project management. One is to identify the projects needed to ensure success in implementing each strategy. Another is to develop a prioritization of all these projects to ensure that the high priority projects have the right resources to ensure success. This requires a high level of commitment from staff to spend the necessary time on the projects.

High employee engagement ensures that they understand the strategic plan. It increases their engagement to ensure that the strategy is successfully implemented because they understand how their work and the work they do as part of the project will help the organization realize some or all of its key strategies.

Corporate culture is the shared attitudes, values, beliefs and behaviors of employees. A company's culture is as unique and diverse as an individual's personality. If a company's employees believe that change is something to be feared and avoided, then the implementation of change is often reactive and haphazard. If employees believe that all change should be implemented aggressively "from the top," then change is rarely supported. However, if a company's employees believe that change is worthwhile and that everyone is accountable, then change and growth occur with relative ease. These are the few "excellent" companies that continue to excel in their industry.

Top-down communication follows. Top management will share the strategic plan with employees. They will communicate to all employees how their involvement will help ensure success in implementing these strategies.