Studies show that on average 67% of companies fall short in achieving their strategic goals. In the wise words of Stephen Covey, “Most leaders would agree they’d be better off having an average strategy with superb execution, then a superb strategy with poor execution.”
So why is strategy execution so difficult? Is it process, people, systems; who or what is responsible for the lack of strategic goal attainment? This article will address the most common strategy execution challenges while also providing change management recommendations that can be quickly adopted to begin the transformation to a highly effective strategy execution company.
Let’s lay out a typical scenario that happens in many organizations today. The leadership team schedules a strategic planning offsite retreat where the brain trust of the company come together to create the latest winning strategy. After two days or so, the team has agreed to a set of strategic goals that are critical to the growth and potentially the viability of the company. The strategic plan is pulled together in a nice tidy document and plans are made to share it at an upcoming all-staff meeting. Excitement is high as the CEO and key executives share the plan for the future and what it will mean if it can be achieved. Everyone returns to their desks, and with each passing day the strategy becomes less top of mind and in a short amount of time strategy is not even relevant in the day-to-day activities being performed.
The 5 most common challenges in executing a strategic plan are:
1. Poor goal setting
Strategic goals are often large and complex objectives that almost always require many resources scattered across many departments and locations. Establishing clear goals across teams will result in more clarity on priorities and responsibilities.
Recommendation
Ensure that your entire organization has adopted a goal setting methodology. OKRs is emerging as the new standard but SMART is better than nothing. Ensure that there are established best practices for writing goals and each manager should be responsible for their team’s goals. If no best practices are being followed, then we would recommend OKRs.
2. Lack of alignment
Even with proper goal setting, teams and people can be challenged with a lack of alignment that typically causes prioritization issues and collaboration conflict that can derail the day-to-day work to achieve the strategic goal. The biggest cause of strategic misalignment is the nonstrategic work that people are so used to doing. Often nonstrategic objectives become the priority as they are routine and often the most easily attained.
Recommendation
By establishing clear alignment on who is working on which strategic objective, as well as what each of those objectives are will empower those people to drive the priority over nonstrategic objectives. This is especially true if you can see the alignment straight through the hierarchical structure.
3. Inability to track progress
Many organizations are still using spreadsheets to track objectives which can work between a manager and employee, however, these systems do not make it easy to aggregate results, create transparency and worse, their use limits the ability to real-time manage the attainment of strategic goals.
Recommendation
Consider using technology to change the way this game is played. Managers and employees, especially millennials, expect so much more and your return on investment will be instant. Knowing the score lets an organization and every person connected with that strategic goal adjust their game to maximize the outcome.
4. People not connected to the strategy
People in general like order and routine so we are more likely to fall into an operational tactical focus where our efforts can result in immediate results. Unfortunately, strategic goals are rarely this easy and small in scope, so how do we get people working differently? The best way is to connect people more closely to strategy by aligning professional goals with personal interests. For example, learning new skills, having more responsibility, working with different people and teams, working outside their department on, what we refer to as “strategy teams.”
Recommendations
Let people create their own strategic goals initially to capture their ambition and preference. Managers then work at trying to align that employees’ goal with the larger strategic plan. Shift the focus from ‘an employee working inside a department’ to ‘an employee working towards a company’s strategic goal as part of a strategic team.’
5. No measurements, no leading indicators
The old proverb “you manage what you measure” is paramount to strategy execution. Without measurement how do you manage the people and issues that can derail a strategic goal? You must set measurable goals first, track second and manage the goal third. Having leading indicators like predictive analytics stimulates the management discussions at all levels.
Recommendation #1
Initially start with only the most critical strategic goals as this will reinforce the notion that strategy execution is the most critical focus. It will also make it easier to adopt as it will be depth, not breadth. “Focus on less to accomplish more” is our motto.
Recommendation #2
Adopt technology that can provide predictive analytics on goal attainment. Yes, that does exist. Predictive analytics is not an exact science however it provides a reflection point on how a goal is tracking. The more a goal has visibility the more a goal will be managed.
Changing how your organization executes strategy may seem like a complicated and challenging change management project but it can be done relatively quickly and incrementally with immediate results. The first step is to start at the top. Executives have the most to gain and can certainly lead by example. Implement these best practices to start the transformation.
- Make the strategic goals clear. Use a methodology like OKRs in order to give the goals more structure.
- Set executive goals and demonstrate the leadership team’s focus on strategy.
- Make all strategic goals transparent to everyone. Show how each executive’s goals weave together to form a symbiotic team.
- Use technology as transparency and real-time tracking cannot be accomplished otherwise.
- Show that you are measuring what matters, managing what matters and more important going to attain what matters.
How Goal Management can help
Goal Management lets you create, manage, align, and share your objectives in an easy to follow platform. It allows you to collaborate with the entire company in an effort to inform, be informed, and work together in moving the company forward by achieving the corporate strategic objectives as a team.
If your company is already using the OKR methodology, but want more advanced software to track and manage overall progress, set up a meeting to talk to our Customer Success Team here.
