Why is it so hard to move into the strategic planning, from the day to day tactics? We have already set goals and vision and communicated them both to the team. Why is it so hard to take the next step and put it into action?
There are so many distractions confronting leaders every day that focus us back to the tactical or if you’re lucky, operational objective level of targets. It’s extremely hard to view these activities on a day to day basis in reference to the over-arching business goals and the strategy by which these will be reached. Often times this causes the strategy and over-arching business goal to get lost in the noise, especially for the team, only to rear its ugly head when the performance review forms are due.
A huge step toward success is to ensure the team has been communicated the difference between the Goals, Strategies, and day to day operational activities, in reference to their day-to-day.
STRATEGIC GOAL/OBJECTIVE
“Make our company grow from $1MM/year to $10MM/year within 3 years.”
This goal alone will leave non leadership personnel mostly directionless. Of course, they know what good work delivery looks like, but they don’t know how you want to achieve the growth you’re asking them to deliver. It is a matter of perspective as they simply have not been included in the meetings or been presented with the same data in the process of formulating that goal. The team will probably be asking the following types of questions:
Should I help to capture more customers, grow existing customer services, sell our products for more, or produce them for less?
If it is all of the above, which do I prioritize over the others?
What are you willing to sacrifice for this goal?
This is where Strategy helps to make it more tangible:
STRATEGY
In order to reach the strategic goal, a strategy must be defined that explains the path the organization will take to arrive at the goal. This is typically going to explain where the company will position itself in the market to be different to its peers and carve out its niche.
It may look something like:
“Become the preferred provider in our sector, becoming known as the most trustworthy, and most innovative, widget provider in the market.”
Ok, now it’s probably becoming more real to the people that make the goals happen - We want to be trustworthy and innovative. To get to this point you will have spent significant time determining your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT), and understand extremely well what your customers currently think of your business.
It’s all a matter of perspective. Once you have set the strategic goal, you can set smaller bite size targets, calling them operational objectives or short-term goals. These will be smaller steps that will bring the organization toward the long term strategic goal and help the people on the coal-face understand the rationale.
OPERATIONAL GOALS (SHORT TERM GOALS)
The operational goals can now be designed around the strategy. You might set yearly goals that you have analyzed will align with your strategy and reach the 3-year strategic objective, such as:
The engineering team must deliver x innovations this year that have estimated value of $x revenue in 3 years’ time
Our widgets must have a 99.5% reliability rate in order for us to provide a 2-year warranty
The Business Development team must double our market penetration this year
Marketing must run campaigns that get us x exposure per week, with 10 new leads per month
Customer sentiment must improve 20% this year toward our company, to be measured using a customer feedback process
Now we’re really getting somewhere. The managers of each department know exactly what they will be held accountable to delivering for the year, and where they’re likely to have to be in 3-years time.
TACTICS
In my experience, it’s best now to leave the individual leaders and supervisors to formulate their tactics with their teams. The involvement of the team in this step is important in order to ensure they own and feel accountable to deliver upon their goals.
The engineering team might implement the following:
By the end of January, we will open up an innovation portal where team members from all divisions will be able to submit ideas for analysis and potential implementation. Ideas that make the cut to production will be rewarded with a $500 spot bonus
We will create an innovation manager role that will be accountable for driving the initiative, this role will be staffed and operational by the end of February by an internal candidate
In the next 3 months, we will overhaul our quality control and tracking measures and change our culture toward quality by tracking and rewarding personnel that significantly impact quality output
A framework for value assessment will be in place by the end of January that will ensure that the innovations are measured equally against one-another
Marketing and Engineering will work together to create a customer quality feedback process.
The added benefit of having the team develop the tactics with the leadership is that they will now be subconsciously focused on achieving the goals. You will find that their decision-making process will automatically integrate the overall strategy within it. For example:
Customer is communicating that their product is broken, however, it’s still in warranty. Unfortunately, the version they have in their possession is no longer manufactured. Do we:
A) Make them pay for an upgrade in order to get their warranty so we can preserve our profit margins for this year
- OR -
B) Give them a new version with the additional features at no cost, in good will
Given the long-term strategic goals and operational goals, I would expect “B)” from the team. This is an example of programming the mindset and culture of the organization to achieve the business’ strategic objectives. If the team can do this, imagine how drastically your focus can shift toward the strategic goals and next year’s objectives!
Conclusion
I have personally experienced the top down approach of setting strategic goals, strategy, and then leaving it to the organization to digest, leads to lack of direction. The organization is far too busy with day-to-day operations to take the time to break it all down and decipher it in their terms. Remember the unique perspective that your role provides you and ensure you help foster the organization in understanding this perspective.
The TL:DR answer to the first paragraph: Ensure clear communication of strategic objectives, strategy, and hold the team accountable to collaborating on tangible and actionable operational goals & tactics.
If these different aspects of your company’s future are communicated clearly, you have a far better chance of everyone working in unison and reaching your strategic objectives.