If you answered yes, do you know why and how to fix it?
If you answered no, it still wouldn’t hurt to read on. The insights revealed below speak volumes about the current strategic planning and execution landscape, both in terms of how leaders feel about the process and the perceived barriers around executing strategic plans. You may see that some of this is present at your company and want to see the solutions.
This article is really for anyone who cares about strategic planning and execution - from a seasoned strategic planner to one just starting; or anyone in a leadership role to an operational owner. It's important for all to understand the factual data and consider how it applies to you and your company.
Let's Look at the Data
We have all read the text books and listened to the "experts" on social media ... there are five components that characterize successful strategy planning and execution - people, organization, culture, resources, and systems. We aren't going to dive into these obvious components - there is plenty of that on social media. But we will focus on strategy planning and execution that helps us deliver for our company. After all, we all know our company has to produce revenue and margin so we need to focus on the factual data and solutions that help us formulate and successfully execute our specific strategy for our specific and unique company that delivers outcomes.
The Industry Facts Can't be Ignored
So let's look at some industry data that is available from sources like Bridges Business Consulting. HBR, Economist, Gartner and more. Here is a basic summary. I can provide the details and sources if you're interested. Please contact us through our website and/or join our program for Free plans we are about to release: https://www.stratifypro.com/sign-me-up
60% of new executives feel they are not prepared for strategic challenges
90% of strategies fail due to poor formulation and lack of full planning significantly impacting profitability
70% of strategies "properly formulated" and created fail due to poor execution significantly impacting profitability
70% employees feel their strategic direction is "second-guessed"
45% executives feel their strategic planning process (and tools) failed to properly formulate, track and execute initiatives
80% of successful companies have established a mechanism (process/tools) to formulate, translate and track their strategy into operational deliverables and evaluate it on a day-to-day basis
These facts are important, but how do we use this data to change and get better? Lets first look at the barriers - the most common barriers to successful strategy planning and execution are:
Lack of alignment of goals across the company
Poor communication and continued silos
Little to no progress and performance tracking
Overall, in real life, the tangible changes companies must make to deliver outcomes on their strategic goals MUST remove these barriers. Surely your company leaders should always focus on the 5 components we noted above, but in reality, to make this real and tangible, you must remove the barriers or nothing will help:
The "3 T's" - Transparency, transparency and transparency
Formulate, create and maintain strategy plan from vision - mission - core values - goals - actions - KPIs into scalable strategy maps and detailed spreadsheets that are easy to keep up to date and synched with alignment, reporting and execution as the plan gets modified
Align goals, actions and KPIs across departments and organization
Measure, track and report on progress and performance
Communicate strategy at every level of the organization - open collaboration channels
Assign accountability to individuals and groups across the company
The Results are Really Good
It's my experience that organizations who consume this industry data, remove the barriers, and seriously pursue strategy planning and execution will successfully experience new growth and increase in profitability by 77% or more (Gartner). Again, stating facts from the data.
I always have said and continue to say - "strategy should not be a "side-gig" in your business; it should be your business!" If it's not, no tool, resources, or process will help. The key ingredient is the desire to make strategy planning and execution a core part of your day to day business and your culture. Once you have that mentality, then I suggest you make sure you have the best strategy software to help you formulate and execute your strategy. Don't try and do this with excel spreadsheets and static template - you will not get very far and get very frustrated.
Good luck in your journey and let me know if we can help in anyway or if you have questions. I would be happy to help as my company and I are on a mission to flip the 95% failures to 95% successes!
