Behind closed doors, executive management continually (hopefully) discusses the vision and strategy for their organization. Whether it is during a specific strategy session, or during ongoing team discussions regarding the business, executive management has a clear plan for their organization. They also take the time to review progress and adjust the strategy based on market conditions, competitors, company performance, etc.
Unfortunately, what does not happen enough are the next steps required to really embed the vision and strategy in the organization, to every employee, so that executive management can truly execute effectively and efficiently on their strategy. So once the vision and strategy are set, what are the next steps?
In one word…COMMUNICATION. Initial and ongoing communication throughout an organization is critical to the success of any strategy. It ensures that everyone knows why and where you are heading as an organization, monitors progress towards the accomplishment of the strategy and addresses the inevitable issues that will arise during execution.
Taking this a step further, here are the four communication channels that should be leveraged to embed a strategy into an organization and drive it toward success:
- Tell EVERYONE – Company-wide communication is critical to get your message to all your employees in a timely, motivational, thorough and consistent manner. This can generally be accomplished by a, or a series of, company-wide meeting(s) (commonly referred to as town halls). Take the time to develop a clear and concise presentation that gets your message across and sets a path for the organization that all can understand.
- Develop action steps and monitor progress through management meetings at all levels – Ongoing, periodic management and team meetings are critical to develop actions steps to accomplish the strategy, as well as monitor progress on a regular basis. They are also critical to address issues in a timely manner. Put in place a cadence of meetings at the various levels of the organization focused on reviewing the actions associated with the strategy so that your team is forced to focus on their accountability towards your goals.
- Make it tangible for every person by making it personal to every employee – Disseminating actions (e.g. meeting with employees, setting goals for teams and individual employees, etc.) throughout the organization and embedding these actions into the individual objective setting process makes the strategy tangible to each role and employee. By pushing your strategy to the individual level through individual objectives, each employee understands how they fit into the bigger picture and how their performance can impact the success of the organization overall.
- Get feedback – Throughout the year, take the time to get feedback from employees to understand what is working well and what can be improved in order to continue to make progress towards your strategic objectives. Team meetings, lunch and learns, focus groups, etc. can provide invaluable insight into how things are really going. It is from those that are actually “doing” the work where we can learn the most.
Prism Partners International can facilitate the development of your strategy and deliver resulting action plans, including a comprehensive communication plan, to embed your strategy into your organization and motivate your employees to superior performance and results. Through our practical operational experience and innovative assessments and analytics, we can focus and align management actions and employee performance to achieve improved profitability.
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