I am sure that many of us have participated in strategic planning sessions. Having been the president of a for-profit company, as well as having supported non-profits, for over 25 years, I have participated in and facilitated many strategic planning sessions.
I am a firm believer of the saying “If you don’t plan, how will you know if you get there?” In that statement lies the real key: You can have the best strategic planning session and come out of the session with a fantastic report, but if you don’t execute on the plan, you have wasted a lot of resources for nothing.
Of course, execution can take many forms. From my perspective, to truly execute you must build a process for that ensures your organization truly embraces the plan goals, as well as its tactics.
All plans should have goals and tactics. The goals should lay out what you want the organization to look like in 3 to 5 years. The tactics should be built into 1-year plans that build off each other to accomplish the goals. The execution of the plan breaks down developing and implementing the 1-year business plan.
You need to share the goals and tactics with everyone in your organization. Ensure that the tactics described in the company business plan are being included in the annual planning process for each department/function. Agendas for all meetings should look very different; the tactics should drive discussion, while the agreed upon metrics in the plan measure the organization’s overall success.
A very important step that many organizations skip is having regular check-ins to determine whether you are on track with the plan. These meetings are held with every area of the organization to confirm the status of their aspect of the plan, and the results are shared with the entire organization. Accountability is the key to success of this process.
If you don’t execute the plan, you could end up without a head and running an organization that doesn’t know where it wants to be!
