The beginning of
the year is a great time for re-thinking your organisation's strategy. Come February most plans have already failed.
Successful
strategic planning requires the avoidance of critical common mistakes
that we all make over and over again.
Here are 10
pitfalls you must avoid in order to successfully execute your strategic plan.
1. Commitment
from Everyone
It’s in everyone’s best interest to have a strategy but it is
crucial to get buy-in from right through the organisation. Without a shared
vision and commitment, even the best strategy is unlikely to succeed.
2. Not Getting the Right People Involved
Anyone who is crucial to setting forth the company's vision as
well as those responsible for carrying it out should be involved. This ensures
team commitment and helps resolve stumbling blocks early.
3. Failing to Focus on the Big Picture
What is your vision? Strategic planning is intended to focus on
high-level thinking. Is the vision clearly defined? Make sure to give priority
to those major issues critical to the organisation's success.
4. Assessing
your Starting Point
Where are you now? It's easy to see yourselves as you want to be
seen, our how you hope thinks will turn out in the future but you must get
real. It is absolutely crucial to make an honest assessment of internal and
external issues as they exist today. This may even involve bringing in one or
more third parties. But without an accurate assessment of where you are, your
strategic plan will be flawed. It’s just like planning a road trip.
5. Failure to Account for Continual Change
Both inside and outside of an organisation things are always
changing, requiring you to constantly make assessments of how it affects you.
Management teams must be fully aware of these forces and assess how they affect
the market, your organisation, your customers, and your future.
6. Unwillingness to Change
Change is inevitable. Successful leaders must be nimble and
ready to adjust with change, rather than fight against it--or even worse,
ignore it. A good plan today may no longer apply tomorrow.
7. Failure to Set SMART Goals
A good strategic plan sets forth a vision, but also provides a
working framework within it. Make sure that goals and milestones are set, and
develop a timeframe for achieving them.
8.
Failure to Put the Plan into Action
If you don't put your plan into action, then you are just
wasting time. As Zig Ziglar said, "You were born to win, but to be a
winner, you must plan to win, prepare to win and expect to win." Take
action every minute on the things that matter.
9. Lack of Accountability
Putting the plan into action is only the beginning. If it isn’t
measured it generally doesn’t get done. It's pretty simple. If no one is held
accountable, nothing gets done. To make sure things get done, assign areas of
accountability to specific people. Share the plan openly with the entire team,
so all members are openly held accountable.
10.
Failure to Monitor and Follow Through
Set regular intervals for formal review of the strategic plan
and action items. Most strategic planning experts suggest this be done at least
on a quarterly basis.
Start Now
If you don't have a strategic plan, or if you have one that
isn't working for you, now is the time to get on track. And one last thought,
does it include a Communication Strategy?
