How to Implement Your Strategic Plan

Execute, execute, execute! That sentence (fragment) is terrifying on so many levels. Not only does it bring to mind pictures of being blindfolded, given a last cigarette, and placed in front of a firing squad, but even more scary it means once you craft a strategic plan you’re expected to make it happen.
Planning is one […]

The 5 Traps of Personal Performance Management

Performance management is a problem. More specifically, how most people approach their own performance management is riddled with pitfalls. This is evident with the torrent of self-help and self-management books that have gained popularity, the increased talk of inbox management and especially in the colossal failure of the once heralded term, “multi-tasking.” Everything points to […]

Avoid the 11 Strategic Implementation Pitfalls

Wondering why your strategic plan never got implemented? Every year, organizations labor at planning, yet never seem to make it happen. Before you sit down with your team, make sure you’ve taken care of these potential traps:

Lack of ownership: The most common reason a plan fails is lack of ownership. If people don’t have […]

Have You Checked your Business for Desire Paths?

Strategic planning and implementation, along with all of their smaller components, can become to some extent a predictable process. You research, you set goals, you plan and you execute. The whole process implies that for whatever ills you uncover, there is a prescription that will cure each.
But what do you do about the unexpected? What […]

How to Run a Strategy Review Meeting

So in my last post about getting out of the trenches, I promised to give examples of how to run a strategy review meeting and an operational meeting. Since the strategy review is a little long, I’ll post that today and next week we can look at operational meetings.
Running a Strategy Review
Again, the key to […]

How to Break The Law that Keeps your Business Stuck in the Trenches

There’s a reason why, no matter how much we try to focus on the big picture of our companies, somehow again and again we find ourselves stuck in the trenches. Executives and department heads begin the year with great expectations; they research and they plan and communicate strategy throughout the company, but some how during […]

Holding a Monthly Strategy Meeting

Groan… another meeting? Well, yes and no. Replace one of your regularly scheduled staff meetings with a strategy meeting. Meetings about strategy can be exciting and people want to be involved. The purpose of the meeting is to discuss the status of your plan. Cross off what’s been completed. Troubleshoot if something isn’t happening. Make […]

How to Facilitate a Strategy Meeting

According to a past Fortune
cover story, 86% of business owners and managers spend less than one hour per
month discussing strategy. Not
surprisingly, this same article also reported that nine out of ten
organizations fail to implement their strategic plan. As you’ve probably
noticed from our previous columns, we’re big proponents of regular strategy
meetings. Quarterly and, in particular, monthly […]

Getting Ready for Implementation

With the recent debut of the execution module of our award-winning strategic planning software, MyStrategicPlan, much of our focus around the office has been on plan implementation and execution. Both topics are also especially relevant this time of year as many business leaders and organizations start preparing for a new fiscal year start in July […]

Execution: The Art of Getting Things Done

As companies
scrutinize performance in demanding market conditions, leaders are increasingly
analyzing their abilities to execute on strategy. In the past, leaders were
called upon to deliver the strategic vision, and managers were expected to
handle the details that turn that vision into reality. Today, this is
changing—and changing for the better.
Execution is
the process that turns strategies and plans into […]