Developing a strategy that can actually be implemented rises and falls on how you set up the structure of your plan from the beginning. Don’t fall into the trap of creating a plan that sits on the shelf because no one understands how to move it to action. The correct strategic objective and goal structure will allow you to avoid these pitfalls. During this phase of planning, this is literally where rubber meets the road. Listen to this important webinar to “Move from Big Ideas to Action.”

You will learn:

• How to create a holistic, balanced strategic plan
• The best practices to establishing strategic objectives and goals
• Setting organizational goals that are SMART
• Cascading organizational goals to departments and then to individuals
• Creating action plans that have ownership

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Since the future cannot be controlled, many times long-term goals and objectives in strategic planning seem unattainable and even grandiose.  For example, when you worked at NASA in the 1960s, putting a man on the moon probably inspired just a little uncertainty, if not full blown doubt, by some!  Nevertheless, they engineered the problem and incrementally came up with solutions.  The same incremental approach is needed for strategic objectives that position companies at a certain spot three, five or seven years down the road.  Luckily these aims don’t require the same amount of resources as placing a man on the moon.

For many organizations, a pervasive problem in executing strategy is the existence of ambiguous wording, measurements and tracking mechanisms.  Without clarity, a strategic execution becomes directionless work.  Morale and support quickly erode in these circumstances.

Adam Smith says, “On the road from the City of Skepticism, I had to pass through the Valley of Ambiguity.”  We say rebook your trip!  With clarity of purpose, organizations can create tasks and routines that keep incremental actions moving forward with holistic purpose and accountability.  Leave less to question and interpretation when assigning strategic tasks and begin progress toward a more certain future.

Strategy Check:  Do you steer clear of ambiguity when talking about strategic performance?

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The topics of focus from the June 23, 2010 Strategy Huddle were:

1. Strategy Stat: What Matters Most to Strategy Execution
2. Topic/Question: Creating Useful Measures for Execution
3. Topic/Question: Case Study: Creating Strategic Alignment in a Loosely Organized Company
4. Topic/Question: Case Study: How to Change your Business Model

Business Model Canvas

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When establishing strategic objectives that span 3 to 5 years, a series of supportive goals and actions typically cascade through the structure of the organization.  At its core, the selected metrics for these goals and actions should drive the strategic objective.  The underlying metrics must align to ensure the success of the long-term goal.

No single metric can provide a clear direction. From a process perspective, the use of multiple metrics can serve as drivers that aggregate toward the fulfillment the strategic objective.  These tips should help focus your metric selection:

1. Select metrics that drive performance, not just measure history.

The propensity to measure the past through financial gains, losses and revenue for example, does not help give insight on the processes that so vitally impact organizational success.  Transformation that is typically inherent in strategic objectives is often dependent on improving intangibles like service, customer loyalty and morale.   Gauging these requires an understanding of the conditions that need to exist in order to select effective metrics.

2. Include metrics that consider the “lead and lag” relationships.

Internally, this may mean projecting the value of employee training for reaching a new level of efficiency or priming the organization for innovation.  Externally, this may mean staying responsive to market conditions or other relationships that may impact your value chain.  A true competitive edge requires attention to the “lead and lag” indicators of your organization’s environment, so you might as well include these as metrics that can be reviewed regularly in your strategic execution schedule.

3. Opt for metrics that reinforce the best in your employees.

All organizations have employees that offer skill and talent.  How effectively does your organization tap into the collective strength within?  Recognizing the ways in which employees are finding inspiration or assigning meaning to their jobs is key in understanding what needs to be nurtured.  Create an environment in which employees can be motivated by inspiration and meaning, and you’ll have a solid foundation to take your organization to another level of strategic achievement.  Needing some inspiration around this topic? Check out a new TED talk (available above) about “Measuring What Counts” for some ideas.

These are just a few considerations, but should be a good start when determining metrics for your strategic plan.  Creating conditions for success means measuring performance and processes from a holistic perspective, which is what a great strategic plan should demand.

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Howard Olsen, co-founder of M3 Planning

Howard Olsen, co-founder of M3 Planning, (the company that developed MyStrategicPlan) is a lead market researcher and strategist for our consulting services arm. With a Ph.D. in international business and marketing, as well as an MBA and a CPA, Howard provides our clients insight on effective interpretation and use of data.  He shares his insights regarding measurement below.

Q:  What are some key aspects to consider when assigning measurement to strategic goals and actions?

A:  Traditional approaches to measurement have been financially-based, which recant history instead of reflecting something holistic about an organization. Measurements can be predictive to some degree and determining if any industry comparisons exist is an important step to developing metrics, making companies more competitive,  as well as aiming for internal improvements.

A great resource for this kind of data is www.kpilibrary.com.  When determining any metric, make sure it is one you can stay with for a period of time for benchmarking purposes.

Q:  What are some common pitfalls that seem to prevent companies from translating measurement into action?

A:  Many times, companies do not take stock of what kind of data can be easily collected.  A thorough understanding of measurements currently being collected in any organization is a proper place to start.  This helps to ensure that any additional data system that develops will correspond and correlate metrics that make sense.   Interpretation of the data that develops must be consistent throughout the organization, with a clear understanding of how the data reflects existing (or non-existent) processes.

Q:  What is your recommendation to companies that can’t seem to find the right metric to measure?

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A:  Convene a group of employees that will be clearly impacted by what is to be measured.  Many times they will be able to provide additional insight.  You can also establish a proxy that will measure accomplishments or track the momentum related to accomplishments that collectively signify success of a related goal.   In addition, a proxy represents what may be needed but currently is not available or not readily available.

Just as you cannot fly an airplane with only one instrument, much is the same for organizations.  Multiple metrics/indicators drive holistic performance.  Base your organization’s performance with measurements that meaningfully capture customer relationships, processes and internal organizational growth as well as the financial picture.  This is a great way to structure strategic approaches and set up key performance indicators.

“In God we trust, all others bring data.” – W. Edwards Deming

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Let’s start by reiterating the key difference between communities and teams, according to the article’s authors (Richard McDermott and Douglas Archibald) are: 1) The incorporation of the long-view. 2) Require peer collaboration and collective responsibility. 3) Intentional network expansion. 4) Stewardship of unique knowledge that can be pooled for group use.

Related, we see value in creating some time to have your team communicate something about their work experience background or even social background that might apply to your organization’s challenges today. Engage with other leaders in your company to talk about perspective of a similar big solution they engineered, or the learning of the last failure in a related realm. If your competitive position allows for it, source external sources within your profession that might provide some common insight. (Ie. Separate city engineers sharing information.)

The point is to extrapolate and pool the intellect you have access to, and even expand your collaboration reach into new networks wherever possible. Steer your network to serve the larger good. Then, get your organization’s leadership to formally recognize its existence and value, while being sure to create a protocol in which leadership enjoys updates from your community’s findings. This is how the great insights can formally make their way back into organizational processes, perhaps even creating better quality decisions than most individual experts acting alone can make.

Finally, a few preconditions to make sure your community’s mass collaboration is the best it can be: 1) Diversify: Make sure you source a varied group of folks, that of different age, race, education track. 2) Decentralize: People with general and specific knowledge can contribute. 3) Effective Aggregation: Create shared manners in which information is gathered and how it feeds into the “collective mind”. 4) Ensure Independence: Take the stress out of this shared situation, and eliminate the pressure to confirm. Not only should you ensure independence, you should use your community as a way to celebrate it through sharing!

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