• The balanced scorecard approach at the grass-roots level

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Erica Olsen is the COO and Co-Founder of M3 Planning and the developer of MyStrategicPlan, our online strategic management tool. She is an established speaker and facilitator on strategy, who enjoys sharing her knowledge of business and the strategic management process with people around the world.

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About Alice Heiman – visiting strategy leader:  Alice is the founder and President of Alice Heiman Inc. and is a sales strategist, author, speaker and trainer.  Business websites: www.aliceheiman.com or www.smartsalestips.com

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Erica Olsen, COO and Co-Founder of M3 Planning, is our expert speaker for this topic. She explains why/how organizations want keep their teams engaged in the strategic management process.

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1. Strategy Stat: Productivity skills and systems.
2. Topic: Getting Strategic Management on Cruise Control – Four stages of skill building: Are you ready to move from cracking the whip every month goal tracking to facilitating strategic conversations instead? Moving your strategic management process to a “steady state” can be achieved by understanding the stages of acquiring new skills. Learn how to move yourself and your team through the four stages of skill building. We will share best practices, helpful hits and case studies you can directly apply to your organization.
   1. Unconscious incompetence
   2. Conscious incompetence
   3. Conscious competence
   4. Unconscious competence

Blog Post: How Much Time Does Your Company Spend in the Gym?

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1. Strategy Stat: Many Firms Lack List of Strategic Priorities
2. Topic: What is Strategy?

• What is the difference between strategy and tactics?
• What are the different types and levels of “strategies” that exist in organizations?
• What is strategy and how is it articulated in a strategic plan?
• Checklist to assess your plan

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Other resources shared during a Q/A section of the live presentation, but not included in the recording:

• Harvard Business Review article – Blue Ocean
• Harvard Business Review article – Is It Worth Doing?
• www.IBISworld.com

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Starting at the team member level, key staff should update the weekly actions they are responsible for.  Department leaders should then organize a monthly meeting with all key staff to review department-owned goals and performance metrics. This is also the time to brainstorm, discuss and take action on tactical or operational issues that might be clogging progress.

At the department level, a collective meeting each month is required for the senior management team to report on department-owned goals and performance measurements, with an emphasis on what your organization’s key performance indicators are telling you.  This is where goal status and realized performance have an opportunity to be analyzed and learned from. As a result, recognition for achievements and cooperation can be deemed appropriate or the need for corrective actions can come to light.  

Then gather your entire leadership team for an intensive review of the top, pre-defined strategic issues quarterly. These two questions will help you determine the context of the issue:  1) Is the issue a technical problem in implementing the operational structure?  (i.e. Are the reports not working out? Is the scheduling not conducive to department workflows?)   2) Are there problems with incentive alignment or the culture? (And if so, how can you best address the expectations for change to be managed?)

For any of these meetings, be it at the team member review or the senior management session, you should standardize the preparation needed and the report structure. For many organizations, this represents a significant time drain if not appropriately planned.  Nip this in the bud and come up with a format that clearly communicates goal/action, and performance measurement.  Focus on the tasks at hand, clearly and effectively, and you’ll find yourself moving toward the broad improvement themes contained within your Strategic Plan.

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The facilitations are over, the goals created and the reporting schedule established.  Even with all these elements in place, you would be wise to further specify what it will take for successful cross-functional execution. Creating this alignment is a key necessity for executing a strategic plan between business units that have shared goals or objectives.

By the very nature of being strategic, plan objectives and goals are largely interlaced between business units.  It is important to identify what kind of coordination needs to exist in order to achieve assigned actions and ultimately the common goal.    It is also important to recognize the level of training or education that may be needed in order to best perform throughout the requirement.  Finally, understanding the strategic Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) will help ensure your work progresses across departmental lines.  Let’s expand these thoughts.

What Does the Goal Require?

Determine if the task actions are pooled in one department, sequential across departments, or if department coordination by a series of reciprocal adjustments is necessary.  For example, pooled tasking simply requires the adherence to SOPs set by the organization.  For sequential tasks, it becomes more important to manage transactions and lateral transitions of work.  Finally reciprocal adjustments require a high level of coordination and information sharing… as the name implies all members of this goal network are affected by and can affect the tasks of another.[1]

Do the Actions Require Additional Training or Education?

Identified by either the business unit or the organization at large, this is an overlooked element… and contributes to a fear of failure and feelings of inadequacy that management would oft not like to highlight.   Those big, hairy, audacious goals (BHAGs) [2]  need reality checks, and one proper means of keeping these projects in line is supplying training and education where needed.  Otherwise you run the risk of having staff avoid acceptance of any new responsibilities and accountability becomes a doomed burden.

What SOPs Must Be Followed?

Define the expectations surrounding the decisions and actions that require coordination or affect the actions of another department or unit.   Bring this in step with identified implementation management processes to stay healthy.  Ignoring or marginalizing your organizational structure demands will eventually take your strategic plan into a Code Blue situation.

In closing, remember to focus on what the goal demands of your organization and methodically determine how to rise to the challenge.  There are many different organizational structures out there.  Part of your strategic job is to open doorways between the silos you may encounter…. and then keep them open throughout the execution of the plan.

[1] Types of Interdependence, Table 5.1:  Lawrence Hrebiniak, Making Strategy Work, Warton School Publishing, 2005.

[2] James Collins and Jerry Porras, Building Your Company’s Vision, 1996

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This part of the Strategy Huddle addresses the question, What is Strategy? Expert strategist Howard Olsen, President and Co-Founder of M3 Planning, explains what strategy is and how it impacts all organizations. Listen in and join us for the discussion.

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1. Strategy Stat: Management Tools Study
2. Question: Everyone Understanding the Strategy — How do I articulate my strategy?  I need to feel more comfortable talking our strategy so that I can get buy in.  Do I need an “elevator pitch”?
3. Question: Using Your SWOT — Every year we do a SWOT, but we never actual use it to develop strategy. What is the best way to actual use a SWOT in setting strategy?
4. Question: Finding Your Strategic Position — How do you find a competitive position when everything is being commoditized in my industry?
5. Live Question: Planning Ahead — Saw on Twitter:  “Strategic planning” assumes we know what we’re going to want in 3-5 years. Not to mention having control over events.

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