Strategic plans, like building culture and developing a team are moving targets; there’s no final result.
As your organization grows, as your staff evolves, or the external environment changes (hello global pandemic), you will be required to adjust how to approach strategy.
However, regardless of where you are at in your strategic “maturity”, here are 10 things I’ve observed that organizations do to improve strategic planning and execution:
- They understand that strategic planning is not a top down effort so they include employees in the process by seeking their perspective.
- They evaluate what the team values and how those match with the organizational values.
- They ask managers what the vision of the organization is and how this compares with their own individual visions.
- They conduct an environmental scan. This helps them get a sense of what the industry will look like in 5 to 10 years and what sort of trends are happening now that might affect, change, or shape the future of their sector.
- Their mission statement accurately describes what they do as an organization.
- They have a general sense of how their external stakeholders view their organization.
- They know the strategic initiatives for the quarter or year. Strategic initiatives are change projects that will receive special attention, effort and/or resources.
- They know what the annual operating goals are that support each strategic initiative. Annual operating goals are mission critical activities that regularly continue to advance organizational goals.
- Employees know where they can review the strategic plan and the current progress of it.
- They understand the current risks and uncertainties of the organization.
- They have regular meetings to share the thoughts and feedback from all the above (or, quarterly strategic planning team meetings!)
Learn more about the benefits of developing your organizational strategy with your team or contact us for information on how working with a facilitator can help you maximize your resources.