What Can Executives Do To Properly Implement The Strategic Plan?
If it's true that the most common reason that strategic planning ends up as wasted effort is that there is faulty implementation, what can executives and CEO's do to help with that implementation? The reality is that the impetus for successful plan implementation lies with executives, since nobody else in the organization is positioned to make it happen. It is absolutely necessary.
Model The Use of The Plan In Decision-Making: When making decisions demonstrate the relevance of the plan, particularly in terms of the vision, values and goals of the plan, by using the plan as a guide. If it's not a guide for the ceo or other executives, nobody else will pay attention to the strategic plan.
Help People Understand The Plan: Part of keeping the plan alive and relevant involves executives helping employees understand what the plan actually means in real life. By both asking employees, and sharing the CEO's ideas, about the meaning of the plan as applied to real every day decisions, employees clarify their own understanding, and also realize that the CEO is serious about implementation.
Encourage Staff To Evaluate: The strategic plan can, and should be used by those in the organization to evaluate the degree to which the organization is sticking to the plan, and/ or achieving the goals and objectives contained in it. Encourage employees to evaluate whether any specific action of interest is consistent with the values of the organization, or the strategic goals in the plan. Not only is this a very practical evaluative process designed to help keep things on track, but, once again, it tells employees that the CEO (or executive) is serious about the plan.
Cascade Down: Apart from what we'd call leadership functions (above), make sure that all the divisions and sub-units, and employees are making use of the strategic plan to formulate their own goals and objectives in the shorter term. Get the strategic plan's goals and objectives to cascade downward, and make sure everyone understands that what they are to accomplish is defined by the strategic plan.