Generating Buy-in
This is the second installment in a blog series that discusses potential pitfalls that could hold you back from being fully successful in your strategic planning efforts. The first was ensuring that you have full leadership support before you begin the strategic planning initiative. As I started the first blog of the series, most things that I have been successful at in my life have been because I did it the right way and used the right tools. At the Balanced Scorecard Institute, we have the “Nine-Step Process” to building a strategic management system. We believe in this approach and we have helped hundreds of clients develop comprehensive strategic plans with a management system that enables them to effectively execute strategy. I myself have worked with over 80 organizations and have seen very successful strategic planning efforts and also those that were less so! I wanted to share some observations as to where those that were not as successful went wrong along the way.
The second pitfall I have experienced is people not buying in to the strategy as it is developed. As mentioned in Part 1, too many times I have seen a leader or small cadre of leaders piece together a strategy and then expect everyone to understand it and get on board. This is not what works! People tend to own what they help create. The more people you can involve in creating the strategy, the more people you have who understand it and support it in the halls and by the water coolers.
There are some key places where involving more people is easy to do and very helpful. The first is in generating ideas up front concerning the future environment in which the organization will exist. Externally what are the opportunities that will be available in the future? What are the threats that need to be considered and mitigated? Internally what are the strengths and weaknesses that could have the most strategic impact on our future success? By getting people to provide input you are first informing them on the process and second telling them that their ideas are valued. You can also involve people beyond the leadership team when developing measurable objectives, KPIs and initiatives. You can find people willing to step up and “own” an objective or to lead an initiative. Again, the more people that are involved, the more traction you are creating within the organization to help drive change and execution.
If this pitfall sounds familiar, then you might be interested in our Strategy Execution—Success Through Leadership workshop which addresses major obstacles and challenges faced in strategy efforts, and techniques on how to overcome them or let us facilitate your group to build support for the system.
Over the next few blogs we will explore five additional potential pitfalls I have seen that hold organizations back from realizing the many benefits to developing a strategy and a supporting strategic management system.
You can read Part 3 here. Missed Part 1 of the blog series? You can read it here.
Tim has over 32 years of experience in management and professional services management consulting. Areas of expertise include strategic planning, portfolio management, performance measurement/management, project management and business process improvement.