It's the Strategic Planning SeasonWhy most of those plans will fail

by Pamela Wasley

Believe it or not, it is that time of year againStrategic Planning time, that is.  Can you believe that a whole year is gone?  Well by now you should have finished your 2010 strategic plan and are busily working on how you will achieve the goals you have identified in this plan. 

Each year businesses invest an extraordinary amount of time, money and effort into the creation of their strategic plan. Yet few companies actually achieve their goals by year end.  Why is this?  The answer is simple, poor execution.

Larry Bossidy, co-author of Execution: the Discipline of Getting Things Done, said "Corporate Strategies are simple; their execution is not.  The question is...can you execute?  That's what differentiates one company from another." In other words execution differentiates a poor company from a great company.  Which company are you?

And how are you going to implement your strategic plan?  With all of the downsizing of this past year, do you have enough resources, tools and the right people in your company to achieve the goals in your plan? The six things that can make the execution of a strategic plan successful are:

1. Developing a model for implementing your plan
   
2. Choosing the right metrics
   
3. Keeping the plan top of mind  with those that need to execute the plan
   
4. Assessing performance frequently
   
5. Getting buy-in and communicating frequently so that everyone is on the same page at all times
   
6. Managing the execution of the plan is a top priority. If you cannot make that execution a priority, assign someone to it and make it their top priority.
   

A year ago, I was talking to a CEO of a $60M company that had been experiencing a hard year. He told me that sales and profits were down and he was in the process of going through a second layoff.  I asked if he had developed a strategic plan the year before and his answer was yes. He said he had been excited about the plan as it had some great strategy for capturing new markets.  I reviewed the plan and found it well thought out and wondered why the plan had not been successful.  I decided to gather some additional information about his situation by talking to other managers and employees within the company.  Surprisingly I found they had not even heard about the plan.  I then reported my findings back to the CEO and he said that he had assumed that his key executives had communicated it to everyone else.  Upon talking to the executives he was referring to, their answer was that there had not been time to communicate the new plan because they were too busy putting out daily fires.  This plan was doomed from the very beginning as no one took responsibility for the execution.  And "out of sight, is out of mind". 

This year, this CEO brought in an experienced interim executive to communicate the plan, develop the metrics needed to measure and assess the strategic performance and to follow up and adjust where needed.  As of September 2009, this same company has already experienced a 23% growth in revenues.  Having someone responsible for executing the strategic plan can make all the difference in the world.

Other companies that you may recognize who also did not execute their plans well were DeLorean Motors, Sharper Image, Polaroid, Digital Equipment and Webvan.  Some had imperfect execution models while others did not have a champion leading the execution while consistently measuring results and still others just did not communicate their plan.

If you do not have the resources or people to take responsibility for the execution of your strategic plan or you need someone to help you develop the right metrics or tools to measure strategic performance, then consider using an interim executive who has the expertise in execution and can make sure that goals are achieved. Spending money to make sure a plan is well executed is much cheaper than having a plan fail along with the potential losses associated with that failure.

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