By Guest Blogger Joy Stroud Ruhmann
Level Up Leadership has been working with companies on the issue of strategic execution management for many years and has identified three key competencies necessary to ensure effective execution occurs. They are to clarify, align and engage.
Clarity: The Starting Point for Action:
Clarity is a key objective in the strategic planning process and, in our model, is also a key first step to strategy execution.
Effective strategic planning includes developing a compelling vision and mission so that both executives and employees are clear about why the organization exists and what the organization is trying to achieve. Smart companies also define the values that will drive employee behaviors and decision making. An effective strategic plan also includes well-defined key initiatives or goals that must be achieved in the next 12, 18 or 24 months to ensure fulfillment of the company’s vision and mission.
This is also where clarity becomes critical to execution. In many organizations, those employees dealing most directly with customers are often not vested in your values and cannot see the link between what they do and where the organization is headed. This is where the manager comes in: to initiate a dialogue with each employee that is focused on helping them understand how what they (the employees) do to contribute to the achievement of the organization’s goals.
From Clarity to Alignment:
This dialogue is the first step in the alignment process. The manager works with his or her direct reports to be sure they fully understand their roles and responsibilities. They work together to go beyond the traditional job description to define primary job responsibilities that are action based, clearly detailing the types of activities the employee is responsible for on a day-to-day basis.
Managers and employees should also work together on goal development. This includes defining clear goals that are directly linked to the goals and initiatives laid out in the company’s strategic plan. It is also important that the creation of goals goes beyond the traditional SMART (Simple, Measureable, Attainable, Realistic, Time-bound) goals to those that are WHY-SMART, meaning they are Written, Harmonious – they are in harmony with the employees primary job responsibilities, and they are Yours – meaning the employee owns them.
Most Critical: Ensuring Full Employee Engagement:
Full employee engagement starts with the process outlined above and ensures that all employees feel that what they do contributes positively to the organization’s success. Then, to keep the employee actively engaged, it is critical that managers and their direct reports meet no less frequently than every other month to track progress against goals, provide support where goals are at risk, capture additional contributions, and provide specific feedback on areas requiring additional attention.
Whether you are a football fan, a basketball fan, a baseball fan or any other sports fan, you would not tolerate a coach who sat down with his or her team to review the year’s objectives at the beginning of the season, went on about their own personal business throughout the season and did not effectively coach on a play-by-play basis. Yet that is what so many managers in organizations do today.
Success with a team or individual on the field requires frequent feedback and course correction.
The same is true with employees. They feel more valued and significantly more engaged when they participate in frequent and timely progress meetings with their managers, especially when they have a voice in the feedback process.
The challenge for many leaders and managers is that they do not believe that they have the time to make this happen. The truth is, in the long term, you can’t afford not to. As a leader, your job is to get things done through others, essentially to work through others to achieve your organization’s plans. There is no doubt that in today’s economy the challenges of doing more with less have caused many leaders to focus more on what’s on their own plate and not on what they are responsible for managing through others.
The good news is the tools do exist to help you do both, and healthy, sustainable organizations of the future will ensure that they effectively implement these tools – Unleash the Potential in Your Strategy.
Joy Stroud Ruhmann, president of Level Up Leadership, works with organizations to implement cultural transformation and strategy execution tools to achieve sustainable, long-lasting results. Visit www.levelupleadership.com for more information.
Success By Association 