6 Steps For Effective Strategy Implementation And Execution

This lack of understanding is a significant reason that a huge majority of good strategies will fail, with some studies reporting that up to 70% of good strategies fail strictly due to poor execution. Less than 50% of employees can state what their organization’s strategy entails, and even less believe the strategy is considered ‘very good’ or ‘excellent’. At the end of the day, an organization is not judged by the quality of its strategy but by its results.

To ensure that your strategies are successfully implemented, you must build the execution into and across the strategy and the strategic planning process. Below are the 6 steps to successful strategy implementation.

Formulation

This stage is where the organization’s mission, objectives, and strategies are defined and set. The formulation stage is the first step in strategic management. This stage is where it all begins, which means that, if the organization is unable to complete this stage with very good results, then the company’s strategic management is already a bust from the start. Many organizations fail during the first stage, in the sense that they are unable to come up with strategies that will potentially take the organization where it wants to be.

Communication

CEOs need to begin with clearly communicating their objectives, which should be driven by the company’s values and vision. Having clear goals with a comprehensive list of business objectives creates guidelines that become the foundation for business planning and growth.

All employee work should align with company objectives and the CEO’s vision for the company. Having conversations with managers about how employee work translates into the company’s goals should be prioritized and take place weekly.

Aligning initiatives

A key road to failed implementation is when we create a new strategy but then continue to do the same things as old. A new strategy means new priorities and new activities across the practice. Every activity must be reviewed against its relevance to the new strategy. A good way of doing this is to create a strategic value measurement tool for existing and new initiatives. Initiatives should be analyzed against their strategic value and their impact on the practice.

Evaluation

The strategic plan, which was developed during the formulation stage, will be distributed for implementation. However, there is still a need to evaluate the plan, especially concerning the initiatives, budgets and performance. After all, there may still be inputs that may crop up during evaluation that were missed during strategy formulation.

Reporting & tracking

There are really two key components for effective tracking and reporting. Firstly, you need to ensure that everyone in your organization is regularly updating the progress of their own goals. This doesn’t have to be arduous or time-consuming. Probably just a few minutes per month is usually enough. Perhaps just before a team meeting or the regular strategy sessions you’ve booked into people’s diaries.

Review

One of the key success factors for an effective strategy deployment is a constant review of its progress and the decision to be made for any deviations to the plan. It is crucial to decide what to review and by whom the review is done. A new decision may be required as the status of the strategies progress.

A strategy is not just a document written by physicians and managers and then filed away. It is a vision for the practice, owned by the practice. And to succeed the whole practice must engage with it and live and breathe it. A strategy should inform our operations, our structure, and how we go about doing what we do. It should be the pillar against which we assess our priorities, our actions and performance. To learn more about how to efficiently execute strategies and grow your business rapidly, follow me @…