Have you developed your strategic plan? It’s important not to procrastinate in implementing it without engaging in self doubt.
It helps to get input from your employees. But are you concerned about involving your employees?
Another way to put it – are you getting paralysis from too much analysis? That’s understandable.
If so, it appears to be time to implement strategies to realize your vision for the business — with input from your employees.
This is the hard part – implementing your strategies for success. There are three closely related basics in working with your employees to get the job done.
Communication is the common thread in three strategies:
1. Communicate your objectives
Employees should be fully informed of your values, vision and definitions of success. Have a continuing dialogue with every person in the organization.
They need to know how their work contributes to achievement of the goals.
Your employees need to prioritize their work on a daily basis in order to align it with your vision for the company’s objectives.
Put actionable steps in writing. You’ll need to focus on dates and deadlines. Baby steps are important.
Determine your key performance indicators and measurements. Decide on responsibilities – determine who will do what and when.
Every person needs to be on board to make certain you have pricing power.
It’s hard, time-consuming work. But the return on investment is terrific.
2. Inspire your staff
Motivation company-wide is of paramount importance. Your staff should act as a team – employees need to communicate with one another and understand what they must do to work toward the common good of the company.
Your supervisors naturally need to be aware what your employees are doing to achieve your vision. You need feedback on their progress.
You need to quantify the results of their work. They need to be accountable for implementation of your strategies.
Savvy employers know how to profit from their human capital. Such knowledge is a powerful weapon for high performance in a competitive marketplace. There’s a correlation among excellent sales, happy customers, and high employee morale.
… are you getting paralysis from too much analysis? Communication is the common thread in three strategies …
Proverbially speaking, employees are where the tire meets the road. They daily experience firsthand a wide variety of problems, so they what’s going on. You need to be in the business of listening without judging them, and continuously motivating employees to offer profitable ideas.
3. Insure focus
Know that achieving success with a complex strategic plan is often more difficult than with a simple set of strategies. Cohesion with and among employees is vital. That includes continuous monitoring and tracking for results.
Not to reiterate strategy No. 2, but engage your employees – communication counts. Discerning people are the most successful in business, and listening skills are important for discernment.
Make it a priority to use all your listening skills. They’ll help to keep the team focused on progressing, being action-oriented and achieving of the goals.
To optimize profits, you’ll need to partner with your employees. Encourage ideas and performance.
From the Coach’s Corner, more relevance in strategic planning:
5 Reasons for a Strategic Plan and its 6 Key Elements – Are you ready to compete? Is your company like many that need to rethink their strategic plans? Here are some tips in strategic-planning basics.
To Become a Leader, Develop Strategic-Planning Skills in 5 Steps – A salient characteristic of leadership is strategic thinking. If you’re ambitious, the ability to be a strategic planner is critical for your success. Here are five ways to achieve your goal.
7 Thought Leadership Tactics for Strong Performance – For a company to achieve strong performance, its culture and employees must be aligned with business strategy to provide value. But more and more, it seems employees can’t even articulate business strategy. Therefore, management must identify and communicate effective programs that are aligned with employee behavior in order to blaze new paths and fuel business growth.
“Setting a goal is not the main thing. It is deciding how you will go about achieving it and staying with that plan.”
-Tom Landry
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