The strategic planning offsite went well, did it?
Excellent.
And yet….
Your employees don't seem to “get” the strategy you and your leadership team formulated. And let's not even mention the bigger-picture purpose and vision.
Nobody seems as aware of the overall direction of the business as you’d like...even though you had a big meeting after the off-site to let them know all about it.
That, right there, is the issue.
It’s great that you’ve taken the time to gather your employees to take them through a slick slideshow detailing the strategy. It's also great that you've given them the opportunity to ask as many questions as they wanted (we'd guess there weren't too many).
It’s not that they’re not interested.
They are.
But they’re busy…caught up in the day-to-day of getting things done. Ironically, they’re too busy making their personal contribution to the strategy of the business to fully appreciate what that strategy is.
We know. You’ve told them. But it’s not enough.
You've most likely given this issue lots of thought, so here’s a refresher on the key things you ought to do to bring your employees along on the strategic ride.
Your "town hall meeting" isn't enough.
The information download to your team following your offsite is, to be frank, little more than a good start. On its own, it’s likely to be something of a “sugar hit” and its impact will probably wear off quite quickly.
Many businesses back up this initial communication with quarterly updates. Sadly, these often don’t do the trick either. Let’s face it…there’s not much point in updating your team on a message they didn’t absorb the first time around.
It’s human nature…people tend to forget stuff that’s not “in their faces” (in the nicest way possible).
How, then, can you keep strategy top of mind?
Logically once you’ve mapped out your strategy, business planning will come next. This offers several opportunities to revisit and reinforce key strategic messages at a more micro level:
When business planning kicks off, those messages help focus the team on where their day-to-day activity should be aimed. What you’re saying to the team - in effect - is, “remember…here’s where the business is heading. Your business and activity plans should support that."
During the business planning process, you should frequently pause and confirm that your plans are supportive of and aligned with strategy. There’s just one question you need to ask at each of these checkpoints: “how will the shorter-term initiatives now being proposed contribute to us achieving our strategy (and our vision and purpose)?”
And once (you think) you’ve put the final touches on your business plan(s), that question should be asked again. If there are any areas of uncertainty, don’t be tempted to close off the process as complete. You shouldn’t be frightened to dump any proposed activities that don’t make sense in the context of strategy (and vision and purpose).
These points quite probably sound ridiculously obvious and smothered in common sense. We agree and wonder why so many businesses don’t take these simple business planning steps.
Next?
With the business plans in good shape, it’s time to get into “who does what by when”. The end game here, of course, is to ensure everyone in the business has a clear set of measurable, time-bound KPIs. More than that, those KPIs should also be clearly relatable to strategy.
Agreeing those KPIs with team members is another great opportunity to reinforce the direction of the business - strategy, vision and purpose - with every team member. At the start, during, and on completion of the KPI setting process, reality checks should be built in.
Remember, this planning stage is about setting the parameters for individual team members against which their performance can be measured over time. It surely makes sense that part of “performance” is their direct and indirect contribution to the strategic aspirations of the business.
You probably have a performance management process in place in your business which we’d suggest you review to ensure it creates and enhances that link between day-to-day operations and strategy.
And then?
Next, take some time to think about your team meetings. If you’re like many (most?) businesses, they’re quite probably a bit all over the place. Even with tight agendas, team meetings can feel a bit pointless.
Sure there’s lots of information shared: sales updates, client servicing issues, workflow progress, financial outcomes and so forth.
But here’s a challenge for you…next time you run or attend a team meeting, have a look around the room and ask yourself how many people appear to be truly engaged in what’s going on. We’re betting the answer will be “not too many” (or at least “not as many as probably there should be…”).
That lack of engagement comes from a sense of disconnection - those folks looking bored are most likely asking themselves, “what’s this got to do with me?”
That’s a treatable symptom.
A great team meeting has strategy at its core.
And the way to put strategy at the core and keep it there is to ensure every update provided by every team is given in the context of that strategy.
How?
Try this...
Ask each person providing an update to end with a simple statement:
“...this has contributed to the business strategy because...”.
As this becomes part of your regular meeting structure, it helps provide clarity and consistency across the business. It will encourage people to frame their updates around strategy and help deepen their understanding of how everyone is working together for a common outcome.
A planning framework can also help employees see the big picture.
One reason employees often don't buy into the strategy of a business is that they don't really see where it fits in. In other words, they're not given context.
When that happens, strategy becomes a group of activities that appear to have been pulled together with nothing giving them direction. So to your employees, strategy has no beginning, no "story" and no logical next steps.
The graphic below can be used to help position strategy in this way:
Purpose, vision and strategy need to be closely and obviously aligned to achieve business growth that's sustainable. Business and action plans should be created with the sole intention of delivering on strategy. And individual KPIs should facilitate that process and help employees understand their contribution to that strategy.
What about your business?
None of what we’ve covered here is hard to do. Research has proven time and again that people want to understand how their day-to-day work fits into the big picture, and these small initiatives will help enhance that understanding.
The benefit for your business will be a deeper understanding across the business of its strategic direction. Not only that, you’ll find a greater tendency to collaboration and cooperation as people begin to better understand who does what (and, more importantly, why).
And that can only be good for business, your customers and your employees.
We'd love to hear from you.
Before you go, it'd be great to know how you go about communicating and embedding strategy in your business.
Please take a few seconds to vote in our quick poll!
How do you engage your employees in your strategy?
0%We use most of the techniques described above
0%We're ok at this, but could do better
0%If only we had a strategy...
Could your employees be more engaged with your strategy?
GrowthCatalyst can create a planning framework for your business and a communication plan to more fully engage your employees.
We invite you to contact us to arrange a conversation, face-to-face or virtual.
Alternatively, you can book a time for an initial discussion here.
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