The days when someone in a fancy office in an upper floor wrote a strategy, got it approved from the board of directors, and sent it down to the various functions to execute, are gone.
Everyone should be included in the strategy development process. Section heads, department managers, and upper management should be involved in interactive workshops to collectively agree on the strategic direction of the company and the initiatives that will be undertaken to achieve it.
There are 3 reasons for this:
· Collective buy-in.
· Alignment towards a common goal.
· Feedback from the people who will eventually implement the strategy.
As Dr. Quy Huy, Professor, INSEAD states: “Strategy is 5% thinking, 95% execution. Strategy execution is 5% technical, 95% people related.”
We were engaged with an organization to implement QuickScore balanced scorecard (BSC) solution. Evidently, the strategy management office’s manager solely developed scorecards including objectives, KPIs and targets and forced departmental managers to accept them.
Six months into the exercise, KPIs dashboards were all in red as actual measures were never inputted into the system. Managers collectively refused to cooperate and input actual values into the system. Hence it was never used.
The BSC initiative was launched but was not implemented due to not engaging stakeholders in workshops and incorporating their valuable input into the plan. Their participation would have led to their implicit commitment and buy-in to the agreed upon objectives and KPIs.
Implementing strategy software does not guarantee successful strategy execution. To receive a free information about strategy implementation services, write to us on: https://i-proserv.com/contact-us/