You may never get past the planning and into the essential implementation of your plan if you don’t take care of this one thing.
Effective strategy can make the difference between success and failure of your business. At the very least, a poor strategy will undermine your company’s earning and impact potential.
The Purpose of Strategy
Strategy:
Sets priorities and establishes direction so you can respond to a changing environment
Focuses the energy of your staff and other stakeholders (e.g., suppliers, partners) and the allocation of resources
Allows you and your team to agree on goals and outcomes/results
Defines your actions and how success will be measured
Aligns staff and other stakeholders and what they do around common goals.
All highly beneficial, right?
If you choose to focus your strategy around impact, contributing to making the world a better place, then here’s one more whopping benefit:
Strategy is the guiding force that leads to maximum impact, and that results in better financial performance.
Why Your Strategy Might Fail
The problem is, you may never get past the planning and into the essential implementation of your plan without taking care of one thing. Engagement of your staff and important stakeholders in the strategy and the impact it is based on is crucial.
The well-known and highly regarded management consultant Peter Drucker once said:
Culture eats strategy for breakfast.
What Pete was talking about is the fact that unless you engage the hearts and minds of your people, your team, you’re not going to get very far in implementing your strategy. It will have the fate of many strategic plans: a big whopping binder on your bookshelf that is never viewed again and gathers dust.
A big price to pay for all the time and energy and resources you invested in developing it.
Making Implementation of Your Strategy Successful
The truth is, no one has Impact alone. At the very least, it’s limited.
When we work together within an organization and work together to have impact outside the organization, that’s where Impact really flourishes. That’s where it increases exponentially.
One of the big benefits of developing strategy is that you will have a clear vision that you can share. Then, when you go into your organization, you have real clarity that captures people’s imaginations. It inspires them. It ignites their energy and enthusiasm.
Effective implementation of your business strategy requires people working together. It requires effort and time and resources.
The more you can engage people in that process, the more impact you’re going to have. And the data show that more impact means more better financial performance for your company.