Last month, we shared six common mistakes that organisations make when they develop strategic plans. Now it’s time to look at the remedies for each error, to ensure your strategic plan achieves your organisation’s goals.
- Wanna vs Gotta
If you’ve ‘gotta’ do a strategic plan and don’t ‘wanna’, the solution is simple. Be honest with yourself and your organisation as to why you’re embarking on the process. If it’s a tokenistic activity, do it tokenistically. If it’s not important, don’t pretend it is. Sometimes a short, sharp piece of work will fit the bill better than committing to a larger project when your heart’s not in it.
- Strategy vs Stagnancy
Avoid the temptation to use your strategic plan to focus on ‘business as usual’ and be very clear that it’s about long-term thinking on the direction of the organisation. Look externally—to clients, customers, stakeholders and other similar organisations—to see what they think and what their expectations are of the organisation in the future.
At Nexus, we often get clients to paint a mental picture of what a successful future might look like, in light of changes such as government policies and new technology. This helps them understand the changes that need to take place for the organisation to achieve success.
- Creativity vs Metrics
If strategy is inherently a creative process, it’s important not to bog people down in huge amounts of data and metrics. Instead, try to step back from the business to get a broader perspective.
For example, if a tourism attraction needs to attract increased visitors in the future, they would do well to avoid starting with current visitor numbers and instead look at the competitive environment, changing technology and overall experience that visitors are looking for. They should be thinking creatively about the future, rather than focusing on the metrics.
- Action vs Intention
If you’re devoting too much time to planning and too little to implementation, it’s important to start making relevant people in your organisation accountable. Once you’ve agreed on what needs to be done, assign responsibilities for leading the various projects and develop detailed actions around these plans.
It’s a straightforward remedy that is often overlooked by government organisations. I always recommend that the topic of strategic planning implementation is a standing item on the executive team’s agenda. The team can then regularly and systematically monitor its progress within the organisation.
- Plain English vs Corporate Jargon
Avoid dense and unnecessarily complex strategic plans by stripping it back to the bare basics. Where is the organisation heading? How is it going to get there? And how to we know if we’ve been successful?
You should articulate your strategy so people at all levels of the organisation can understand it. Use stories with real people and real solutions, rather than dull statistics, abstract concepts and complex jargon.
- Platitude vs Accountability
If you don’t know exactly what success looks like and how you will measure it, you need to work through these questions as a priority. This process must include both qualitative and quantitative assessments that look beyond the means, to see if the end result is achieved.
A classic example is an organisation that would like to increase online engagement with customers. They implement a new website and IT system and declare the project a success, despite the fact that these processes are simply the means to the end.
Does your strategic plan suffer from our six common mistakes? If you need clarity on the future direction of your organisation, contact us today.
