THE DO’S AND DON’TS OF ROLLING OUT A NEW STRATEGY
Tags: Empowerment, Education, Accountability, Strategy, Bias

After defining your strategy — aligning around your organizational circumstances, focus, and means — it’s important to communicate the design and solve for implementation requirements. Rolling out a new strategic plan requires compelling and succinct communication to your employees, board members, and stakeholders on both what the strategy is and how to achieve it. Messaging your strategy from both an overarching, big picture level and defining its grassroots impact will help foster buy-in, clarity, and widespread commitment to the strategy.

Whether you are starting from scratch or making minor adjustments to your strategy, it’s important to approach the roll-out in a transparent, informative, and emotionally intelligent way that appeals to the stakeholders charged with making it a reality.

Do:

1. Inspire employees:

a. Share the organizational vision and strategy: It’s critical that the organization understands top-level leadership’s commitment to the plan, how it came about (what problems it’s solving), and how leadership will support it through their actions, behaviors, and investments. The messaging should be simple and concise but grounded in the purpose and mission of the organization. Tying the day-to-day actions to the greater long-term vision helps employees understand the true impact of their contributions.

b. Share success stories: As part of the communication plan, it’s important to share success stories. For example, I worked in an organization that had recently acquired new service lines. The success of the new operating model relied on the integration of the acquisitions and existing business lines. The disparate businesses needed to begin working as one cohesive unit. By sharing the cross-selling success stories that opened the doors to new accounts, revenue, and opportunities, employees could better grasp the benefits of the model first-hand.

2. Educate and empower employees:

a. Provide grassroots communication to help employees grasp “the how”: Transforming a strategy from concept to reality requires employees to adopt behaviors and incorporate activities that align with the overarching vision. “Strategy design operates at the organizational level. Strategy execution operates at the individual level.”[i] Leaders must bring the strategy to each employee’s level. This requires organizations to build communication plans that integrate the visionary corporate communication with tactical business-line and functional communication. Immediate communication should be provided to each employee so they understand how their jobs will be impacted and what they’re responsible for as well as the WIFM (what’s in it for me?). It’s important to relay not only how the strategy will benefit the organization and its customers long-term but how it will advance the interests and career of the individual. What personal motivation do employees have to fulfill their strategic obligations?

b. Align employees and build accountability: In addition to regular, targeted communication, it’s beneficial to implement an accountability system to connect peers and align them around common goals and activities. For example, in finding that so many companies struggle with execution (only 20% of managers feel they have effective systems in place to help with execution[ii]), we created Coltivar Connect, a web-based strategy platform, dedicated to streamlined execution. By implementing a software that builds organizational muscle memory around measuring, managing, communicating, and adjusting strategy, teams establish execution as the norm. It becomes a part of their day-to-day.