Introduction
Getting people focused and committed on implementing a strategy has never been more difficult as von Moltke said:
Strategic plans do not survive first contact with the enemy, and hence must be always open to revision.
In today’s competitive environment every action has many reactions that aren’t easily anticipated. This is probably a major factor why 60% of change initiatives fail in North America and why something is going wrong with strategic planning.
One area that many executives either ignore or only pay lip service to are the cynicisms that previous initiatives strategic planning have accumulated in the organizations psyche. Here are some that you ignore at your peril
Crucial to understanding your people, as Peter Senge describes, is identifying where people are on the apathy-commitment continuum. He identifies two areas of personal need that they want satisfied in their working lives:
- personal benefit which comes from compensation, benefits, position, recognition, or other non-tangible benefits
- personal sense of fulfillment of their life’s purpose, vision, or calling.
Leaders need to grasp how well each person’s attitude and their contribution is met directly by company goals or objectives. Then they can assess where people sit on the apathy/commitment continuum. Any misalignment between personal needs and your strategy will generate unproductive or counterproductive behavior, if not actively managed
1. Tepid Leaders don’t walk their own talk – How committed is your leadership team to the strategic plan’s success? Not just in terms of what they announce the plan but how they work the plan. What signals do they send employees? If employees sense that the leadership’s commitment is tepid, then what leaders can expect?
2. They don’t really mean it! – Even if you have committed leaders and employees it’s still not enough. The question is:
Do they hold people accountable to make real behavioral change?
It’s like someone committing to losing ten pounds, yet lacks discipline to do what’s necessary. It’s no different in organizations, each time you fail to hold people accountable you build the cynics refrain “They don’t really mean it!”
“Talk to the Hand” (and the upraised-hand gesture and head turn that go with it) into widespread use, as a way of telling someone “I don’t want to hear what you have to say.”
3. “Talking to the Hand” Communication Too often, the only thing clear is what management wants you to do. They then compound your disbelief by asking you for more commitment to their goals. As a result, communication fall on deaf ears.
4. There! You see it’s not working! It’s critical to sharpen everyone’s senses to changes that will affect the plan. Then you can counter this cynicism. So, set the expectation:
“Expect change folks”
Measure outputs as well as outcomes, and get feedback from all your stakeholders. It’s also essential to expect and look for unintended effects. For example,
- Is productivity in one function undermining others work?
- Are you robbing Peter to pay Paul? Like achieving costs savings at the cost of customer service.
- What do delays in progress really mean? Given market volatility could be to your advantage
5. Cynicism of Rigidity– While it’s helpful to have all the right systems in place to track your progress, it’s all for naught if you lack the will, the flexibility and the triggers to make adjustments. Over time, and with solid evidence, you can’t be afraid to depart from the original plan.
“Keep the goal, change the plan – not the other way around!”
6. Where’s the Beef? – Most strategies take time to deliver. Even the most disciplined need motivating and inspiring to achieve a longer-term goal. So, what does it take to keep effort expended and rewards received in balance? How do you keep people focused during the heavy lifting? What are the best milestones and rewards for your plan? If you don’t manage these two curves of Effort and Reward they will build cynicism.
Implementation Cynicism – When Effort Exceeds Reward Over Time
7. They Couldn’t Organize a !@#$-up in a Brewery! – Make a list of people involved in developing your last strategic plan. How deep did you go in the organization? How wide? What was their involvement? OR, did the leaders develop the plan on its own and then announce it? How did that work? Off-site senior management planning sessions too often miss the practitioner’s perspective and little chance of success.
How often does bad planning leave people in the soft and smelly?
7. I could have told them it wouldn’t work! How often do we see plans suffer because we don’t get everyone involved that we should. We don’t tap into collective talents and commitment. Then, think the external environment is more stable than it is and lose connection with stakeholders. Employees disengage and become spectators of failure.
OK, so what do you do about these pitfalls. The dilemma is we still need a plan but last time it didn’t work. Now, we come to the vexed question:
How does a strategic objective create cynicism and what can we do about it?
Let’s look at a typical Healthcare Mission
“To maintain a leadership role in consistently providing superior, accessible, affordable and comprehensive health services for our community and the region in a socially responsible and cost effective manner that is on par with world-class standards.”
In the many Strategic Objectives (SO) defined to meet this mission, let’s look at one SO that is crucial if the others are to succeed. It was:
- Develop a Values Oriented & Innovation Culture
The Client said:
“there is a large gap between a healthy values oriented and innovation culture, and one of this organization’s biggest challenges is that people are working silos”
SO 1: Develop a Values Oriented & Innovation Culture
“Train all of Leadership (Section Head and Above, Corporate and Managers) on 80% of needs based on Training Needs Assessment (TNA) outcomes”.
- The first question is: How are they going to avoid typical decay rates of 80%+ inside 3 months of leader training?
- There was no clear reference on how the training was to be evaluated? For example like Kirkpatrick’s Four Levels of Evaluation
- Learner reaction – what they thought and felt about the training
- Learning – the resulting increase in knowledge or ability
- Behavior – extent of behavior change and ability improvement and implementation/application
- Results – the effects on the business or environment resulting from the Learner’s performance.
- More disturbingly, we couldn’t find any reference to coaching and creating the “Requiring Environment”
Let’s look at one way of meeting such an objective to give a flavor of how to improve your chances of success.
In one project I conducted there was a need for all managers to coach their direct reports. Their success was measured by helping them develop their own Competency Assessment Matrix (see CAM™ http://pdsgrp.net/Resources/CAM%20Brochure-3.pdf). Working with the Client’s IT people we developed an intranet where managers rated performance and their people self-rated. This then became part of their Executive Dashboard. (A leading indicator) This data was then used as a key tool in evaluating manager performance and 15% of their compensation for their coaching performance. Consequently, sales increased by 15% and doctor satisfaction ratings rose from 4th to 1st over their competition…
Let’s translate this to our healthcare example. Medical Leaders do many learning sessions with their Junior Staff – it’s natural and expected. What if we took those natural sessions they do anyway and developed their coaching skills in developing innovative skills? Their need for greater innovation, relies on developing the quantity of ideas before quality ideas can emerge. In this case we were concerned that the lagging metrics focus on end results would stifle the strength and vibrancy of innovative activities. Here’s a basis for our concern.
KPMG
Innovation cannot just be encouraged, it has to be required. For example, in KPMG wanted to speed up responses to clients and not have people “reinvent the wheel”. To do this, 
they wanted people to both use and add to their knowledge bank. After training, exhortation etc., they finally changed promotion criteria so that for people to make Partner they must have accessed and contributed to the knowledge bank.
In Healthcare, while each discipline will continue to train, educate etc. but will continued healthcare professional development reinforce already resistant silos. For example: Where is the learning from innovative teams kept? Where’s is the IT strategy to support “Developing Innovation and Values”. Clearly, it needs to be systemic, obviously, but how are you going to go viral with learning?
Conclusion
Strategic planning today needs to be far more inclusive to the point that stakeholders feel ownership of their plan. Inclusivity is only the first step, then comes devolving the authority to the lowest possible level so leaders can act within the overall plan’s intent.
Then we need joint ownership of a those leading indicators that give the earliest possible warning of the unexpected and a profound understanding how the plan gets changed.
All this comes to the sharp end of effective planning. Judging how much an organization, its resources and people can handle in a period and survive.
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For Help in Getting Your People on the Same Page
Nick Anderson, The Crispian Advantage
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