Seven Ways to Make Strategy Everyone s Job

Transcription

1 Point of View Seven Ways to Make Strategy Everyone s Job David McMillan, Director, Office of Strategy Management After all the effort that goes into articulating a strategy and translating it into a Strategy Map and Balanced Scorecard, it can seem as if the real work has already been done. The truth is anything but: now is when the hard work of engaging employees with the strategy and managing behaviour change begins. Having a strategy is one thing, but having an organisation driving it forward in every corner of their operations on a daily basis is quite another. Strategy leaders need to ask themselves some tough questions: Why should employees care about this new strategy? They re busy performing their day jobs what does this Strategy Map have to do with them? Copyright 2016 Palladium

2 When you ve spent hours upon hours honing a strategy and translating it into a Strategy Map and Balanced Scorecard, it is easy to forget that it doesn t occupy the same mindshare across the organisation. Leaders who assume that employees will automatically be as invested in and enthusiastic about the strategy as they are are setting themselves up for disappointment. It is the responsibility of leadership to actively, deliberately involve the whole organisation in executing strategy. It won t simply happen. 1 Make visibility a priority Your employees may know that they can find the Strategy Map on your intranet but chances are they have more pressing things to do than go looking for it. If the Strategy Map is easily visible, employees will absorb its message passively even if they aren t actively studying it. Here are seven ways for leaders to make strategy everyone s job. Think creatively about where and how the Strategy Map can be displayed for maximum visibility. The usual place is the wall of a main conference room or busy hallway, but that is only the tip of the iceberg. Maybe the Strategy Map is the default screensaver of company computers. Maybe it hangs next to the coffee maker in the kitchen, or next to the copier while waiting for the coffee to brew or the copies to finish printing, employees will find themselves reading through it. But don t stop with making the Strategy Map visibile, because if that is all employees see, they will soon ignore it. Make results visible and tie them back to the strategy. Post the latest measure data and remind people what objective it denotes the progress of. Share a picture capturing the success of a newly completed initiative on the TVs in the break room. This principle of visibility is most consistently achieved through executing on a solid communications plan encompassing various message streams and channels. 2 Seven Ways to Make Strategy Everyone s Job Copyright 2016 Palladium

3 2Solicit ideas from across the organisation Strategic initiatives are usually proposed from the top of the organisation not because the rest of the organisation lacks ideas but because they usually do not have a method for sharing their input. Inviting the entire organisation to suggest strategic initiatives benefits the organisation in two ways: first, because it grows the pool of ideas to draw from and incorporates knowledge and viewpoints that upper management may not have, and second, because it encourages participation and sends the message that everyone has a role to play in meeting strategic objectives. Key to making this approach work is to create a highly visible mechanism for communicating ideas. Make clear the selection criteria and insist upon an explicit link between proposed initiatives and strategic objectives: How specifically will this idea move the dial on our strategic objectives? Build on the momentum of the process by celebrating all participation. 3Bring theme teams out to the ranks Theme teams are more than a way to spread the reporting responsibility, manage initiative portfolios and manage execution of critical Process and Learning & Growth objectives. They are also an excellent vehicle for socialising the strategy by spreading active participation in the strategy management system to a wider base. When identifying candidates to participate in theme teams, look for high potentials who may not have much conventional influence in terms of rank but who do yield social influence among their colleagues. If they feel invested in the success of the strategy, they become de facto strategy ambassadors, much as corporate marketing might seek to cultivate so-called brand ambassadors who will generate excitement about their products. Seven Ways to Make Strategy Everyone s Job 3 Copyright 2015 Palladium

4 4Invite friendly competition Internal promotion of strategy competitions is an excellent tool for creating buzz around specific elements of the strategy and socialising important themes, objectives, measures and initiatives. The exact nature of the competition will vary according to organisation structure and culture, but a straightforward approach is to challenge different groups within the same strategic job family to reach certain stretch goals. In the early stages of communicating a new strategy, competitions can also be silly quiz games about the strategy before large meetings, for example. The primary goal is to create energy and positivity in relation to the strategy. 5Use tactile, physical reminders Chances are your workforce has a wide variety of learning and communication styles, but your internal communications skew towards written or verbal messages. Many people absorb messages better when there is a physical element to the communicaiton, either through an action performed or a tangible object. External marketing uses this technique regularly: swag may seem silly, but it helps keep a brand top of mind for prospects. One recent client took this notion to a whole new level when they created dance moves for each objective. As you might imagine, no one took the presentation seriously, but they all remembered it. Now silliness around the office frequently brings to mind the Strategy Map as the position someone is standing in resembles one of the dance moves. Communicating strategy is an opportunity to exercise your creativity. It is important to know your audience so that you can discern the difference between memorable and mock-able. Look for interesting and unexpected touchpoints that complement the verbal message and your employees will remember the message better and create positive associations with it. 4 Seven Ways to Make Strategy Everyone s Job Copyright 2016 Palladium

5 6Embrace recognition aligned to the strategy The tone and tenor of a successful recognition programme will vary with organisational culture, but the best programmes share two traits. First, recognition is tied directly to the strategy. The person being recognised is not simply celebrated for excellent work, they are being celebrated for excellent work towards a specific strategic goal. Second, recognition is consistent. A good recognition programme is not a one and done project. Leaders should set up a mechanism for regularly celebrating progress towards strategic goals by individuals and by teams. This could take the form of a casual shout out to an outstanding performer at the beginning of a regular meeting, or it could be a more formal mechanism, such as a dedicated section of the internal newsletter. Whatever the method that best fits the culture, celebrating wins in a positive inclusive manner is motivating and energising not only for those being recognised but for the organisation as a whole. 7Consistently draw connections It is so easy for the operational fire or unexpected win to restrict our thinking to the operational short term, but it is the strategic long term that gives us context for how to rebuild after the fire or best leverage our windfalls. Connect short-term discussions to long-term direction by tying them to the strategy. For some organisations this practice starts with actual changes to their governance processes. Perhaps the weekly management review of the dashboard has its agenda and flow structured by the strategy s perspectives and themes. PMO meetings could start every conversation with a reminder of how the project is intended to support the strategy. The easiest approach is to be disciplined in connecting conversations to elements on the Balanced Scorecard. At the beginning of each pipeline meeting, simply remind folks of the revenue objective that the organisation is striving to achieve. During a one-on-one coaching session with an employee, remind her how her safety goal contributes to the engaged workforce objective. At the water cooler, help the other guy understand how his new approach to providing IT support advances the customer intimacy objective. Seven Ways to Make Strategy Everyone s Job 5 Copyright 2015 Palladium

6 Real-World Strategy Engagement: A Case Example What they did A major hospital with a large and diverse workforce needed to roll out its new corporate strategy and engage employees across the organisation. One particularly successful engagement initiative was to hang a giant Strategy Map next to the entrance to the hospital from the employee garage. Over the course of several days, core team members met employees as they were coming to work and asked them to place a pushpin on the map where they thought they would make an impact that day. At the same time, they invited them to jot down ideas for how that objective could be better supported. In the end, they collected upwards of 1500 ideas and interacted with almost every hospital employee. Conclusion When rolling out any organisation-wide programme, there is no guarantee that the organisation will be engaged, and executing a new strategy is no exception. Leaders who take deliberate, sustainable steps to actively drive engagement are best positioned for success. Smart leaders will seize the opportunity to think critically and creatively about how they communicate strategy and involve the organisation as a whole. Why it worked Visibility. The map was large, highly visible and in a place that employees walked by daily. The unexpected location the parking garage made employees stop and take notice. Interactivity. By physically interacting with the map, employees were more likely to form a lasting memory. Many people absorb messages better when they are accompanied by something tactile, interactive or both. Inclusivity. Employees not only pinpointed how they contributed to the strategy, but they also had the opportunity to share their input on how the strategy could be achieved. Instead of the strategy being something that was being imposed upon them, they were actively included. 6 Seven Ways to Make Strategy Everyone s Job Copyright 2016 Palladium

7 About the Author David McMillan has spent ten years working for Palladium, where he has coached clients on a variety of strategy management needs from the process of designing and document strategy management systems through implementing mature performance reporting processes. David recently assumed a new role running Palladium s internal strategy management system, which encompasses four major business lines and over 2,000 employees internationally. In addition to his strategy management responsibilities, David directs the Balanced Scorecard Hall of Fame, which recognises organisations that have achieved outstanding performance using the Kaplan-Norton strategy management framework. David holds a bachelor s degree in economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Seven Ways to Make Strategy Everyone s Job 7 Copyright 2015 Palladium

8 Palladium believes in the impact economy, an ecosystem of commercial, government and social interests that fundamentally re-define sustainable value. With our worldclass intellectual property, purposeful innovation and proven, time-tested know-how, clients in more than 90 countries have dramatically improved stakeholder engagement to create enduring positive outcomes, both financial and social. Our clients success in the impact economy is supported by one or more of the following four pillars: International Development with an emphasis on increasing the performance and outcomes in health, economic development, education, governance and the environment; Strategy Execution Consulting to enable order-of-magnitude improvements in both private and public sectors through a framework that translates strategy into action; Research, Professional Development and Training to encourage boundary-breaking thought leadership buttressed by a powerful knowledge transfer engine that equips clients and partners with necessary skills; and Impact Investing to re-imagine innovative ways to finance impact economy initiatives for optimum financial and social results. With our collective expertise and abiding commitment to exceeding clients objectives, Palladium transforms lives, businesses, governments and societies around the world.