Profitability
Innovation
Turning Intentions into Results5 Ways to Keep Your Plan from Gathering DustBy Peter Christian • Published October 2010 #1: Small Steps are Better than 1 Giant Leap Implementing a Strategic Plan in 2 to 3 years can seem daunting and stop progress in its tracks before it ever begins. 9 out of 10 organizations fail to implement their Strategic Plan That statistic is staggering! Imagine all the effort and time (translation – money) these companies put into the planning process, only to have the Plan placed on a shelf or in a drawer somewhere. Don’t let your team (or yourself) get overwhelmed by the big picture. Tackle the Strategic Plan in manageable increments. Focus first on a few priorities (2 to 3) from the Strategic Plan. Next, have your team develop a 90-day Action Plan to outline the initiatives needed to address these priorities. Then repeat. Think of the Action Plan as a series of short-term goals that, when linked together, deliver you to your destination. Continuing with our driving analogy, if you attempt to “drive straight through”, you will overlook details along the way, miss critical detours and in the end, your overall execution will suffer, as well. Strategic Success Tip #1: If participants didn’t make tough decisions during your planning process, it’s possible that your Strategic Plan contains too many projects. Strive for quality actions over quantity. It’s better to identify a manageable number of initiatives and complete them than to identity too many and feel overwhelmed simply trying to make a dent. Small steps are the best way to ensure progress towards the company’s goals.
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