Mission: Clarify who you are. Core value: the values of a company. I talk about the seven elements in episode 49 of my podcast B2M Business Insights. Listen to the first episode of B2M Business Insights and get some tips and ideas about the power of Effectuation.
This will help you decide how best to plan based on the uncertainty you're facing. If the answer is LOW, use traditional goal-based planning. If the answer is HIGH, use or at least analyze resource-based planning. This reduces their overall capacity and effectiveness, creates frustration and erodes trust in the team.
It's also the catalyst for major obstacles, because most teams are prepared and willing to face their lack of alignment. That's because it's easier to keep doing your thing than it is to have fundamental conversations about whether you're doing the right thing. Why do I say that? Because every strategic plan I see has overlapping strategic priorities that require communication and collaboration between functions and departments to successfully achieve them. As part of the process of implementing your strategy, it is essential that you have a list of responsibilities, roles and responsibilities throughout the strategic plan and in all project groups so that there are no misunderstandings about who does what and by when.
When working with clients on their strategic priorities, we recommend that each priority area have an individual advocate when it comes to where the money stops. Not only does this encourage greater collaboration, since everyone knows who to turn to for communication, but it also supports the implementation of the strategy when it comes to having an owner of the success of each priority. The first tactic seems obvious: define goals and objectives for the coming years. Intuitively, I believe that most organizations and leaders can identify basic business strategies, goals and objectives; however, the problem is that most organizations don't articulate them well.
Often, leadership doesn't plan around those goals and objectives effectively. It is absolutely essential to understand this number one fundamental element, which consists of defining what the goals and objectives of an organization are and what the team should focus on. It's important to always be aware of your strengths and weaknesses, especially in the context of the goals and objectives you've set for yourself as an organization, which were at the top of our list. This will help organizations define the best strategies and opportunities for the business.
One thing I'll notice about SWOT analysis is that it's generally easy to come up with a long list of things that fit into each of those four categories. The key is to prioritize the aspects that are relevant, aligned and that are most likely to allow those goals and objectives within the business strategy. Now, once the organization's goals and objectives are clearly defined and the SWOT analysis has identified internal strengths and weaknesses, it's time to turn to specific functional strategies that support these core business strategies. All of these different functions within the organization must have distinctive strategies, goals and objectives that align with and support those general goals and corporate objectives.
This process will ensure that every part of the organization contributes to those goals and objectives and addresses the findings of the SWOT analysis in a way that is always united. While functional strategies can be defined in a kind of silo, to begin with, ultimately, these tactics will be designed to support other parts of the organization. Within a functional strategy, a session can be a kind of reconciliation process with other parts of the organization that may have slightly different views on how to contribute to overall goals and objectives. The magnitude of the change that organizations are facing, in general, is much greater than it was some 10-20 years ago, so it is more important than ever to have a clear strategy for change and cultural change.
Now, the most important thing on our list is the tenth element of an effective business strategy, and that is strategic alignment. This element really focuses on ensuring that the alignment is in place with everything we've talked about so far. Ultimately, all of those nine strategies must be aligned within the company. What I would say is that even more important than ensuring the right or the best strategy is to have an aligned strategy.
It's okay to achieve perfection in nine areas, since an imperfect strategy that's aligned across the organization will be more effective. That said, throughout these nine things, we want to think about it in the context of the first thing, which is what are our overall goals and objectives as an organization. If those goals and objectives are clearly defined, all those other eight things that we talk about beyond that should be aligned, so number 10 on our list is general executive alignment and strategic alignment. It's to make sure that we're all on the same page and that we're all paddling in the same direction.
Ultimately, we want to reduce that friction and the obstacles that result from not being aligned, which is what most organizations struggle with. I believe that there are several key ingredients to a successful implementation of a strategy that you, as a CEO or senior manager, must ensure exist within your team and within your organization. .