Over the summer, I have been reviewing some of the Clear Signals That Your Strategic Plan Is Going to Fail from a book I recently published with Mona Mitchell called “7 Elements of Strategy Execution”.
Our first four…
- Your Leaders cannot articulate the plan
- You do not have a scorecard for your plan
- You do not have a clear definition of what strategy success looks like.
- Your plan extends out more than 2 years.
And now: No one is responsible for the execution of the plan.
Where does the buck stop? Who is the ultimate sponsor of the plan? So often, in strategic planning, this role falls on the CEO or Executive Director or equivalent. But is this the right person? You need someone who can oversee the plan from start to finish. Someone who can keep up the momentum and keep everyone glued into the ‘where we are going’ and ‘how we are going to get there’.
Accountability. Someone has to own it.
Over time, we have seen the rise of the title ‘Chief Strategy Officer’, and that’s great news. This role does not have to fall on the CEO’s lap, but any appointment of responsibility has to come from the CEO.
You need one person who can wake up every day and ask questions like:
- How is this strategic plan going?
- What are we doing right in order to make it happen?
- What are we doing that could impede our success?
- What parts of the execution team needs help?
- What assumptions have changed since we first designed the plan?
- Is everyone up-to-date on our progress?
One person. Accountable, in control and with authority.
Hoping you are having a lovely summer.
