C-Suite Moves and Grooves

The 2022 Springboards

From "Earthquakes" with "Tremors" , we're switching the focus to "Springboards" for business in 2022.

OK. Shocking. Imagine that 65% of executives feel that their organization lacks a winning strategy. Whoops, that's exactly what Strategy & Business, PwC’s strategy consulting business found.

If the executives feel this way, just imagine how employees are feeling. No wonder people are leaving in droves.

This Springboard is a Simple Strategy Plan on a Page

So let's make this a springboard for growth in 2022. It doesn't need to be hard, mind-boggling, or overly complicated. Having grown up in and having experience in industries and services such as chemicals, franchise organizations, education, leadership development, CPG, and more, all of these organizations have something in common. The major considerations and moves your organization need can be outlined on a simple Strategy Plan on a Page . How does corporate strategy mapping work?

It all starts with your vision, mission, and products/services on hand at this exact moment in time. Then build to grow in the now and build to grow in the future. Understanding your competition, technology breakthroughs and market dynamics are necessary elements to filling in your plan. It's not as complicated as it sounds and starting with a Strategy Plan on a Page helps the focus, communication, and implementation of your plan.

Today you might need to add social and environmental factors. Consider creating a PESTEL analysis. Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental, and Legal factors.

The Rise of ESG Reporting

Today many companies have also added ESG , environmental, sustainability, and governance analysis to their portfolio (a modified PESTEL). Many view this as reporting to stockholders and to "the street". One could argue that building this as a story to the world is perhaps the greatest impact that ESG could have on your vision, mission, people, and customers. Do this after your Strategy Plan on a Page - it can also be iterative as one might affect the other.

Key Components to Your Plan

What are the key components of corporate strategy? How will you measure them? Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are important so you know where the goalposts for success are placed. A truism is if you can't measure it you often don't know about it and can't fix it until it becomes a problem

Whether you're familiar with the balanced scorecard or Andy Groves and John Doerrs, OKRs (objective and key results. from Doerrs book Measure What Matters Most (Great last name - Doerrs) or other mapping techniques - you need to find what works for your company. Take a look at that simple Strategy Plan On A Page as a starter. It's a great way to start thinking about the "sets" that you need for success (hint - it's in the plan).

What are the "Three Sets" that you Need to Win?

Three sets, mindset, skillset, and goalsetting. There is a reason that the word Cult is embedded in the word Culture. While cultures can be cohesive, it's not necessarily the best approach for business. We're learning that with inclusion and diversity issues.

Instead, look to "sets", and mindset starts with understanding the plan. What better way than to have an easy-to-understand strategy plan on a page? Can everyone buy into the initiatives and can everyone support the plan with the skillsets we have at hand? Combining the mindsets and skillset is our goalsetting realistic? These are the most important questions you can ask for your plan to succeed.

Key to the Plan. How Many Initiatives Can We Support?

Initiative overload is a concern from the executive level to the line worker. Your job as an executive is to create "focal points" for your company. Usually no more than three to five for any given planning period. When starting at the very top of the organization, these focal points for the business need to be created so that they are easy to understand at every level of the organization.

If you want to see if you are creating overload, one simple place to start is with your job placement announcements - if you read through these and it really needs three people to have all the skillsets and to complete all the tasks on your list - you've just created overload.

What are the 3 Cs for Strategy Success?

Create, Communicate, Collaborate.

Create is Hard Work. However, communicating and collaborating are the hardest to insure. Create comes from your people's mindset and skillsets. Great ideas come from everywhere. Encouraging innovation in tasks and tactics is paramount to moving forward.

Quick Story - Because Storytelling Matters.

While running the color plastics laboratories for BFGoodrich, one employee, in particular, was always "on a break". Wanting to have a dialogue with him about this, the first step was to review his productivity. Surprise! He outperformed the group 3X. So now having that dialogue (different than "feedback" which is one way) was so on!

The conclusion, he had figured out a way to modify the computer program for the starting formulations for the color plastics where he eliminated 2-3 steps on every order. Well, congratulations were given and he collaborated with the team to implement this throughout the department. Our backlog went away. His praises were sung throughout the company. And yes, a raise with fewer breaks. He just glowed and plowed into the backlog.

By supporting creating, communicating, and collaborating our KPIs were surpassed that year.

Some Additional Questions to Ask on Your Strategy Quest

How will the company monitor the execution of this strategy?

Beyond the immediate planning cycle, what are the key issues, risks, and opportunities?

What Additional Resources are needed to make the plan work?

Why it Matters and What to Do Now

It's true, no plan, no action, no results. Start with a simple Strategy Plan on a Page. Communicate that plan and use dialogue to refine the implementation. Listening is a key factor and frequent updates to the plan are keys to success from a tactics standpoint. You only want to move the goalposts if there is true evidence that they need to change. Be willing to take the evidence you have at hand and make those changes when needed.

Start now with the plan, look at your "sets" and hone the 3 Cs to generate a distinct advantage for success.

For those that have PM'd me, here are the links to the supporting information that are mentioned in the Moves and Grooves articles.

The Coming Digital Disruption Toolkit

The Strategy Plan On A Page

About Christa Martin

Christa builds velocity. [email protected]