Creating and Implementing your Unique Business Hierarchy of Needs

The following section contains a workbook in the form of a checklist for the elements of the Business Hierarchy of Needs? so you can try it on your own. Before doing that, however, please read the entire book so you can properly articulate the implications of each element or set up some time with me to discuss this process. In table format, this checklist summarizes the things you should consider for each element and prompts you to summarize your responses for each one. You can get a Word version of this table and process at www.strategyrealized.com/resources.

Step 1: Read this section and begin filling out the information in the table below for your unique Business Hierarchy of Needs?. You will find that there are areas where you have questions, so you should go to the section in the book Strategy Realized - The Business Hierarchy of Needs to provide more detail.

Outline A Plan For Management Review

Step 2: Pull your leadership team together and introduce the concept of the Business Hierarchy of Needs?, “Where to Play” and “How to Win”. Share your findings with them and discuss the applicability of these frameworks to your strategic planning process. There will be many blank spots and there will also be a need to spend some time refining your draft. If in agreement to continue, assign elements of the checklist through “Where to Play” to members of the leadership team to continue this process. You need to have a team that works on developing your company’s MIG and creating the corresponding financial objectives. Schedule the next meeting for a couple of weeks later.

Step 3: In this meeting, you want to review the MIG and the more detailed draft of the larger group’s findings through “Where to Play”. If there is agreement on these elements, it is time to discuss “How to Win” in the context of refining business strategy. Usually, the company will already have strategies in place or in mind and this step requires the review of existing strategies and the addition of new ones. Come to agreement on the high-level strategies that are appropriate to delivering the company’s MIG and its financial objectives. Do not forget to assign Employee Engagement and Leadership to a point person. If agreement cannot be reached, or more investigation is required, reiterate this step until the leadership team defines and agrees to the MIG, financial targets, and all high-level strategies.

Step 4: Call a meeting to review the results of the previous steps and introduce this process to a larger audience. It is critical that time be spent discussing the importance of the MIG and strategies, and reminding all stakeholders that everything they do needs to be tied to them. At this point, you should have enough information to parse out the further development of sub-strategies, objectives, and the elements of Levels 2 and 3 to each member of the leadership team and to middle-level leaders. Remember that we want as many stakeholders as possible involved in developing this. Each member should get a copy of this book so they can focus on learning more about the element(s) they are responsible for. Set a meeting for reviewing the strategy and objective elements with the bigger team. Get agreement and reiterate if necessary.

Step 5: Review the output of Step 4. It is time to start the process of cascading objectives and setting meaningful goals, projects, and measures. This is where you might want to consider a training module on cascading objectives because most people do not know how to do that. Create a shared document for cascading objectives that everyone is collaborating on, so they can see the evolution of the work. You can use the Cascading Objectives format that was shown previously as a starting point. Set a date for when the entire team will get together to review their findings and cascaded objectives. There should be a point person for each of the elements of the Business Hierarchy of Needs?. Do not underestimate the work required to cascade objectives to all stakeholders and throughout the organization. To this point, depending on your organization, you may want to only cascade objectives through the first two or three levels of the organization, because this will be the first time you are doing it. Creating a “Culture of Strategy Execution?” is a journey and there is time get everyone, at all levels involved. Set a date for the next meeting.

Step 6: Reconvene all stakeholders who were assigned elements and review their findings and recommendations. Define next steps with objectives and timelines for completing the next iteration for each element. Setup the next meeting.

Step 7: At this point, you are 95% of the way there. All levels have been defined and the actual implementation is ready to start. In this next step, the team will be tasked with rolling out the company’s strategic plan. In my opinion, at least the first 3 levels of the organization along with influencers and hi-pots in your organization should have been involved in the previous five steps, so there will be a lot of muscle behind the rollout. The rollout is critical to communicate to the stakeholders that were not involved in the entire strategic planning process.

Senior and middle-level leaders need to develop a launch plan, a communication process, and a marketing strategy. I have seen companies spend a lot of time and money creating a strategic plan and it sits on the shelf, never to be seen again or worse yet, becomes the flavor of the month. In these cases, people will wait out leadership until another new shiny object is found to make a fuss about. It sets a bad example and wastes time and money. If you are going to do the work in Level 1, then there should be a significant effort in communicating and marketing the result to all stakeholders.

Here is where you should consider a series of meetings with everyone to let them know what is coming, what is in it for them, and how the implementation of the strategic plan will be managed.

Good luck!