Is There a Right Way to Implement a Strategic Plan?

There is no nice way to say this: Strategic plans often fail because senior management neglects to ensure new strategic thinking is adopted and supported throughout their organization.

When plans fail, it is a failure of strategic management - but it's not intentional. It typically stems from a lack of understanding of senior management’s crucial role in nurturing the new direction and, sometimes, an unwillingness to actively participate in the implementation phase.

The good news? There absolutely is a right way to implement your strategic plan. Drawing from our 25 years of strategic planning experience, we've identified three essential elements that consistently lead to successful strategy implementation. But before we dive into these elements, let's understand why implementation often goes wrong.

The Implementation Challenge

Many organizations pour significant resources into developing comprehensive strategic plans, only to see them gather dust or, worse, fail during implementation. Why does this happen? Several key factors typically contribute:

• A lack of clear ownership and accountability for implementation
• Insufficient resources allocated to execute strategic goals
• Poor communication leads to misalignment across departments
• Resistance to change at various organizational levels
• Competing priorities that dilute focus on strategic initiatives
• Insufficient metrics to track progress and success

Understanding these common pitfalls is crucial because it helps us recognize the critical importance of our three essential implementation elements.

Are you implementation ready?

Evaluate your Strategy Implementation Readiness.

Download our Free Assessment and discover your readiness level and tips to enhance it.

1. Develop a Strategic Communication Plan

Even organizations with sophisticated marketing and communication teams often overlook a critical truth: communicating a strategic plan requires strategic thinking. This isn't just about preparing a strategic plan presentation - it's about creating understanding and building commitment across your organization.

A strategic communication plan should:

• Craft targeted messaging for different stakeholder groups, recognizing that each has unique concerns and priorities
• Prepare leaders to effectively present the plan and handle questions with confidence and consistency
• Package the strategic plan in ways that make it accessible and meaningful to various audiences

Think of your strategic communication plan as the bridge between your brilliant strategy and successful execution. Without this bridge, even the most innovative strategies can fail to gain traction.

Keys to Effective Strategic Communication:

Communication isn't a one-time event - it's an ongoing process that should:

• Start early and continue throughout the implementation phase
• Address both rational and emotional aspects of change
• Provide regular updates on progress and wins on strategic plan goals
• Create feedback loops to gather input and address concerns
• Use multiple channels to reach different audiences effectively
• Maintain consistency while adapting messaging for different stakeholder groups

2. Align Your Organization to Support Your Strategy

Every new strategic plan brings change - it's inevitable and necessary. Some changes may be subtle shifts in responsibilities, while others might require significant structural reorganization. Either way, organizational alignment isn't optional - it's fundamental to implementation success.

This is where many organizations stumble. They launch their new strategy without first ensuring their structure and roles support the new direction. Our role clarity methodology addresses this by:

• Evaluating core organizational functions against strategic objectives
• Redefining reporting structures to enhance strategic execution
• Creating clear role definitions at every level, from departments to individual positions
• Establishing accountability frameworks that support strategic priorities

The Role Clarity Process:

To effectively align your organization, follow these key steps:

1.    Assess current organizational structure and roles

2.    Identify gaps between current functional focus and critical result areas needed to execute your strategic plan

3.    Design new organizational structures for the functions required to deliver on your newly defined critical result areas

4.    Define roles to execute the plan successfully (at functional, team, and individual levels)

5.    Outline shifts required to align new roles with existing responsibilities and, where necessary, define transition plans for affected departments or individuals

6.    Update performance metrics with new roles now aligned with strategic goals

7.    Implement feedback mechanisms to monitor effectiveness

Remember: Your organizational structure should enable your strategy, not constrain it. You're likely creating unnecessary friction if you try to execute new strategic initiatives within an unchanged framework.

3. Champion Cross-Departmental Planning

While your strategic plan sets the overall direction, success lies in the details of execution. This often requires detailed multi-year planning at both departmental and cross-departmental levels.

We've seen many organizations struggle here, usually for one of three reasons:

• Leadership teams are overwhelmed with existing priorities and can't dedicate sufficient time to implementation planning
• Teams lack the specific expertise needed to develop certain strategic initiatives
• There is a lack of clear roles in leading cross-functional planning

Effective Cross-Departmental Planning Requires:

Clear Roles and Authority to Lead:

• Identify leaders to drive strategy implementation
• Complete role clarity process to define shared objectives and roles in leading cross-departmental planning

Resource Management:

• Charter the cross-departmental planning team
• Provide coordinating and support resources for teams
• Allocate a team budget as defined by the team’s planning scope
•  Establish clear deadlines and milestones, including how long the team will be needed

Progress Monitoring:

• Schedule regular review cycles with senior team sponsors to evaluate risks, identify integration points with stakeholders outside the cross-department team, and, if needed, course-correct
• Update participants’ KPIs to include participation in this cross-department planning effort to track and recognize contributions and trade-offs

Building Your Implementation Support System

Success in strategy implementation isn't just about having the right elements in place - it's about creating sustainable systems to support and monitor progress over time. Let's explore what this level of strategic management looks like in practice.

1. Modify the senior leadership team role to include: 

• Driving or sponsoring implementation planning
• Making key decisions on resource allocation
• Addressing significant implementation challenges 
• Evaluating emerging issues and how (or if) to integrate them into implementation planning
• Reviewing performance against strategic plan goals, timetable, and budget.

2. Align annual planning and managing to support strategic execution

• Change departmental budgeting and KPIs to align with strategic plan goals
• Create cross-functional groups focused on specific strategic priorities that may require stakeholders across departments and or multi-year implementation planning
• Modify annual planning to provide time for departmental and cross-functional planning presentations on strategic goals

3. Establish a leadership forum to renew the strategic plan annually

• Explore implementation challenges and emerging ideas deeply
• Review customer and partner input
• Refresh your environmental scan
• Update competitive analysis

4. Update the performance management system to align with strategic performance

• Revise KPIs with strategic goal metrics 
• Conduct regular check-ins with key drivers of strategic success
• Provide a mechanism for feedback from front-line employees
• Update recognition and incentives to align with strategic performance metrics

5. Create a culture of strategic execution

• Encourage open discussion of implementation challenges
• Celebrate progress and learn from setbacks
• Monitor and track performance against defined metrics
• Reward strategic thinking and action at all levels
• Invest in building strategic thinking capabilities throughout the organization

Next Steps

The journey from strategy to execution isn't always easy, but with the right approach and support, it's absolutely achievable. Don't let your strategic plan become just another document - make it the catalyst for transformational change in your organization.

Ready to take your strategy implementation to the next level? 

Take our Strategy Implementation Readiness Assessment today to evaluate your readiness and get recommendations to prioritize strengthening it. 

Let us help you turn your strategic vision into an operational reality.