Scribd
Upload
5 views

17_tasks_of_a_PM_in_Process_Management_PMP_ShortNotes_1735899240

Uploaded by

olivier.rachoin
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
5 views

17_tasks_of_a_PM_in_Process_Management_PMP_ShortNotes_1735899240

Uploaded by

olivier.rachoin
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 4

THINKING

TOP THREE
MISTAKES IN
ACTIVATING
STRATEGY
“The strategy is finished! Now it’s
time to execute it.” Sound familiar?

You’ve spent a ton of time (and


money) developing your new
strategy. It’s right. You feel good.
But now you have to activate it.
And this is where fatigue sets in
and errors are made.

Leaders make three common


mistakes that prevent a successful
strategy. Avoid these mistakes and
you’ll be on your way to bridging
the gap between strategy creation
and strategy activation, and on
to achieving those all-important
strategic results.

rootinc.com
THINKING

Mistake 1 – Executives Aren’t Aligned


on the Strategy
If you don’t have total alignment, clarity, and conviction at the
executive level, your employees will know; this will hinder acceptance
and likely keep your strategy from succeeding. In fact, we often find
that change efforts are an intellectual activity for executives but
emotional activities for everyone else. Your people need to know that
the executive team is clear and aligned and that it has undergone
a similar discussion and experience. In short, the executives must
become the change they want to see in others.

When managers and employees on the front line are asked


about their confidence in a new strategy, they often respond with
uncertainty and disbelief that leaders will change their behaviors to
bring it to life. Leaders must be transparent with their own behavioral
change to set the pace for the rest of the organization.

What to Do
According to a 2013 Booz & Co. survey, 54% of executives don’t believe their company’s strategy will lead
to success. To avoid this, leaders must develop an accurate view of the business’s current situation, identify
the barriers to success, define a shared view of the future vision to create strong conviction, and recognize
the cultural changes that will drive strategic success across the organization. Alignment is about creating
so much clarity that there is little room for confusion, disorder, infighting, and other distractions. It enables
unprecedented accountability and leadership rigor that can’t help but drive success.

Mistake 2 – One-Way Communications


PowerPoint presentations, roadshows, emails, and town hall
meetings don’t inspire people. Your people want to have
conversations about your business because – let’s face it – they’ll
tolerate leaders’ decisions and conclusions, but they’ll ultimately
act on their own. If you aren’t leading them in those discussions,
who is?

When have you ever completed a task with passion and vigor
when someone else commanded you to do it? Probably never
– or not very often. One-way communications allow for a lot of
error; people can choose to ignore the communications and keep
doing things the way they always have while they wait for the
next “flavor of the month.”

2 Root Thinking > Top Three Mistakes in Activating Strategy rootinc.com


THINKING

What to Do
Use all learning styles – visual, auditory, and kinetic – to engage your people in the story of your strategy.
Everyone should visualize the exact same thing when they see the prize (strategy), and they should be in
lockstep on how to achieve it.

Dialogue is the oxygen of change. Creating methods to enable ongoing discussion at all levels of the business
ensures that the strategy activation is successful. This brings greater clarity to what’s working and what isn’t.
These conversations need to be continued and reinforced.

Potential ways to sustain these conversations include team huddles and manager meetings. Focus on asking
questions such as “How’s it going?” and “What needs do you have that we haven’t thought of?” Alternatively,
if it works with your business model and company culture, some organizations set up an online forum for
people to share ideas and ask questions.

Mistake 3 – No Sustainment
Mechanism
Leaders have short attention spans. If you aren’t achieving your
desired results, they’re likely to pivot quickly – and often. The
irony is, most organizations tend to ignore the sustainment
portion of a strategic rollout. Because it’s after the “big bang”
strategy activation event, that the real work begins –to make
it stick. Leaders needs to spend more time thinking about and
planning for what come after the initial change announcement.
One key area is managers and their role in sustaining change.

Managers are critical to keeping employees happy and


productive. Managers are also, unfortunately, the most
overlooked group in an organization when it comes to developing talents – particularly, the skills that make
the difference between change failure and success. Managers are the infliction point of an organizational
structure. Unskilled and ineffective managers are chokepoints for your strategy.

What to Do
Managers must understand the strategy and translate it in a way that is relevant to every employee. Every
manager should receive the tools and knowledge to truly understand the business, including what changes
are needed and why. They need to know their role; it’s not about projects and processes, but people. They
must be able to connect their teams to the business to help them understand the why and how of their job.
Finally, they need to understand how their team delivers results and how it affects the strategic outcomes
that the organization is driving toward.

3 Root Thinking > Top Three Mistakes in Activating Strategy rootinc.com


THINKING

Keep It Up!
As a strategy rolls out, you’ll have some successes that
you’ll want to replicate quickly (at both an organizational and
individual level). To do that, capture those successes and
communicate them broadly. Convert the early wins, no matter
how small, into success stories that people can understand.
These stories let people know what you want more of in the
organization and allow others to reflect on whether they could
do anything similar. These stories also reinforce that small
contributions really do matter.

Do these mistakes sound familiar? Are you having difficulties overcoming these three common mistakes
on your own? Root’s strategy experts will partner with you to help you achieve your goals. Let’s start a
conversation and get you on the path to strategic results!

1-800-852-1315
[email protected]

Root Inc. partners with the world’s most respected organizations to accelerate rootinc.com
and scale change using proven and disruptive methods, stories, and experiences.

You might also like