OBJECTIVE STRATEGIC PLANNING

OBJECTIVE EXPERTS ENHANCE STRATEGIC PLANS

• How well are you doing against your strategic plan this year?
• Does your company HAVE a written plan?
• Do your employees know about the plan?
• Do they operate to it?
• Are the goals & tactics spelled out so they know exactly what you want them to do- big picture & small?

• Are reward systems synchronized to the plan?
• Does your business plan thoroughly unify your entire team?
• Is everyone clearly working together or are there silos of teams somewhat doing their own things?

A smart strategic plan should be THE detailed battle plan for your company. It should be the most tangible example of quality communications from your generals to- and FROM- the front lines.

A planning culture facilitates transferring the opportunities and burdens of making the business go from a few at the top to ALL of your employees. That delegation is key to jettisoning the bottlenecks.

A plan ALIGNS everyone with key objectives and clarifies how the company expects to achieve those objectives.

In any team sport, most success or failure is in how well a team works TOGETHER.

A well-crafted plan balances the control needs of management with some creative freedom in the larger pool of employees that get most of the work done. Generally the greater volume of brains is not at the top. Are you making the most of all that brainpower at your company? Or are you wasting some of that part of your most valuable resource?

The Big Innovations (BI) team has helped many companies develop potent strategic plans. Our proven process involves closely aligning company innovations with customer wants & needs.

We can effectively guide a company throughout the entire process- even if that company has never had a formal strategic plan before. Then, we can help you properly communicate the plan, reinforce it and manage your ongoing growth with it.

You want record growth, right? A quality plan lays out how to do it and taps into the collective brainpower, creative and energy of your entire team to make it happen.

HR CREATIVITY & PRODUCTIVITY YIELDS RECORD PROFITS

By design, a good plan creates structured delegation so that the most senior managers can significantly reduce their workload in the day-to-day and give more focus and time to leading- not being- the team. This can yield a more hands-off scenario whereby managers can simply hold their team to executing the plan and not have to be involved in every nitty-gritty detail.

And that's how it's supposed to be! Managers are supposed to MANAGE, not be DOers of day-to-day functions. With a good plan, management is freed up to be more strategic and thus better able to focus on the FUTURE of the business instead of being so locked into the NOW.

Failures here- top managers spending too much of their very valuable time & energy on the immediate- is the #1 obstacle to rapid business growth. If your people reference the company "chaos culture," they're consciously (or unconsciously) begging for a way to bring order to that chaos.

Installing a planning discipline is key to helping a small to medium-sized company grow into a large company. The stresses of "flying by the seat of your pants" every day can give way to fewer emergencies and much greater productivity.

What would having more time at the executive level mean to the bigger growth aspirations of your company? What would tapping into ALL of the brains in your employ- instead of always leaning on the relatively few at the top- mean to corporate innovation, cost-savings, efficiency & revenue growth?

A good strategic plan can unify the employees and foster exceptional teamwork. A cohesive team with clearly-defined objectives can give you a much greater ROI on your human resources.

If your company does not have a formal plan, or if it is becoming increasingly clear that the company cannot grow much larger without some kind of transfer of the day-to-day tasks from higher-to-lower levels, contact the Big Innovations team. We can coach you through the process and help you empower your entire talent pool... while keeping the company aimed at its grandest objectives... or better.

If your company has a strategic plan but has some challenges working with it, we can diagnose the issues and help you overcome them. If only a handful of employees can reasonably describe the content of your plan- especially how their own role contributes to it- BI can help you adapt communication tactics to maximize planning benefits.

A planning culture is THE proven way to maximizing growth. There is no "But we're different!" exceptions.

The better you plan... the better your entire organization leverages a strategic plan... the faster you realize your greatest upside. There is NO business school, coach, incubators, financial backers, kings of your space who will support a "We don't need a plan" mentality. Why? Because planning anything leads to a smoother path to the destination than making it up as you go & winging it.

5 KEY STRATEGIC PLAN MANAGER FUNCTIONS

Mark Twain said...

The secret to getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex, overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks and then starting on the first one.

There are 5 key functions to be executed by good leaders:

1. Use quality customer, competitor and company research to create a "WOW!" plan. Good research insights are the catalysts of 'big innovations.' Arm your planning brains with elite market intelligence to unleash collective creativity. It is fundamental to great planning.
2. Consistently communicate the plan to all stakeholders. No employee should be unaware that there is a company plan, nor unable to at least cover the high-points of it... especially THEIR role in it.
3. Delegate the vast majority of making it happen down chain of command. This is about UNLOADING tasks at the top, not adding additional ones.
4. Hold staff accountable to following the guidance of the plan. The plan lays out the path to where you want to go. Staff should not stray off that best path. When in doubt, the plan should offer guidance. If not, update the plan.


5. Regularly monitor, measure and communicate plan progress. This is how you get "buy in," how every employee becomes knowledgable about the direction of the company... so that they can contribute their best in support.

Do these 5 steps well to maximize your company effectiveness of getting from here to the "WOW!" there you seek. If any of these are a bit weak at your company, you're missing some opportunities to grow your business more effectively.

Either way, a FREE CONSULTATION with Big Innovations experts can be a powerful new step in the RIGHT direction. Contact us today!