It’s the new year – a great time to turn a new page in your personal life and in your business AND to finally achieve those goals you inevitably set at this time of year!
We all know that it can be difficult to keep those personal new year’s resolutions. Well, it turns out that it can be equally difficult for businesses to achieve the goals they set out for themselves at the start of their business year. As I have mentioned in past blog posts, only 10% of business strategies, goals, and objectives set by organizations, regardless of sector and industry, will actually be achieved successfully as planned.
Why does this happen and, more importantly, how can you put an end to this unfortunate, but common, outcome once and for all for your company in 2011?
Strategy execution failure is a problem with multiple causes including poor leadership, avoiding the truth of every business situation, and low levels of employee buy in, engagement, and commitment (for more information on the secrets of strategy execution success, see my article at: www.sfo-consulting.com/Resources.html). I could suggest that you work on building a culture of accountability or implementing a strategy-focused measurement framework (such as the balanced scorecard) but my goal for this post is to get you working on the one thing that will make a REAL difference for your business this year.
That thing is focus.
More specifically, to achieve the focus you need to achieve your business goals this year, I want you: (Focus 1) to settle on the top three to five business priorities for 2011, (Focus 2) paint a crystal clear picture of where your business will be at YE 2011 on those priorities, and then (Focus 3) define the gap closing projects you need to implement in 2011 to get to where you MUST be by year’s end. Let’s take a closer look at each of these three steps for success.
(1) Determine your top three to five business priorities for 2011
If you have a weighted strategy map in place, you might simply decide to stick with the top 3 – 5 most highly weighted strategic objectives and call them your 2011 priorities. However, now is a really great time to take a look at that weighted strategy map and decide whether you want to re-focus your strategy map weightings/priorities. If they have been in place for a while, you might want to complete a re-weighting exercise and update your business priorities based on a review of your current situation and the progress made towards achieving your time-defined vision state. Don’t forget to involve others in this refresh exercise to leverage valuable insights and to gain new perspectives.
If you aren’t working from a weighted strategy map, take a moment to consider your organization’s mission and time-defined vision and then think about the top 3 – 5 goals and objectives your company should focus on to really make a difference and move it closer to realizing that mission and vision. Take the time to define what you mean by these objectives so that others will see where your organization is going and understand what these objectives could look like in action. Better yet, involve a cross-functional team of employees in this exercise. Doing so will bring new ideas to the table, enhance the quality of thinking on the topic, and help build a consistent understanding of what each strategic objective means across your organization.
The key to your success with this step will be keeping your business priorities to a short, focused list (no more than 5). I know that this can be difficult but the success of this practical plan is dependent on you sticking out your neck and placing your bets on the priorities you believe are mission critical to your business’ progress in 2011. You and your employees have the wisdom and knowledge to make a sound decision in this regard – just pick the top “must do” objectives you have to place a focus on this year.
(2) Paint a crystal clear picture of where your business will be on those priorities by YE 2011
For each of your priority strategic objectives, I want you to answer the following questions: Where do we want to be on this strategic objective by the end of the year? What do we want to have created/put in place/achieved by year end? What will it look like (describe what will be in place and what it will look like/how it will be functioning in vivid terms – create a visual picture of the future state)? How will we know that we are there? What will we see? What will we be able to measure? How will we be performing? In essence, I want you to create a measureable 2011 YE vision statement (or mini-vision statement) for each of your priority objectives. Make sure to do this in the context of your organization’s overall mission and vision and your progress towards achieving them at this point in time – these mini-vision statements must support, not take away from, these overarching organizational goals and must be a realistic stretch given the timeframe you are working with (1 year).
How will these mini-vision statements help you achieve business success? Well, mission and vision statements often have very long time frames associated with them and they may involve very stretch goals for your organization. When this is the case, it can be easy to feel a bit lost on the journey to achieving them. Mini-vision statements give you a signpost with a shorter timeframe to work towards. The results feel more tangible and can be achieved in a relatively short time frame. In addition, you will get more immediate feedback on your achievement of these goals than you might if you just worked towards your overall mission and vision. In my experience, you and your employees will just find it easier to work towards a smaller goal (your mini-vision statements) than your big mission and vision (which can feel a bit overwhelming for most people).
(3) Define the required gap closing 2011 projects for each strategic objective/business priority
Once you know where you want to end up at year end on your business priorities, it’s time to do an informal gap analysis where you look at your current situation for each strategic objective and compare it to where you want to be by YE 2011. This doesn’t have to be a big, data driven exercise. Just assemble a small group of knowledgeable employees, consider the information at hand, and talk about where your company is today in achieving each strategic objective. If it makes it easier, write a small paragraph together describing the current situation relative to each business priority. Be sure to include what has been achieved to date in what the current state looks like. Also, remember to think about the current state in the context of your mission and organizational vision.
Once you have your hands wrapped around your current situation for a business priority, compare it to the mini-vision statement. If current state doesn’t equal future state, you have a gap. Repeat this review for each business priority. Once gaps have been identified, the next step is to identify the projects and initiatives required to close these gaps. In some cases, existing and/or already planned projects may be good enough to fill the gap. Remember, your goal is to achieve the mini-vision state for each of your priority strategic objectives by the end of 2011.
Once you have all of the required gap closing projects identified, you should scope each out at a high level – what will be involved, when it will run during the year, and who will be involved in the project. Once each project has been scoped, it is critical for you to look at them in relation to all of the projects you had planned for this year. All the projects support your stated 2011 business priorities so you should consider them priority 1 for your company. Since your organization does not have infinite capacity, you must decide what to do with existing and/or planned (priority 2 and 3) projects. Should you continue with them, should they be slowed down, or should they be put off until next year? I won’t be able to tell you the answer – only you and your team can tell based on your business demands and your organization’s capacity. The only thing I can tell you is that if you hope to achieve your YE 2011 vision for your business, you must make sure that your priority 1 projects get resourced and completed this year.
The key to your success will be making these three steps easy to complete for your organization and getting through them quickly in an effective way. To do this, simply assemble a small group of cross-functional employees, pull together some high level data and information, pool your collective wisdom, and then work through the three steps in a single, focused meeting – you should be able to create a high quality plan for success in 2011 in as little as 3 hours.
I hope that you will follow these guidelines for achieving success for your business this year – it’s not complicated and I know that, if you take the plunge, you and your team will well on your way to achieving the business results you desire by YE 2011!
(Going to implement these three steps? Let me know how it goes and, when the end of the year rolls around, whether you and your team achieved your 2011 YE vision and targeted business results!)
Finally someone is talking about this! Thank you. I remember an astonishing conference with a student and his father, who had been a teacher in China. He told me that he was at school from 8am to 5pm but that he was with students for only 4 hrs. The rest of the time was planning, evaluating, collaborating! He said he didn't know how American teachers were able to get anything done without lots of non-student time. Funny, we want some of the results that other countries achieve, but we aren't willing to look at their models.
Posted by: custom essays | 09/23/2011 at 07:00 AM
GLad you liked the information and I truly hope that it helps every business owner! Sandy
Posted by: Sandy Richardson | 04/19/2011 at 09:03 AM
This is very timely especially that our economy is starting to pick up and the new year gives all a great start to make and grow our small businesses. Thanks for the tips!
Posted by: Project Management | 02/24/2011 at 02:26 AM