SELF IMPROVEMENT

Then I asked, "If I completed all of these analyses for my company, would I have a strategy?" Right! At its core, a strategy is nothing more than a plan to achieve your business goals.
Of course, this definition of a strategy assumes that a company has established its business goals. Companies go into business to sell widgets, and sell widgets they do. However, senior managers often get so busy working in the business that they don't get around to working on the business. Once the company has written goals, they must put an actionable plan in place to achieve the goals. It even spelled out the company's goals. While perhaps brilliant analysis, this was decidedly not a strategy. A strategy requires a detailed plan to achieve the goals. Further, for optimal results, the responsibilities of each senior manager must be cascaded throughout their respective organizations so that the goals of everyone in the company are aligned both with the company strategy and with each other. Suppose the president of a company declared to his senior management team, "Our goal is to increase profits by 30 percent this year, and it is up to each of you to implement plans to achieve this goal!" With this direction, the VP of Manufacturing surveyed his plant and decided that the old equipment they were using resulted in significant inefficiency. This, he reasoned, would increase productivity, reduce costs and therefore increase profits. The CFO decided that she would eliminate all non-essential spending to drive costs down and increase profits. Obviously, this company is doomed to fail. While the plans of the three senior managers are certainly aligned with the company goal of increasing profits, they are most certainly not aligned with each other.
Once the goals of every member of the organization are aligned with the company's goals and with each other it is important to ensure that the human systems (e.g., performance management system, compensation system, hiring system, etc.) reinforce the achievement of these goals. For example, let's assume that one of the company's goals is to increase quality. It turns out that quality can be increase dramatically, but doing so will reduce productivity by 10 percent. A company's human systems must be aligned with and reinforce its goals.
In summary, a successful strategy requires:
• A set of well thought out goals for the organization
• A clear plan to achieve those goals
• Each step in the plan must have a deadline for delivery and a single senior manager who is accountable
• The goals of each senior manager must be cascaded down throughout their respective organizations so the goals of every employee are aligned with the strategy and with each other.
• The company's human systems must work in concert with these goals
Successful execution of a coherent strategy requires achieving top to bottom alignment around a clear set of organizational goals.