Useful Resources
An excerpt from the book Made to Stick, by Chip and Dan Heath.
Strategy Deployment
Strategy Deployment is the process of using the strategy to focus and align the activities of the organisation. It is a vital first step in turning the strategy into action, but one often missing from the planning “how-to” books. Leaders sometimes spend months developing a great strategy, only to “hide the light under a bushel”.
Strategy deployment is about engagement and alignment: engaging the workforce with the strategy, and aligning all parts of the organisation to deliver it.
Engagement is about communication… and communication needs to be simple, concrete and memorable. Rather than drowning people in piecharts and buzzwords, leaders should focus on telling a simple story that will engage emotion. Your communications should aim give every employee answers to the questions: Where are we going? How will we get there? And where do I fit in?
Alignment is about ensuring the different parts of the organisation are all pulling in the same direction...so that the Marketing plan doesn’t end up being out-of-step with the Operations and HR plans. Without effective strategy deployment, the tactical planning process can become chaotic.
The Cascading Balanced Scorecard process provides a structured framework for creating this alignment; it provides a mechanism for linking day-to-day activities with the strategic and tactical plans.
The balanced scorecard process works best when it is based on sound understanding of the key drivers of business performance. Driver Tree Analysis is an excellent tool for developing this understanding.
Where the new strategy involves a change of direction for the company, Kotter’s Change Model provides valuable guidelines for effective deployment (see Leading Change).