For Jack Welch, winning companies fully engage all of their people.
Strategic success comes not simply from crafting sound strategy and implementation plans. Both are essential ingredients, but results come from activities that people engage in. Employees can only deliver good strategic results, if leaders ensure that they align their actions closely with the course and direction, implementation plans, and priorities established in your strategic planning process.
You will make a major leap toward strategic success by following these eight steps to communicate your strategy-
Step 1: Gather the Resources and material
It is important to work on and have all the raw material, we need to communicate our strategy in the Simplified Strategic Planning manual. The manual must consist of Strategies, objectives, goals, mission statement and action plan.
Step 2: Identify Who Needs to Act
In most organizations, every employee plays some role in implementing strategic vision. At different levels, employees need to understand what the strategy is, what they are supposed to do, and what they are not supposed to do. Most management teams have little difficulty separating their internal audiences into a small number of groups along lines such as:
- Conceptual versus task-oriented work (e.g. managers and hourly employees)
- Internally versus externally oriented activities
- Different business units or regions
Step 3: Plan of action and results expected from the identified list of employees
The two most common complaints of workers about their leaders are that they are not sure exactly what the leaders want from them and how well they are doing it. It is important to speak with the end in mind. We address issues first, what the strategies we have to resolve them and what impact we want to recreate with a plan of action. For the rest, leave it to the employees ingenuity to act.
Step 4: Decide on the level of information
Different groups require different information to understand what they are supposed to do. The information needs to vary to various levels of origination. Employees must understand ‘what, when, why and how’, never keep the workforce in dark. Give them the information and ask them to act and be versatile within the set frame of reference.
Step 5: Develop a funnel approach for Each Audience
People have different communications styles and approaches to learning. Leadership message must be crafted to get through to the recipient, not for the communicator.
The message can come from the CEO, the management team as a group, immediate supervisors, etc. Our approach can be large group meetings, one-on-one presentations and everything in between. The supporting materials can be projections of PowerPoint® documents, video, written and so on.
For each audience, We must decide the following:
- Who will present the message?
- What presentation media will you use to present it?
Step 6: Deliver Your Messages
If We are going to win, we have to show up. Likewise, if the message is going to be in the hearts and minds of the people responsible for actions and results, We have to get it out. The previous five steps have prepared us for this one.
The Principle is simple, ‘just do it,’
Step 7: Verify That Your Audiences Understand Your Messages
Our purpose is to communicate, not just to broadcast. Use your ears, not just your mouth.
Each communication exercise should include an opportunity for questions and answers and for feedback. Make sure that the message we sent each group is the one that group received. It is called “management by walking around.”
Step 8: Reinforce Your Communication at Regular Intervals
Strategy is about change and people resist change. Saying something once rarely is enough to change behavior.
Top management has a critical responsibility to reinforce the communication of strategy constantly. Walk the walk in addition to talking the talk.
Writing down the communication via a communication forum is a must.
These eight steps should be help to break down the challenge of leadership communication of a strategy.
Finally, In doing so, it is important to combine the message and medium.
From Managingnext Team