Pastor Welcome Thamsanqa Mlungisi Dlalisa
Last week, we spoke about the power of goal setting. This week we examine how to implement your strategy. Many businesses and entrepreneurs come up with a grand vision, plans and goals. However, real success is only realised once these are implemented. Without implementation, there is no business success. In the next section, I deal with each step that is involved in implementing strategy. There are distinct steps and actions involved in implanting your strategy, namely:
1. Clarify and communicate your strategy
Vision and strategy are often crafted at the very top level of the organization. It is entrepreneurs and business owners who come up with the vision and strategy for their business. However, implementation happens at the middle and lower levels of the organisation. Therefore, communication and and clarity of such vision becomes very critical. The other challenge is that vision is done as high level statements which lack detail. So unless these are explained in more detail via strategic plans, business plans and balanced score cards, they stand the risk of remaining plans that never get implemented.
Therefore, in order to implement strategy, you need to communicate it and break it down to those who must implement it. This you achieve by having strategic conversations with your staff members – at least with your lower levels of management and staff.
2. Secure commitment to your strategy
In addition to clarifying and communicating strategy to all your staff, you need to secure their commitment. This may take time. It involves making sure that your staff understand why they have to pursue your vision. It may also involve making sure that they can see what is in it for them. Many organisations have share schemes, reward and recognition schemes which are linked to performance contracts of each staff member.
In modern business, it is important to ensure that your middle management has good people skills. People care when they think you also care. If people do not buy into your vision, there is no way that they will help you to achieve it. Commitment also comes after communicating and communicating, again and again. Use internal blogs and message boards, brown bag luncheons, podcasts, and department meetings to communicate what the strategy is and how everybody’s work is informed by that strategy. Discussions need to occur at each level, translating the organisation’s strategy into understandable and contextualized sound bites, which connect to the work of individuals. In short, communicating the strategy provides the “connective tissue” throughout the organisation that helps people understand the big picture.
3. Cascade your strategy across all levels
Cascading strategy means making your staff understand how they “add value” to the overall bigger picture of your corporate vision and strategy. This means that each person across all occupational levels and categories of the organisation must be able to understand the role they are playing in achievement of the vision. That makes them see their worth and importance. It also generates motivation and stimulates higher levels of performance. In practical terms, organisations do this through personal performance contracts which are linked to corporate strategy for the company. In this way, staff members can all trace their roles in the business.
4. Underpin and link behaviors to a set of values
In order to implement strategy, you need to have a set of values. These values are about “how things are done around here.” If you have no set of values, every person can and will do what they want in the way that they want. However, the benefit of having values is that it helps shape all behaviours of people across all levels of the business. You need to reward the right set of behaviours and punish wrong behaviours and do so consistently and persistently.
In order to help young entrepreneurs to implement what we are learning via these articles, I have set up what I call the JOSEPH ACHIEVERS MENTORING (JAM) program. The program is based on Joseph in the Bible who rose to a strategic position as a result of the dream that he had. This program is aimed at supporting all residents of Tembisa. It targets mainly young entrepreneurs, young professionals, university students and high school learners. It offers a range of support initiatives including career guidance, training and mentoring. Many have enrolled in the program and receive business management training and mentoring. I challenge you to enroll for JAM in order to propel your life or you business to new heights. To register for JAM, send an email to dlalisa.rhi@gmail.com or call the number below.
For more information, contact Pastor WTM Dlalisa on 083 395 1165.
