Achieved Strategies

A business strategy is no good without people.  Management can create a compelling reason for shifts in the business for 2011, but without engagement by staff into those changes, stellar strategy becomes stagnant strategy.

By stagnant I mean that the strategic ideas and related tactics become fodder for water cooler conversation.  Something like, “Did you hear the latest news? What a joke. We’ll see how long this one lasts.”  Those great, well thought out strategic ideas are slowly reduced to meager attempts to move the business forward with rapidity and purpose.

In today’s Post Great-Recession, leaders must find ways to execute on stellar strategic moves that don’t become the business’s latest trendy attempt to make a buck.  And this brings us back to people.  A stellar business cannot attain such accolades if its people aren’t engaged.  It’s a leader’s responsibility to make this happen.  Engaging employees can be a low cost, high payoff leadership act.  Here are some tactics I’ve used/seen that make a difference.

1.     Acknowledge existing hardships. I’ve been banging this drum for most of the year.  If your company was forced to make some difficult decisions given economic pressures, and those decisions drove a stake into the collective hearts of your people, talk about it.  Don’t apologize for the decision. Acknowledge, though, that you understand the decisions hurt the workforce.  In our work with organizations, we hear constantly from employees that they simply want to be heard. To know that their needs and ideas fall upon open ears and minds.  This can become the beginning of a great dialogue within the organization.

2.     Say Thank You. If you’re like the majority of managers I work with, you’re in a meeting marathon sprinting from meeting room to meeting room. The moments you get in between meetings, you’re checking email and voicemail for fires before cramming food down before the next meeting.  And your employees are probably doing the same thing. But stop for two minutes and thank a team member for her contribution. Be genuine. Be brief.

3.     Delegate responsibility. So if you’re running from meeting to meeting, select and send an employee to go on your behalf. Send them to a meeting that has a high-level of importance. Let him rub elbows with other managers and have a chance to show his skill set.  It also could free up an hour for you.

4.     Group brainstorm. Those stellar strategic ideas need details. Involve your team in brainstorming and planning the implementation of the strategic initiative.  Be sure to plan a good facilitated session that engages all employees in the meeting. With a plan in place then look to the team to execute, monitor, and recommend adjustment strategies when necessary.

5.     Give time and place for expression. In my recent interview with Laura Goodrich of FutureWork, she and I discussed the value of expression.  Specifically, creating a time and place for individual employees to express their frustrations (or their desires) to you.  If it’s the former, you need to recognize how difficult most working environments are in America currently, including your company’s.  It is our human nature to want to contribute and make a difference. So many work environments are toxic and/or stressed out.  By creating a safe place for employees to express their frustrations, anger, or whatever it may be, it helps them to process through how to move forward past the frustration. If they can’t process it, they become stuck, poisonous (on the extreme) or leave.  Do everything you can to ensure your star and potential star employees have a safe place to express their views. It’s your job to ensure it doesn’t become a bitch session.

Analysts say we are healing after the Great Recession. Leaders have some repair work to do after some really tough decisions were handed down throughout businesses.  The pressure to perform isn’t going to lighten up.  So, the forward thinking leader recognizes that she needs to find ways to reveal the best in her people. In doing so, the road to stellar strategic implementation is possible.