Corporate Alignment and Planning
Our Approach: Involve the entire executive team in the full process. Together the team will define what needs to be done. This not only ensures the alignment, it begins to develop that elusive executive mindset. It is about what is best for the company – not what I want for my department. It’s not about whose job it is – it is about how can we best get all of this done.
There are three primary outcomes we seek from driving this process with your company:
- Create a comprehensive corporate business plan that can be used to manage your business from day to day
- A system of accountability and ownership
- Develop a new behavior pattern with an intent and outcome associated with each activity
We recommend that the finished plan contain 3-5 high level goals with measurable objectives and targets. We will start with one goal in order to teach the process and then will circle back around and complete the plan for all goals. Once this process is completed, a financial model and plan can be developed.
Set the Goals and Measurements
Strategic Alignment is often viewed as an offsite planning event. It is no wonder that executives return to the next scheduled offsite feeling as though they are starting over. Planning and management should become part of a company’s DNA. To the extent possible, the question “to what end” should be a consistent part of your corporate lexicon. WHY are you doing it and HOW does it propel the company forward.
Define the Targets
Identify the Action Plan
Start by selecting a goal. Grow revenue… Grow profits… Establish market share… That’s the easy part.
The fun begins when your team begins to define the means by which they will measure achievement. This is perhaps the most critical part of the process because in identifying exactly what you are going to measure is where basis for alignment occurs.
Execute
Now is when ownership is assigned and corporate structure is assessed. The plan should define the your organization - the structure should not control your plan.
The assigned owner will assess the requirements and in the follow on meeting will provide delivery dates and budget requirements.
As time passes, the team may add action items during weekly meetings, update due dates, confirm budgets, etc.
Once you have defined the measurements, you need to set your targets. Often there is not a means to measure the objective you have set so the first set of actions will be to set up the system to calculate the actual and to measure moving forward.
Typically the teams set their targets as aspirational goals and over time they collect enough information to evaluate whether their aspirations are achievable. Corrective action can include modifying the targets when you need to.
The team always needs to confirm support of the plan and agreement that the target can be achieved.
Review
The objectives should be measured monthly if possible. The variance threshold should be set and if exceed, the owner will need to present a corrective action plan. It is important to note that this is not a performance plan for an individual - if a number is missed it it rarely due to one person. In this case, this owner is merely responsible for the coordination of the resources to ensure achievement of the target.
This is where the difference actually begins. We all stay together and the entire executive team brainstorms and discusses everything that needs to be done to achieve that goal. It is rare that there are any objectives that don’t include all areas of a company.
Once the list of actions are completed - each team member needs to agree that if everything thing listed is completed that they believe the target will be met. If not then the action plan or the target needs to be modified.
One last review of the list confirms that all items on the list are necessary.
Ownership
A few simple rules:
- Every objective has one owner
- Every decision has one owner
- Every action has one owner
Each of these have teams that are involved and responsible along with the owner.
Any member of the team should be able to ask the owner for an update at anytime and get an accurate answer.