Stuck in the mud? What can you do to return focus to execution?

What do you do when progress is slowing on your key strategic initiatives?  Leaving your strategic planning session, your team was motivated to get the key strategic initiatives completed.  Action plans complete, resources allocated, and everything was moving forward.  But now, after several months, forward progress has slowed.  Team members have gotten bogged down by the day-to-day requirements of their job.  What can you do to re-invigorate your team? Some thoughts:

Author, Denise Harrison

Have one action plan team report per meeting

Most teams use a monitoring meeting to report on their activity monthly – this group is made up of the senior management team and is an effective way to keep action plans on track. However, if you are looking to re-invigorate, you should have one action plan team report per meeting, getting the whole action plan team involved.  When the action plan team prepares to present, they typically will make more progress so that they look better in front of the senior management team.  You will also find that that team is more committed leaving the meeting.  This is also good two-way exposure for action plan team members with the senior management team.

Ask challenging questions for re-invigorating strategic initiatives:

  1. If we wanted to complete this project three months earlier, what would we need to do?
  2. If we hired an intern to help you on this project, how much sooner would the plan be complete?
  3. What is the expertise you need to move the action plan forward?

Have the team re-write the action plan

Have the team re-write the action plan, clearing out completed items and re-writing future steps.  This will help people get focused on the future and help them discuss any issues that come up as they re-think what is needed for completion.

Talk to the team about what should be delegated

Sometimes we see that the enemy is us…. what are we doing/not doing that is getting in the way?  Talk to the team about what should be delegated, so that they can spend more time on the strategic rather than the tactical.

These are some possible actions that I have seen work successfully.  What other actions have you tried?  If you have additional questions about developing a strategy or executing strategy, please call me, Denise Harrison:  910-264-1350 or harrision@thestratplan.com.

(c) Spex, Inc.  Wilmington, NC 28401

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