Getting Your Strategy Right: A Rebuttal

In the recent edition of Fortune (April 11, 2011, page 42), Verne Harnish, CEO of Gazelles Inc., outlines five ways to ensure that a company's strategic plan is effective. His five guidelines:

1. Play to win
   
2. Ask customers for ideas...
   
3. ...But know which customer ideas to ignore
4. Involve middle management
5. Set fewer priorities

Nice, simple, safe, ideas. Yes, of course play to win. Yes, of course involve your customers. And, yes, of course limit the number of priorities you establish. But, Verne, don't you think these guidelines are a tad old-school, a bit myopic, and, possibly, fatally incomplete? More importantly, are they really the keys to driving sustained performance gains -- which, at its heart, is the ultimate purpose of a strategic plan?

We think not.

As a rebuttal, we offer the following set of requirements to ensure that a strategic plan has a fighting chance of successfully improving performance on both a short- and longer-term basis. Each is essential. To think otherwise is an error that can cost a company market share and limit its ability to compete effectively. To think otherwise may also cost a company a segment of its top talent -- a loss that can be extraordinarily expensive in so many ways.

So, as a public service, we offer our requirements for developing and executing a strategic plan with verve, efficiency and success. We call it, humbly, The Schnur Consulting Group's Keys to Strategic Plan Success.

The Schnur Consulting Group's Keys to Strategic Plan Success

1. Play to win it all. It's one thing to win, it's something much more compelling to strive to win it all, to be the best, to be the industry leader, to be the firm that all others compare themselves to. Aiming for anything less is aiming too low. An effective strategic plan sets a high, aspirational bar. Shooting for the stars can make winners. Don't take our (learned) word for it; ask the shareholders, management, employees and customers of any B-level company. They'll tell you that lower goals make for lower performance.

2. Engage your people. Assuming you've set a number of lofty goals for the next year or two, bring together a cross-functional group of your resident experts -- your management and non-management employees -- and ask them to define how best to accomplish the goals of the strategic plan. More than that, seek specific recommendations from them for performance improvement throughout your company, including:

• Faster ways to market
• Better customer service
• Enhanced efficiencies
• Process improvement
• Speed of decision-making

and any other areas that can make things easier, more streamlined, while elevating productivity and quality.

Engaging your people has a number of valuable by-products. You'll get highly useful options, avoid the huge cost of an army of consultants, and will accelerate the change process needed to achieve significant performance improvement. And you won't be surprised to learn that we have a terrific process to make this happen. We call it FUSION.

3. Let others execute. Do you need to have complete control? Must you hold all of the reins? Drive a wagon. Instead, if you want significant and sustained performance improvement, give at least part of the plan to your people to execute. Indeed, if you desire -- require -- an organization capable of sustained growth, allow others to execute. In many organizations, given the rigors associated with executing a plan and the limited opportunities to do so, this involves some training. Execution training is part of FUSION and results in a cross-functional group of people able to conceive and develop comprehensive project plans, track progress statistically, report effectively, and revise as necessary to achieve and ultimately surpass objectives. An important byproduct: The development of a group of people capable of assuming leadership roles.

4. Solicit input. Start talking to your key stakeholders and don't stop. Ever. It's the dialogue that's critical. Make sure no stakeholder group is overlooked, including your employees. Continually seek ideas about how to improve, about how to enhance the experience of working with or for your firm. Find ways to share findings and use them to inform, to improve.

5. Measure, measure, measure. Whatever your goals, track them statistically. If you can't or won't assess numerically, don't include them as a goal -- because that which isn't measured won't likely happen. And here's a novel idea: Form a team of cross-functional employees to collect, analyze and report findings directly to you and your leadership team and, subsequently, communicate them to all stakeholder groups. This will broaden buy-in, hasten performance improvement, and drive growth. Just ask any company that's used FUSION.

There you have it. Our five essentials to an effective strategic plan. Thanks, Verne, for your thoughts and to Fortune for publishing them. And thanks to all of you for being able to identify brilliance when you see it (assuming, of course, that you find this to be brilliant).

One last thing: FUSION is an amazing process. Get in touch and we'll show you what it can do.