Strategy implementation means putting the organisation's strategy into practice. When an organisation has a lot of personnel, implementation means a great deal of communication and participation, so that the changes the strategy aims for come alive in the everyday work of the personnel.
Ways of implementing a strategy
Traditional ways of implementing a strategy are: management telepathy, in other words no implementation at all; one-way top-down communication from management; two-way communication, in other words participation; and outsourcing the whole thing to consultants.1. No implementation at all, in other words "management telepathy"
Traditionally, strategy has been rolled out from the top down without a single thought for participation or clear communication. The mental image is of ivory towers where the management, together with a consultant, cooks up a strategy in a magic cauldron, which after a hazy weekend emerges as a crystallised, gilded document for everyone outside to admire. This document then ends up in the management's desk drawer, and at the next development days the management wonders why the personnel has not implemented the strategy, even though the management itself is not aware of what that strategy paper actually said. In this case, the management imagines that the strategy is done once the plan has been made.2. One-way communication
Strategy implementation is often understood as one-way communication, where the management decides on the new strategy and it is communicated to the organisation in beautiful terms and with the help of a slideshow. At the back of the management's mind is a timid hope that people will absorb the terms of the strategy slides and the new slogans like a sponge and thereby start working in a new way, more efficiently and better. In reality, because of this approach, the strategy remains for the personnel something that does not touch their own everyday work. Indeed, for many the term "high-level fluff" is the first association when the organisation's strategy is mentioned. This traditional way of handling strategy implementation assumes that the personnel will independently grasp the ideas of the strategy without being given the space, the place and the permission to process the strategy and the thoughts arising from it in relation to their own work.
3. Outsourcing strategy implementation to facilitators or consultants outside the organisation
The third way is to leave the entire strategy communication, strategy implementation and participation to a party outside the house. The challenges here are scheduling, expense, cost-inefficiency and the inability to execute and learn yourself. In this case, the discussions also easily turn into theatre rehearsals performed for outsiders, and getting to the core issues becomes harder.4. Two-way communication, in other words participation
The fourth way to implement a strategy is newer and more modern. It is two-way communication and is often called participation. There are many ways to carry out participation. Although participation is a fairly new method and term, it too has already experienced mild inflation in organisational vocabulary, because some of the things called participation are so-called "pseudo-participation", where the personnel's viewpoints do not really matter. The situation is a bit like the word "sales", which represents both knowledgeable and helpful selling and the world's slimiest car dealer. The idea of well-executed participation, however, is that the personnel gets to process the strategy themselves, and what it means for their work. Participation gives the space, the time and the permission to deal with the subject. Often, as part of two-way communication, the organisation authorises a small core group for strategy execution, often called change agents. The change agents' task is to communicate, remind, help and lead by example on the themes of the new strategy.Stumbling blocks of participation
One way of doing participation is to use a ready-made slideshow or document template, whose walkthrough is delegated to supervisors, unit managers or change agents. This is already good, but it contains some stumbling blocks:- It is assumed that everyone responsible for the walkthrough is an excellent facilitator
- It is assumed that people have the time to facilitate a discussion about the strategy and the skill to do it in a sensible amount of time
- There is no information on whether strategy discussions have actually been held and what has come out of them
- There is no information on what has been discussed and what conclusions were reached
- There is no two-way feedback on development proposals concerning the organisation as a whole
- The walkthrough still leaves it unclear to the personnel how the strategy can show up in their own work
- Slideshows are often "high-level" material, from which both the discussion leader and the team member find it hard to get anything concrete.
In summary:
- Strategy implementation has traditionally been left undone, or done in various ways that have led to traditional strategic change initiatives failing for the most part.
- With good tools, involving people in the strategy is light, change-generating, rewarding and increases understanding across the organisation.
- Involving the personnel in the strategy is possible in a meaningful way without requiring external consultant help or extensive facilitation training
- The biggest challenges in strategy implementation are:
- The personnel sees the strategy as a "high-level thing", not as something that touches their own everyday work.
- The people who are made responsible for holding strategy discussions (often the organisation's supervisors) are overworked, and do not have the time or the desire to adopt demanding tools
- Good strategy implementation therefore needs clear, long-term and repeated communication on the matter, as well as proper participation. For this purpose, it is worth authorising a core group for strategy implementation, in other words for making it live in the everyday.