The Power of Strategic Alignment

The Golden Thread

THE GOLDEN THREADSUCCESSFUL STRATEGIC EXECUTION IS ALL ABOUT LINKAGE, AND WORKING TOGETHER

The Golden Thread is the linkage from strategy, through people, resources, finances, and tactics. It is how you get real results. Negotiating a workplace that isn’t joined up very well, is extremely difficult for leaders, employees, and product. Often, the leaders have to put so much effort into finding out what is happening that they become ineffective. Employees spend more time looking for the next job than actually working on it, and your product just doesn’t flow properly. The results are catastrophic. Efficiency and productivity go down, and inventory goes up. Deliveries go down, and cash stops flowing. Eventually customers get frustrated, and orders are lost.The answer is to link everything together in the organisation, including people, processes, and product, The only chance you get to actually install this linkage, is by building it in to the execution plan that compliments your strategy. Unfortunately, as we all know the execution is more difficult than defining the strategy. The plan is hard work, and it relies on putting finance, and resources in the right place at the right time. Again, this must be done at the time that the plan is produced. You already know what you need to achieve from

your strategy document, and you know what budgets are available. You also know what people, and things you have around you. Construct your execution plan with these things in mind, and make sure that everyone who owns the resources appreciates the expected benefits that go with executing the plan. This simple process of planning with finances and resources in mind means that you have three elements aligned, leadership, finances, and resources. These three things will work together to make the plan easier to execute. Use Continuous Improvement as the vehicle to improve and align your processes, and be sure to measure and review your execution constantly, this will allow you to make necessary tweaks, to ensure that the plan always meets the needs of the organisation.You should expect daily challenges and frame problems within a system, because only then can you manage them effectively. Tactics, are the things we employ to make the strategy happen, make them systematic, and remember the words of Mike Roach, CEO of CGI a 31,000 people strong IT firm “Strategy without execution is hallucination!”

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TIPS FOR SUCCESSLEAD, COMMUNICATE, ENGAGE: BE SYSTEMATIC

> Take the necessary time to produce a set of objectives that reflect your stakeholders’ needs

> Keep your vision simple, so that it is easily understood, and then people will buy in to it

> Make your mission mean something, and define the steps necessary to make it a reality

> Build an execution plan that balances budgets and resources with goals. Be realistic

> Communicate a single clear message about your strategy to the entire workforce.

> Ask everyone, in the organisation, for their support to execute your plan

> Ensure that you have a continuous improvement culture, so that you can get things done

> Go back to the execution plan at least once a week to ensure that it is still current, and is on track

> Measure as many drivers as are necessary, but use around 5 results measures to inform decisions

> Make tactics count. If it isn’t going to move your strategic plan forward, challenge why you are doing it at all

“Strategy without execution is hallucination!”

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When good strategies fail, it can be frustrat-ing, and difficult to understand. However, the fault most likely lies with the execution of that strategy, not with its aspirations. There is a lot of information out there about planning, and setting a strategy, but not much about how to turn it into success. MBA pro-grammes perpetuate this theory, often lead-ing the student to analyse results, rather than defining what execution is, and what it looks like, and this has led to a lack of expertise in

strategic execution.This lack of expertise can have serious consequences. In a recent survey of senior executives at 197 companies, conducted by a leading management consulting firm, respondents said, that on average, their firms achieved only 63% of the expected results of their strategic plans. We believe that much of that gap between expectation and perfor-mance is a failure to execute the company’s strategy effectively, through failure to join up people, processes, and products. Like any other change in the way an organi-sation does things, strategies need buy-in.

They must be effectively communicated, and they must also be engaging. The strategy must not only define markets, target custom-ers, and new product initiatives. It must also define the tactics that will be used to deliver success. It must carefully deploy resources to ensure success is possible, and it must define where the budget will be spent, and how to maximise value.Senior Executives often overlook the work-force as a driver for strategic execution, yet

the performance of sales, quality, finance, and output, is a direct result of the interactions, and efforts of all members of staff. The people wielding pens or spanners have to be aware of the plan, and every member of every team must be able to articulate the organisation’s vision, and understand how they effect the results. When brought together properly this is the embryo of a successful culture, and drives real motivation. Aligning everyone, and every-thing, will create the true differential between your results and those of your competitor. You will be better.

“Like any other change, strategies need buy in. They must be effectively communicated, and they must also be engaging.”

STRATEGIC SUCCESS, RELIES ON ALIGNMENTONE TEAM, ONE PLAN, ONE DIRECTION

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Actual Performance

Expectation

Jan May SepMar Jul NovFeb Jun OctApr Aug Dec

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MAKE REVIEW HABITUAL

You may find it incredible to believe, and yet it is true. Just 10%, that’s one in ten, of organisations execute their strategy as well as they planned

to. So, why is this? It is because they fail do a very important thing, and that is to continually review the plan.

Most organisations manage to put together a strategic plan that will achieve the results that their stakeholders expect, and yet performance very rarely

meets that expectation. This is because things change daily, and if the world, and your market conditions, are highly dynamic it stands to reason that the plans you

make to meet your strategy have to be dynamic too. Change shouldn’t be an ex-cuse for failure to execute, it should be a reason to review the strategy more often.

Moreover, these reviews need to be a habit. It must be normal that the leadership team to sit down and review the strategy, its execution plan, and the metrics that it is

generating. Just an hour of this review time, every week, will make a huge difference, because it gives the opportunity to make adjustments to the plan when things change.

The fact is that most leaders only spend 1 hour per month on their strategic plans, when the best leaders spend around 33% of their time planning or reviewing their strategies. The

difference in results are plain to see. 70% of organisations fail to execute well, and just 10% achieve what they communicated to their stakeholders. Try putting that into context by imag-

ining that it is the performance of your favourite sports team!

We can help you execute, and get the results you demand.

THE RESULTS ARE INOnly 10% of organisations execute on their strategy

70% Fail  to  Execute

20% Some  Success

10% Execute  Well

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FEELING THE BENEFIT STRATEGIC ALIGNMENT INCREASES CUSTOMER PERCEIVED VALUEGetting strategic execution right, gives a plethora of important improvements. Perhaps these are the top three...

CUSTOMER SATISFACTIONQuality & On Time In Full Delivery is what enables your customer

to function, and meet their own targets. It is what drives your repeat business, and drives your profitability. Strategic Alignment gets you

> 100% On Time In Full Delivery to your customer

> 100% Right First Time Quality, and no escapes

> Invoices, and payments synchronised with delivery

> Repeat orders with low or no effort

FINANCENo matter how good your people, processes, and product, without the

money coming in as budgeted the organisation will soon find it is in dire straits. Strategic alignment will

> Increase Revenue, Operating Income, & Cash

> Lower inventory, and obsolescence

> Minimise budget over runs, and give real visibility of Capital Expenditure

> Ensure that deliveries are made, and payments received on time

EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENTEngaged employees come to work because they like it, and so they are

positive, and productive. Disengaged employees come for the benefits, and look forward to going home. Strategic alignment will

> Lower sickness absence rates

> Raise morale

> Raise efficiency, and productivity

> Increase ownership of tasks, and solutions to problems

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“There are only three measurements that

tell you nearly everything you need to

know about your organisation’s overall

performance: employee engagement,

customer satisfaction, and cash flow”

—Jack Welch, Former CEO of GE

Organisations that fail in their expectations, often don’t hold strategic execution in such high regard as strategic planning. If you imagine your market environment as terrain, strategy as a road map, and your tactics as a way of moving around, you can start to appreciate how the strategic plan should be used. If whilst on your journey, the landmark you expected isn’t where you thought it would be, you know you are lost. Here, most people would choose to check the map. So, why is it that in business, leaders discard the plan when the results aren’t what they expect? We think it is because the importance of good execution isn’t as well communicated, or taught, as is the importance of getting the right strategy. In fact there are many tools, and

methods to develop a great strategy, but there aren’t many to help you execute that strategy, and execution is what we are all measured on.

Without excellent execution, a strategy is useless, and this is why Midaero have designed our Lean Business System. We have created a systematic, tool based, process for the determination, deployment, communication, execution and review of your strategy, to ensure that you get to your destination on time, and efficiently. Furthermore, we have developed a systematic approach to tactics too, so that you can link what happens in your organisation, every single day, with the expectation of the plan. Finally, we can give you a systematic way of getting the alignment necessary to reach your potential as an organisation. Highly effective

companies achieve amazing results, because they understand the importance of this Golden Thread. Imagine your leadership knowing exactly where it is taking the organisation, and how. Your employees being happy and engaged. Your customers being delighted with your delivery, quality, and response. Finally, your stakeholders are enjoying the financial results that they were told they would get. This isn’t utopia, it is the power of strategic alignment. Get in touch and we will help you deliver excellence.

“This isn’t Utopia, it is the power of Strategic

Alignment. Get in touch and we will help you deliver

excellence”

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Midland Aerospace Partnership Limited

Woodhouse LaneBoningaleShropshireWV7 3BZUnited Kingdom

Phone +44 1902 244 311

+44 1902 472 523

Text +44 7958 133 357

Email info@midaero.co.uk

Web midaero.co.uk

Twitter @midaero

The Golden Thread