Get Organized

By Mike Loughrin, CEO for Transformance Advisors

This is the second article in our series on strategy execution.

Click here to start at the beginning.

Milestones

For many organizations, there are six milestones for launching strategic initiatives.

In this article, we will look at the first milestone.

Get Organized

Four elements need to be addressed in order for the leadership team to get organized:

Methodology: Will you leverage a proven methodology that provides a structured systematic approach to creating a shared vision, defining strategic initiatives, tracking execution, and measuring performance? Examples of methodologies that provide a structured approach include Dynamic Strategy Making, Franklin Covey, Growth Curve Institute, and Six Disciplines.
Coaching: Will you leverage an experienced coach with the training and background to guide your leadership team in developing the strategic initiatives and support your employees in the execution activities?
Software: Will you utilize any of the specialized software that puts all relevant information in a common tool and provides tight integration between strategy development and strategy execution?
Community: If you use a standard methodology, coaching, and specialized software, will you join the community of other like minded organizations so you can benefit from the sharing of best practices?

Addressing the above four questions will provide the ingredients for developing the overall plan. While a trusted lieutenant of the CEO can help research the options and chase down some answers, ownership of crafting a shared vision and providing a strategic path belongs to the CEO.

The CEO must be an enthusiastic advocate and get the leadership team organized for the task at hand.

Checklist

A checklist for this milestone could include:

Research methodologies
Choose your methodology
Decide on coaching
Decide on software
Talk with others using the methodology
Decide on leadership participation
Create suggested reading list
Develop project plan
Schedule kick-off meeting
Assignments complete for kick-off
Conduct kick-off meeting

Milestone Complete

The milestone for getting organized is complete when:

A plan is developed which includes the approach you will use and the expected timeline. Using a standard methodology will make this a straight forward exercise using a template with each milestone clearly defined.
A suggested reading list is available for those who have not been engaged up to this point. This may include books, articles, webinars, and websites.
Your CEO leads a kick-off meeting with the leadership team. If you will be leveraging a specific methodology, then an introduction can be part of the agenda. If you will use a coach, then this person should be introduced. Software and Community can also be discussed, but are not a big factor for the kick-off.

Mike Loughrin

Mike Loughrin is the CEO and Founder of Transformance Advisors. He also teaches for Louisiana State University Shreveport and is on the board of directors for the Association for Supply Chain Management Northern Colorado.

Mike brings exceptional experience in industry, consulting services, and education. Mike has helped organizations such as Levi Strauss, Warner Home Video, Lexmark, and Sweetheart Cup.

Keeping a commitment to a balanced life, Mike loves downhill skiing, bicycle rides, and hiking in the mountains. See one of his trails of the month at: Little Switzerland.