The Garrison Report #2008-6

Using Strategic Planning to Develop Company Executives - For Large Companies

Listen to the audio version of this report here

Last month's Garrison Report advised all contractors that they should involve all personnel from project manager/superintendent on up in the strategic planning process. If you haven't read or listened to that report, it is suggested that you review it before continuing with this report. You can find that report at: www.tedgarrison.com/resources/garrison-report/2008-reports/using-strategic-planning-to-develop-company-executives/.

For those contractors where it's impractical to have everyone involved on the senior strategic planning committee, the solution is a multi-tiered process. This approach allows the contractor to involve all its managers and employees in developing the company strategy in a meaningful way yet not create an unwieldy process.

If your company has struggled with any of the following questions, then it's time for you to consider this approach.

  • "How can we get everyone to understand and support our company's strategy?"
  • "How can we become more flexible or responsive to market changes?"
  • "How can we retain key employees we have invested in?"
  • "How can we be sure that we will have the future leaders this company will need?"

The answer lies in revolutionizing the strategic planning process to expand beyond senior management. It's important to understand that strategic planning is not about creating a single document and moving on. It is a process for ongoing company activity. Therefore, the best way to ensure a constant flow of fresh intelligence about the marketplace and what's impacting the workforce is to involve the front line in that process on an ongoing basis. This is important because this is what the workforce wants. Plus, the larger the contractor, the further senior management is from the customer, and the more isolated they are, the more they need employee input.

The process is relatively simple. It starts with forums or meetings designed to obtain input from workers at all levels. Any effective strategy must incorporate a balanced approach to serving the client, the contractor and the employees. Obviously, the workers best understand the issues that are important to them. Further, since they are in contact with the client, they often have a better understanding of the client's issues than does senior management. To foster improvement in this capability, contractors need to train their people to communicate with the clients to better understand their clients' needs.

Senior management usually has the best perspective on the company's financial needs, but to get employees to execute any plan, it's essential that the workforce understands the company's finances and how individuals' actions impact those figures. If necessary this includes providing training programs to ensure that workers not only are exposed to the company financials, but also understand them.

In this process the workers are encouraged to collect data about the clients and their needs and to express their views on the company's direction. Today's workers want to be involved in establishing the company's course. Their inclusion in the process is necessary to attract quality individuals and retain them. There will always be sore losers among those who didn't get their way, but the majority of people are satisfied when their ideas receive honest consideration.

To avoid burying the senior strategic planning committee under suggestions, the employees' individual suggestions should be debated by groups of employees to identify those that have some consensus. The evaluation groups could be a combination of project teams, regions, departments, or whatever group designation works best for the individual contractor. Once a group endorses an idea, a project manager or other manager would be selected to present the idea to the committee.

Once the senior strategic planning committee receives the suggestion, its role would be evaluate it with regard to suitability and feasibility. If the committee agrees the recommendation has merit, then it would prioritize it and provide the necessary resources including financial, personnel, time and technological support. The committee would also establish a chain of command or some other alternative structure to implement the idea while relying on the employees to develop the specific tasks necessary to achieve the objective. Of course, it would be the role of a committee member to oversee the process to ensure the employees' efforts on the objective remain focused. However, this process is designed to empower the employees to implement the specific objective.

This approach offers numerous paths and objectives for the employees to become involved with. In Strategic Planning for Contractors, the author advises that a proper strategic plan needs to have specific objectives that cover the company's entire operation. To achieve this goal, a company should have between eight and 11 objectives with the following breakdown:

  • One on revenue
  • One on profitability
  • Two or three on marketing
  • Four to six on operations, client loyalty, employee satisfaction or any other important issue

While this approach may appear to be a lot of trouble to some, it's an effective way to identify those employees with senior management potential. It also empowers the workforce to implement the objectives. No longer is strategic planning the sole responsibility of the CEO or the senior staff; it's a companywide program. The good news is the benefits certainly outweigh the cost of the program.

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