Strategic Plan Implementation: 10 Ways to Keep Your Strategic Plan from Hitting the Shelf

More often than not, life and day-to-day operations take over a well-intentioned strategic plan implementation.  If the strategic plan in one more thing everyone has to do, it begins to feel like a burden instead of being exciting.  By embedding your strategic planning into daily operations, completing items on your strategic plan becomes natural instead of something extra or something you pull off the bookshelf and review only when you happen to remembers it’s there.

Here are ten quick ways to keep your strategic plan from landing on the shelf and collecting dust.

  1. Getting Everyone Involved from the Start: Make your organization’s plan everyone’s plan.
  2. Deleting the Fluff: Less is more!
  3. Appointing a Strategic Engineer: Appoint someone to be the go-to person for the strategic plan.
  4. Creating a Strategic Plan Poster: By putting your strategic plan on one huge page, you keep your strategic plan from even touching the shelf.
  5. Hooking Achievement into Incentives: By paying for performance, you elevate the importance of your strategic plan.
  6. Using a KISS: When all else fails–Keep It Simple, Stupid.  For your strategic plan to be implemented, everyone in your organization has to understand it.
  7. Holding a Monthly Strategy Meeting: Replace one of your regularly scheduled staff meeting with a strategy meeting.
  8. Using a Scorecard: Use a scorecard to keep everyone in the loop.  A scorecard provides a quick snapshot of who’s contributing and who isn’t.
  9. Leading by Example: Be a purposeful leader and your people will follow.  There’s no better way to keep your plan alive than through your leadership.
  10. Celebrating Your Success–Whenever You Feel Like It: Too often you’re so focused on tomorrow’s tasks that you forget to recognize today’s successes. Don’t wait until the end of the year to recognize achievement. Celebrate small successes along the way!

For more information on implementing your strategic plan and keeping it from hitting the shelf, check out Strategic Planning for Dummies!

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