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3 Options for Connecting Your Teams with Your Strategy

We know that it feels like it’s time to celebrate when your company goals are completed; they’ve addressed your strategic questions, each goal has a clear outcome with annual targets, the owner has been assigned accountability—you’re ready to implement, right? Maybe.

While clear and measurable company goals are essential to achieving your organization’s vision, those goals should be made actionable through the departments’ goals that cascade from the company-wide goals—let’s call this part of your goal cascade the Action Plan. This is how your teams know what they must do to contribute to the successful achievement of each company-wide goal. Don’t get nervous! Get working on your Action Plans with one of the three approaches we know work to keep teams engaged and clear on what they must do.

But first, a reminder on the foundation of successful Action Plans: a GREAT company goal defines the “WHAT” an organization must achieve:

An example of a great, SMART goal:

Want to know more about SMART goals? Check out this handy, free Guide.

Next, Action Plans define HOW the company goal will be accomplished and how each department and individual will contribute. Before you send your functional teams off to build their Action Plans, decide on a structure for every department to follow. We use one of three approaches to action planning:

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Pro Tips

We think of Action Plans as where the rubber hits the road: they spell out the commitment each department makes to the organization goals and they keep the third or fourth level in your organization chart engaged and focused on what must be done to achieve the Vision. By providing both clear organization goals and a simple structure to follow for action planning, you’ll set your teams up to feel a tremendous amount of ownership and keep them on track, which we know is how organizations achieve their vision!

P.S. Many of our clients come to us half-way through their planning process: they’ve completed their Vision, Strategic Objectives and Organization Goals (what we consider the plan’s framework), but they haven’t made the plan actionable or they’re not sure how to cascade to the next levels in their organization. We’ve designed a simple, but effective method for guiding your teams through action planning, so let us know if you’re stuck and would like our support to finish your plan and connect your teams to how they’ll contribute to your big, bold vision.

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