The seventh step in successfully implementing your plan is to facilitate ownership and accountability for implementation of the strategic plan. As soon as people begin to buy in, they start looking for ways to become involved. They will look for pieces of the strategic plan they can own. This is an important key to success in plan implementation.

One caution is important: there should be one primary owner for each strategic initiative who will follow through, keep it alive and keep things going. Enlisting and engaging others is part of their leadership role as the primary owner of the initiative. Having more than one person accountable, however, usually means you will have no one accountable for reaching that goal.

Now, if you are working with your personal strategic plan and it is in your family that buy-in is important, do not underestimate the value of buy-in from every member of the family affected by the plan. If, for example, the plan is that the kids will do the laundry when you are going to school, you must have buy-in from the kids. Everyone needs to see "What's in it for me?" Everyone needs to understand "What's in it for us to all work toward the strategic goal?"

It is only when you win buy-in and ownership that people begin to understand the value of the plan and why they are being asked to participate in achieving it. Buy-in allows the person to say, "Yes, this makes sense to me and I see my role in the big picture." It is then easier to achieve the strategic initiative goal. Perhaps the goal is to save money. My role might be to look for cost savings. Perhaps the goal is to discover more efficient ways of doing something. My role might be to be more innovative. The specific actions resulting from buy-in and ownership depend on the nature of the specific strategic goal.

As I begin to own my piece of the goal, it is no longer just the company's plan; it is no longer just mom's or dad's plan. Now it is my plan and this is my piece of it. The more specific and concise you can be about your piece of it, the faster you will begin implementing it.

The eighth step in successful implementation of your strategic plan is to create energy around the goal. In an organization, that energy can become infectious because everybody, again, is looking towards the same goal.

Now, the very basic definition of a team is a group of people who have common goals and are interdependent. In other words, they must depend on one another to meet those goals. The final objective is to have your whole organization focused towards the same goals; to have that group of people who all have a common goal, which is to achieve the strategic goals and the strategic plan. In order to succeed, they must depend upon one another to achieve the goals.

Creating an overall team situation can generate tremendous energy, and that energy creates momentum in the organization. As long as you keep the focus on the specific strategic goals, and do not become distracted by too many other things, people will begin to buy in, they will start to own their piece of the pie, and that will create energy. This energy will create the momentum you need to reach either your company goals or your personal goals. It sounds simple, and it is. It is not easy because there are many things to do and there are many things to be as a leader to live out what is in your strategic plan and to clearly communicate it throughout the organization. But this is what leaders do.

Leaders have a vision. They build a small group of people who share that vision. They have the ability to articulate that vision and to build buy-in from others. Then they implement the vision and the small group of people they have gathered can move mountains and make many, many things happen in an organization.

Here's to your success in implementing your strategic plans.

Copyright (c) 2008 Gayla Hodges

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