Doesn’t it feel great when your team hits an important goal?
Most leaders firmly believe that success is a combination of strategy and execution. A clear strategy provides direction for an organization, while effective execution powers teams to move in the desired direction.
However, there’s an essential bridge between strategy and execution that many organizations fail to provide for. When this is missing, teams struggle to hit important goals despite having great people and a sound strategy.
Here are five reasons organizations struggle to align strategy with execution, putting their goals at risk:
1. People forget goals because they are stored in documents or emails
Given the pace of today’s workplace and the amount of content that is continuously generated, documents and emails quickly fall out of sight, and out of mind. According to Forbes, today’s professionals spend about 6.3 hours a day sending and receiving an average of 123 emails! This poses a huge problem of sifting through a mountain of information to know what is important and current. If you’re capturing your organization’s strategic goals in documents or emails, it is highly likely that these are seen once and washed away by the tsunami of information.
2. Goals are defined only at the top levels of an organization
In tribal times, certain people were tasked to climb up the tallest tree, scan the horizon and set a direction. However, times have changed and a full picture requires various perspectives – not only from the top – but from all levels of an organization. The top levels of an organization may initiate the definition of goals, and even have the final word. However, if these goals are not bounced around the organization for inputs, advice, questioning and refinement, then they will lack relevance, and not withstand the entropic forces of change and time. Feedback and buy-in from all levels is essential for cooperation towards shared goals.
3. Goals are communicated top down but not understood at all levels
George Bernard Shaw once said, “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” Leaders often make the mistake of thinking that an organization-wide presentation about strategic goals is sufficient communication. While this may be necessary, it is far from sufficient, since the people who will contribute towards achieving the goal may hold different interpretations, and be at different levels of readiness. Every goal must identify its key contributors who then articulate their own supporting goals to express their commitment. Using this mechanism, top level goals need to be cascaded into supporting goals, each with their contributors who explicitly confirm their understanding and support.
4. Commitments are difficult to track outside team / department boundaries
A recent Harvard Business Review article mentions that “Fully 84% of managers say they can rely on their boss and their direct reports all or most of the time” but “Only 9% of managers say they can rely on colleagues in other functions and units all the time”.
If your organization consists of multiple teams or departments, it is difficult to obtain feedback on people’s commitment levels cross-functionally, without having a system in place. For instance, how many marketing teams have lamented over the inability of engineering to provide timely product features to support their new killer strategy? This becomes increasingly difficult with geographical separation, mobile teams, or cases of mergers and acquisitions.
5. Changes in priorities affect execution on goals
“Change is the only constant.” As the adage indicates, goals need to be calibrated for commitment throughout their lifetime, and not just when they are defined. Many organizations do cascade goals across functions and levels at the beginning of their planning cycle. However, commitments towards a shared goal can fall by the wayside as individual or departmental priorities change. People do not always calibrate goals as these changes occur, rendering them irrelevant and obsolete. This results in wasted effort as well as unpleasant surprises due to missed targets. Given the critical need for agility and adaptability, goal owners need an easy way to proactively check in with key contributors and learn about any changes in commitments. Considering the deluge of emails mentioned previously, this should ideally be accomplished outside the inbox.
What can you do to avoid these traps?
A goal conversation platform like GoalCheck.In helps teams overcome these challenges by proactively aligning their goals and supporting each other using automated Slack prompts. This provides the essential bridge between strategy and execution, allowing teams to focus and win.
Contact us to schedule a Goal Architecture Workshop or explore how GoalCheck.In can help your organization.
