By Stan Slap
Even the smartest leaders subscribe to a dangerous strategic myth—a strategy must be planned well to be successful. In fact, a strategy must be implemented well to be successful. “Implemented well” starts with securing the fierce support of your employee culture because if an employee culture wants something to happen, it will; if it doesn’t, it won’t.
In short, you can’t sell it outside if you can’t sell it inside to your employees first. Not selling it to employees by failing to respect the power of the employee’s culture is the first of what I call “The 7 Deadly Sins of Strategic Implementation.”
Another common tripping point on the way to successful strategic implementation is the presumption by many leaders that change will occur overnight. Behavioral change is not a rapid process.
Any strategy that requires rapid massive cultural transformation to succeed won’t. People don’t suddenly become one happy team by Quarter 2. Transformations typically take a while because they first have to be embraced by the employee culture, which won’t happen until the employee culture perceives the new behavior is a safe and sensible move.
Stan Slap is president of slap, San Francisco.
Slap will discuss the “1, 2, 10!” steps of strategic implementation and how to avoid and overcome the other “Deadly Sins of Strategic Implementation” at CCCU and CUES International Convention, June 23-26, 2012, in Montego Bay, Jamaica.
