STRATEGY IMPLEMENTATION
Facilitating and Guiding
Strategy Process
Strategy is a blueprint for decision-making
It is the most important organizational tool to guide the identification
and selection of vital future choices.
A clear strategy is especially important in a context of high unpredictability. Organizations that solely depend on detailed and fixed action plans, without a guiding strategy, risk major inefficiencies, i.e., risk of getting stuck in the attempt to meet KPIs that may have quickly become obsolete/unrealistic/even counterproductive
in a fast-changing reality.
A clear strategy, supported by smart tools for organizational empowerment, helps swiftly adapt and adjust for increased productivity.
Grooa consultants specialize in assisting small to medium private enterprises evolve from the traditional top-down and shareholder-centric yearly business plan approach, to a Holistic Strategic Approach focused on Maximizing Stakeholders’ Value.
Grooa consultants also assist small and medium private enterprises, as well as subsidiaries of medium-large corporations, Deploy their strategies by implementing alignment and participatory decision-making programs (both online and in-person)
Key recommended steps for strategy definition and implementation:
Clarify Purpose (the “WHY”) and create a company narrative that includes beliefs, background history, key values and a compelling vision for the future.
– Frequently discuss it throughout the organization, to create a clear sense of belonging and foster a cohesive company culture; actively use it as background of every key business and organizational decisions.
Define an exciting Mission (the “HOW”), focused on core competencies and ambitions for the role of the organization towards all internal and external stakeholders, to create a collective pride, and help establish shared ownership and mutual accountability.
– Keep it alive, by revisiting it and adjusting it when significant changes occur, or new opportunities arise, while ensuring constant coherence with the Purpose.
Formulate a Strategy (the Overall “WHAT”) that logically translates Purpose and Mission in a blueprint for decision-making, appropriately organizing all assets and resources, and establishing governance.
– Include in the Strategy overall performance criteria, benchmarks, and guidance for evaluating and correcting both strategy itself and performance.
Implement the Strategy (the on-going “WHAT”): in today’s fast changing and complex reality, this has become an especially critical step and one that is bound to create numerous inefficiencies unless proper training is provided and a certain organizational stability is ensured. Traditionally viewed as a purely administrative task (= set goals, study context, analyze risks, define detailed actions and measures, evaluate and adjust) today we need to empower teams to study the reality first, set own goals, and keep an open mind to promptly address emerging risks, ready to adjust along the way, with focus on learning, flexibility, and continuous strategic progress.
– Empowering and training teams in participatory decision-making has become an imperative, to retain flexibility, build organizational resilience, and stay open to innovative opportunities.
Frequently revisit the Strategy and the Implementation progress, to identify opportunities for improvements.
– Remember that Strategy is a high-level logical set-up, while a successful Implementation depends on the commitment and engagement of human assets; a courageous open-dialogue and a learning culture help ensure productivity in the day-to-day.
Case Study 1:
Forget win-win,
go for co-creation of value.
The founder of a non-profit organization had difficulties aligning the scope of their operations, for fear of confronting some key partners who often disagreed with her decisions. The founder was consistently choosing to compromise in the hope of reaching a quick consensus, but this resulted in unclear directions, and frequent reworks.
We offered a team training focused on practicing a non-judgmental dialogue where everyone could share opinions, actively listen to different points of view, and discuss with their clients’ needs in mind. They learnt how to offer own opinions with courage and assertiveness, without trying to be right or win. They learnt how to be open-minded about different ideas, determined to uncover useful additional insights. Ultimately, they were all able to balance their passion and their openness, daring to courageously advocate for their views, while keeping an open mind to welcome different insights.
They learnt that alignment on intention is a more effective and productive approach to decision-making, than trying to reach an agreement on every single step.
Case Study 2:
A new narrative that boosts engagement and drives innovation.
A European meat producer engaged Grooa to help revise the group strategy and focus more on sustainability.
The company was successful and produced top quality products,
thanks to innovative technological solutions, and wished to do more on sustainability, but was afraid of raising attention of anti-meat activists and customers (retailers) who played the activists’ agenda to push prices down.
The first thing to do was to get a more balanced perspective of their total SDG Impact, considering all internal and external stakeholders, and develop a strategic rather than defensive narrative. We engaged the UNDP group to help train key personnel (CEO, Management and key functional Team Leaders) on Total Impact and facilitated the implementation.
Further, this narrative needed to be actionable at all levels of the organization to facilitate engagement and assertive decision-making.
This improved pride and engagement, it strengthened negotiation power with Customers, and created new innovative opportunities of sustainable development.
What
people say about us
Richard Wenneker
Managing Director & Production General Manager, Emsland Frischgefluegel (Rothkötter Group)
When we started our first food processing plant, Jos’ visionary thinking encouraged us to make bold strategic choices, which were instrumental to rapidly become one of the top European players. Over the years, Jos continuously challenged us to stay innovative, open and agile, in order to swiftly respond to constantly changing market demands with top quality products and we continue to be supported by his world-class technological expertise. It is hard to convey in a few lines what Jos is doing for us, when it would probably take a full book, but I am proud to claim that to me and to my colleagues he continues to be an inspiring member of our “business family”.
Giovanni Calabria
CEO, CMC Industries (Italy)
“Jos has always been an important role model for me, guiding, coaching and encouraging me from the very beginning of my career as young entrepreneur; he has helped me grow my business from local to global and has supported me in key strategic and operational choices; we share a passion for innovation and he continues to be my most trusted advisor.”
Get in touch
info@grooa.comWe are always happy to hear from you, feel free to send us your comments, suggestions, or feedback. If you would like to receive some more information we are also happy to share some of our additional examples or arrange for an informal free and non-binding online chat.