What do you do when progress is slowing on your key strategic initiatives? Leaving your strategic planning session, your team was motivated to get the key strategic initiatives completed. Action plans complete, resources allocated, and everything was moving forward. But now, after several months, forward progress has slowed. Team members have gotten bogged down by […]
Continue readingIn this series, we are discussing aligning employees with strategy. Lets review how we get this alignment. There are five basic steps that you must take to assure your employees are aligned with your company’s strategies. First, employees must have the conceptual tools required for good strategic thinking about their work. Second, employees must understand […]
Continue readingExecution failure is the most frequent cause of strategy failure. Good execution makes all the difference in the strategic planning process. This article will show you the key to good execution. Near the completion of the strategic planning process, we select objectives SMART objectives must be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, with Results stated in a Timely […]
Continue readingOne of the most common difficulties companies face in strategic planning is turning their vision into a reality. To transform your organization into the one you envision takes more than great strategy and implementation, you also need to make the strategy an integral part of the very fiber of your organization. When we speak of […]
Continue readingMany – MANY times, when teaching Simplified Strategic Planning seminar, there will be attendees from non-profits. Many of them enjoy the seminar, take the tools from the workbook, and use them productively. Often they don’t think competitve business strategy applies to their non-profit and will comment that “this material is more suited to a business”. […]
Continue readingIn a “should read” for leaders of most small to mid-sized businesses, Belasco and Stayer challenge today’s leaders to change their management styles from “managing” to team-based management. This book introduces the process of Leading the Journey: changing one’s behavior from being lead buffalo to being lead goose. The analogy to buffalo is apt: If […]
Continue readingTechnology and labor trends -Is your company seeing these trends? Many experienced workers are retiring from the workforce, often taking critical knowledge with them. Hiring difficulty: especially among the skilled trades. Well, your customers also face these trends – how can you help? Can you design products/services that will help alleviate these issues for your […]
Continue readingNote: This post is the final in a series of posts from Robert Bradford’s article Aligning Departments with Strategy originally posted in Compass Points in November 2002. Part One (click here) introduced the topic and discussed the affect that the Purchasing and Accounting departments have on strategy. Part Two (click here) discussed the affect of the Operations, Sales, Human Resources […]
Continue readingNote: This post is the second in a series of posts from Robert Bradford’s article Aligning Departments with Strategy originally posted in Compass Points in November 2002. Part One (click here) introduced the topic and discussed the affect that the Purchasing and Accounting departments have on strategy. This part discusses the affect of the Operations, Sales, Human Resources and […]
Continue readingBy Dana Baldwin Why do we look at different ways to shoot ourselves in the foot? In other words, why do we look into what might be unintended consequences of well-intentioned actions as a part of strategic planning? While the answer might be obvious to some, let’s explore the reasons behind doing this exercise to […]
Continue readingNote: This post is the first in a series of posts from Robert Bradford’s article Strategic Alignment originally posted in Compass Points in November 2002. Part One introduces the topic and discusses the affect that the Purchasing and Accounting departments have on strategy. Over the years, several companies have asked me how I would go about getting departments […]
Continue readingCompass Points Talks to: Tapemark President, Bob Klas, Jr., and CEO, Jim Burmeister Note: This article was originally published in Compass Points in April 1999. TAPEMARK, located in West St. Paul, Minnesota, began operations in 1952 as a producer of custom printed, self wound adhesive tape. Using its technical expertise in developing automated processes to manufacture adhesive […]
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