Strategic planning is an essential process for any business, and every remodeling company that is looking to grow must stand back and create an effective strategic plan. Yet, even the best of plans are meaningless unless they translate into execution.
Questioning the Daily Routing
So, it is 6:30 in the morning, your project managers, lead carpenters superintendents and other field staff are headed to the job site. They are focused on the work they will be doing that day, on the trade partner they will be meeting at the job site, on what time the inspector is expected to comes by and on whether or not the right material got delivered yesterday. All of these very important issues that should be on their minds.
Later in the morning, your estimator, designers and office staff are headed to the office. Each has on their mind projects that need to be finished, calls that need to be made and the hope that what is holding them up on several other projects will be resolved by customer responses and vendor quotes in the morning’s email. They too are focused on their primary objectives and what needs to get done.
Finally, the sales people are getting ready for their day’s appointments; to meet new prospects, follow-up with others already in the works and present a construction agreement for signature.
These scenes repeat, day-after-day, several hundred times per year on different days and for different projects. So how does the strategic plan - a company's five-year roadmap - find its way into the daily routine? How will those “big picture” ideas of pursuing bigger jobs, realizing better communication, achieving improved profit margins, and getting projects done on-time and on-budget ever come to life? Or will they? We know the strategic plan is important. In many ways it drives all that we are doing in a company, But that plan only becomes meaningful, achievable, when it is translated into daily execution. That’s what brings it to life.
Four Steps to Effective Execution
For this, I want to suggest four steps to translate strategy into execution:
1. First, the owner or leadership team must identify what operating objectives must be achieved for the strategic plan to be on track for the coming year. These are objectives for our marketing results, sales performance, design process, estimating accuracy, project scheduling, project completion, profit margins and other critical factors that will determine success or failure at achieving the plan.
2. Second, the operating objectives must be “translated” into individual measures for each person in the organization. This is not only about each person seeing the big picture, it is about each person seeing what their role in that big picture is and how it translates to their daily routine. This requires the owner, leadership team and company managers take the perspective of each team member that they manage, and consider what the overall plan, and good execution, looks like from their seat. What information do they have? What training do they need? What gets in the way of good execution? How could systems and processes make a good outcome more likely? Do they have a clear picture of what good execution is on a daily basis?
3. Third, once the broad goals are translated into operating objectives, position-by-position, the company needs a scoreboard. If something is important, it should be measured. And it is very important to have those measures in front of those that need the information and can impact performance. While it is good to know at the end of a job what went right and what did not, that is not nearly as important as know those things while the job is happening. It is the difference between analyzing a game after it’s over and analyzing it at half-time so changes can be made and the outcome can be affected.
4. Finally, at least quarterly, if not monthly, there needs to be a review of the results being achieved, how the operating objectives are being met and where the company stands in executing the strategy plan effectively. The team should be able to objectively identify what is working and what is not. They should be able to ask questions without hesitation, offer constructive ideas and challenge each other to higher performance.
Pretending that we are winning when we are not has never proven to be a great strategy. Hoping that what we see in front of us will somehow change for the better on its own is equally disappointing. Organizations that achieve their goals, satisfy their customers and create opportunities for their team are those with a well thought-out strategic plan that has been translated into execution.
