Step Three: Execution Essentials
A History of Organizational Structures
How to Write a Strategic Plan Checklist
Step Four: What Gets Measured Gets Done
Synergizing Your Business: The 5 Essential Pieces for High-Performance—A Series of Business Books
Good fortune is what happens when opportunity meets with planning.
THOMAS EDISON
Strategic Planning is like the old-fashioned art of cartography, the making of maps. “Back in your day, Dad,” as my sons kiddingly say, “if one wanted to know where to go, you pulled out a map to determine a path to follow. Today, we simply push a GPS button and like lemmings, follow the voice.”
Businesses don’t have GPS systems to chart their way through treacherous waters toward their goals. Instead of traditional maps, senior executive teams are using synergistic information tools, environmental scanning, intuition, and experience to determine a course to follow. Good CEOs rarely make business decisions about the direction of their companies independently. They normally choose a collaborative, synergistic process.
Synergy Strategic Planning was written to demonstrate how to work as a high-performance team toward a shared destiny. It gives a business leader the insight and methods to create success through Synergy. I have experienced, firsthand, Traditional Strategic Planning, and it’s like carving in stone compared to Synergy Strategic Planning. Night and day differences make the task of business planning and execution so much easier, more logical, and much more worthwhile through the Synergy Process. Its foundational principles include committed focused leadership, high-performance teamwork, clear communication, accountability, trust, and belief. These are among the basic tenets of how successful businesses become world-class.
Chris Alexander is an authority on organizational transformation. He is an expert at building high-performance team cultures and is a powerful resource for business consulting, particularly in helping businesses chart their way through the unpredictable, murky, and often choppy waters of today’s business challenges.
Based on the success I’ve experienced with the Synergy Strategic Planning Process, my recommendation to you and your team is to read this book from cover to cover, implement it, and put the principles to the test. The Synergy Strategies produce better financial results and help organizations transition through tough economic times. This distinct competitive advantage will not only move you and your team well into the next up-cycle, but also creates the potential to be at the top of the next wave.
We can do one of two things with excellent information: We can use it or we can lose it. If we use it, we can create something special, a success that is uniquely ours.
REG HARVEY, FORMER CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD, VTN SOUTHWEST
“I have a serious problem. My productivity is down, customers are complaining about quality, and the staff morale is at an all-time low. I told my guys, ‘If you don’t turn things around, I’ll get someone in here who will.’ ”
“Eric, it sounds to me as though you’re the problem.”
“ What do you mean, I’m the problem?”
“Eric, your employees tell me they are afraid of you.”
“Fear can be a good thing. It keeps them on their toes.”
“Fear-motivation does work, Eric, but not very well. It never lasts and you don’t get the best out of people, particularly if you continually shout and threaten them with their jobs.”
“I don’t do that!” Eric shouted, acting out the very thing he just denied.
“Not consciously,” I said empathetically. “But there are things that you do that cause people to fear you.”
“What things . . . ?”
“Like saying, ‘If you want to keep your job, you better not mess up this order.’”
“Chris, my business is not big enough to absorb costly mistakes. I have to make sure that everything runs perfectly.”
“Eric, seeking perfection rather than excellence can be extremely stressful for you and your team.”
“Tell me about it,” said Eric.
After an awkward moment of silence, Eric asked, “What needs to be done, and what do I have to do?”
“Great! We need to start with you. You will need to shift your thinking, which isn’t easy. See yourself as a well-seasoned coach taking over a team that needs rebuilding and training, and you want to get them into a championship playoff.”
“That’s what I’ve always wanted!”
“Good! You have to help your team learn to be a team. Allow your guys to learn from their mistakes. Mistakes are critical coaching platforms that continuously