Only 1 in 5 organisations execute strategy effectively – Here’s why

Want to know how your strategic planning compares to everyone else’s?

I’ve been looking at the data from our Impact Society Planning Health Check tool.

This free 5 minute tool lets any manager check the health of their team or organisation’s strategic planning – both the strength of the plan itself and its implementation.

Since launching the tool, we’ve collected a lot of data – from more than 100 organisations around the world.

Here are some observations:

• Very few organisations score highly on the health check – only around 10 to 20% report strong all round strategic planning and implementation, with an average score of 10 (out of 21)
• Communication is by far the biggest issue – while most organisations have key strategic elements in place, very few (25%) believe they’ve communicated them well to their people
• Most strategic plans are incomplete – while most organisations have a purpose or mission statement (82%), less than half have a vision (48%) and even fewer have translated it into medium term (i.e. annual or quarterly) goals (39%), which are critical for execution
• Regular progress reporting is a problem – only around a third (36%) of organisations have processes in place to regularly check in on progress, and identify road blocks and solutions

It’s no wonder then that so many people have a disappointing experience of strategic planning. The stereotype of launching a flashy, expensive new plan with a bang that goes nowhere is real.

Because it’s incredibly difficult to make any progress when:

1. Your people don’t understand the plan and their role within it
2. The plan hasn’t been cascaded into medium and short term goals, which translate an abstract, long term vision into concrete short term activities
3. Progress isn’t regularly reviewed to find and address the inevitable hurdles you’ll face along the way

Strategic planning doesn’t need to be complicated.

But it does need to be executed with discipline, comprising of simple communication, goal-setting and progress-checking routines.

Want to know how your team or organisation is doing?

Take our free 5 minute Planning Health Check.