If you are a CEO, COO or a Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) of a fast-growing company, you have dealt a lot with the well known challenge of communicating strategic plan to all the people at your company.
Having a good Corporate Strategy is critical – and it must align your sales, marketing, customer success/support and product and other functions in order for your company to execute and achieve it’s short- and long-term objectives.
And, as you know, designing a good Strategy may end up being a meaningless exercise if all of your people do not understand it or can’t remember it. You may have invested a week with your entire executive team at an offsite developing a comprehensive Corporate Strategy but what is more important as an outcome is a simplified and Summary Snapshot of your Strategic Plan that you can send to your entire organization.
Note that a Summary Strategic Plan is not the same as a full “Corporate Strategy” that you may have planned out in granular detail. It’s a snapshot and has the most important points in a simplified summary stated on just a few pages with the primary purpose of easily communicating it to the entire organization. Of course your detailed plan is something that you still have and that you’ve invested your time into with the entire executive team and that has it’s value. But with that said, it’s worthwhile to note what General Eisenhower once said about the actual written plans before the battle – “Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.” In other words, it is the process of planning that has the most value. Finally, note that when you read any of the books on Strategy (see the books I listed here: What Exactly is Strategy?) an annual Strategy Plan is iterative – it’s a living a breathing plan and you evolve and enhance it as you operate and grow throughout the year.
Here is what I typically recommend to include in such a 1-Page Summary:
Summary of a Corporate 1-Page Snapshot of a Strategic Plan
- Our Mission (your organization’s core purpose – why we exist)
- 10 Year Vision Statement (what you want to be in 10 years)
- Core Values and Beliefs (this affects your culture and whom you hire)
- 3-5 Strategic Priorities, Themes, Pillars (Themes or Pillars that inform your top organizational objectives)
- 3-5 Top Corporate Objectives (i.e. OKRs / measurable)
- Unique Value Proposition, Brand Promise & Differentiation vs. Competition (these must truly matter to your target customers)
- Our Key Focus Areas This Year
- Issues & Risks (from your SWOT Analysis)
What else? What are some other thoughts on simplifying and summarizing your company’s Strategy to communicate it quickly and easily to the entire organization?