Take it Off the Shelf! A Strategic Plan is only as Good as its Implementation

By Ruston Pierce
Fundraising & Capitol Campaign Manager | Fortify Foundation

A strategic plan outlines an organization’s short and long-term goals and the path to achieving them. However, crafting the plan is only the beginning—its success depends on implementation. So many schools go through the process of creating a strategic plan but then allow distractions to deter implementation. Many organizations fail not because of poor planning but because they lack the discipline, structure, and follow-through to put the plan into action. Let’s talk about ways to make sure you follow through on the good work of strategic planning.

First, we must start with the end in mind. Do you have clear goals from your strategic planning process? If so, you must translate those goals into clear, actionable tasks. By translating your strategic goals into operational goals, you create the action steps to execute those goals. Execution becomes manageable. For example, if the goal is “improve the digital admissions experience”, an actionable goal may be to evaluate the admissions portal and steps on the website. There are lots of goal-setting frameworks on the market that can be used to create actionable goals like SMART or 4 Disciplines of Execution. Find one that fits your team and use it. By creating actionable steps, you see the strategic goal come to life. 

Once you have actionable goals, you must engage your stakeholders. This engagement needs to continue throughout the life of the strategic plan. Communication with these individuals should be scheduled and frequent. The plan will be executed by people so we must make the time to meet and communicate with the people who will execute it. They must have buy-in to the plan, and that only happens through frequent communication. All stakeholders must understand the plan and where they fit into it. Individuals should be appointed to lead the individual initiatives. These people are the point person for the teams executing with them to answer questions, troubleshoot issues, and provide feedback to the leadership. By empowering individuals to lead in this way, we create a communication pipeline to faculty, staff, and parents that is healthy and transparent. This will create the engagement we need to achieve success in our plan.

After our teams and point people are assembled, responsibilities within each team should be assigned. The teams must also understand what resources they have available to them. It’s okay if there are no resources needed or allocated, but the teams must know that before they start. Budgets should be aligned by priority to the tasks teams are executing. Your strategic plan must prioritize your initiatives. The more clarity that exists around who has responsibility for tasks within our team and how resources are allocated reduces ambiguity and makes sure we are moving forward in execution. 

Now that your teams are actively working, you will need a way to track progress and provide positive oversight. Oneoption is to assign a project manager to be a point person for all the teams. This person should have frequent meetings with team leaders to ensure their questions are answered and issues are resolved. If you have a small staff, another optionis project management software such as Asana or Trello. Many of these products have free options that are sufficient to handle the strategic planning of a school. Whether you have a project manager or software, the leadership team should be on a scheduled, consistent basis to give updates on progress, discuss budgetary needs, and ask for help on issues that may be encountered.

When the leadership team meets, the most important agenda item is progress updates/monitoring. As your teams execute the strategic plan, you may encounter issues that require the plan to be altered. By consistently evaluating within the leadership team you can quickly pivot if it becomes apparent there is an initiative in your plan that is not going to be successful. Each team should have areas they measure within their teams to define success. When the leadership team comes together, a high priority should be given to evaluating the measurements. If a measurement is showing that an initiative isn’t working, the leadership team can evaluate if it’s because of the process being executed or if it’s an area that needs to be pivoted from. If an initiative is not resulting in the expected outcomes, it’s okay to stop the initiative and go in a different direction.

What does the Head of School do while all of this is happening? The Head should be the Chief Cheerleader and Execution Officer. The Head should be meeting consistently with team leaders to make sure execution is moving forward and team questions are being answered. Identify opportunities to celebrate successes of teams and do so publicly. By doing this, the Head creates a culture of celebrating wins that boosts engagement. Throughout the process, the Head should continually encourage people to ask questions and seek clarity, so everyone remains as close to the same page as possible. Also, the Head should incorporate evaluation of execution of teams into their senior leadership performance reviews. The most important thing we can do as a school is executing the strategic plan. Therefore, our division and department leaders should have plan execution as part of their annual review. 

As you execute your plan, you must be mindful of obstacles that could arise. Lack of clarity is always possible, so consistent communication is crucial. Processes should be simple, so we must watch overcomplicating our initiatives. Answering questions promptly with honesty and not sugar-coating is also important. We can’t be embarrassed to speak truth to our constituents. Our answers aren’t good or bad. They’re just the answers, and we are working hard to move the school forward and overcome the issues that currently exist. With consistent communication and clarity, we can address the obstacles that we face.

How does the plan continue after the execution timeline is established? How do we integrate the strategic planning process into our faculty and staff? The strategies and execution process we learn by executing a strategic plan should bleed into every part of our school. Through this process, our employees can learn to make their daily jobs actionable and focused. We want to teach employees to think about what they do every day filtered through how it can impact the plan. We want them to think about being good stewards and whether the resources they are about to consume are going to further the strategic plan. When we have a culture on our campuses of processing our decisions through advancing the strategic plan, we become more effective in achieving and being good stewards of what God has provided. 

Take it off the shelf. Don’t make your strategic plan a marketing piece. It’s an action piece. Implement your plan with the intention of moving your school forward well. Create and prioritize your goals, assign resources to the goals, engage with your teams, and meet consistently to ensure action. By doing these steps your strategic plan can ensure your school’s future as you pursue God’s Will for your school.