Should employees be included in strategic planning?

 

Effectively running a business can be an intensely challenging endeavour, a goal that people have usually worked for years to achieve. As such, when you get to the top, the idea of relinquishing or sharing any of that control can be somewhat nerve-wracking.

If you have reached the point where you are calling the shots in your business, that means you probably have your fair share of strategic planning skills. As the saying goes, however, no man (or woman) is an island. To move forward and continuing fostering success and growth, perhaps including more people in formulating your future objectives is a smart move.

The secret to strategic success?

While you might be the one coming up with the ideas, it’s possible that the people who work for you will ultimately be most responsible for your strategy execution. A study of change management by IBM found that, of the 1,500 executives surveyed, nearly 60 per cent said that their projects were not fully meeting their objectives.

There could be a lot of reasons for this failure, but one common response suggested that mindset and attitude was one of the largest culprits. With that in mind, consider how you can expect employees to be engaged and motivated to strive for success if they don’t feel respected enough to be included in decisions about the future.

Including employee engagement in strategic planning

Take a look around your workplace. Do the people around you seem like they are doing everything they can to keep moving the business forward? If not, perhaps one of the key items on your strategic agenda needs to be developing a more inclusive and rewarding company culture.

According to Gallup, tapping into employee potential means learning to recognize how their individual skills and experience can drive their performance. Encouraging people to express their opinions is a great way to learn where their strengths lie, but also can yield some genuinely valuable ideas for the direction of your company.

With StrategyBlocks’ software, you have the ability to create linear paths of responsibility to encourage recognition of expertise in your team, as well as a greater sense of accountability. Whether you are developing new goals with the involvement of your team, or involving your team more is itself the goal, speak to us today about how strategy planning software can work for you.