By Joe O’Neill – Influence and manage the behaviours of your team to contribute to a positive attitude to build a better strategy. With a solid strategic plan you increase the likelihood of achieving real results.
How can we achieve a better strategy?
Start with attitude. Attitude is defined* as “a settled way of things or feelings about someone or something reflected in a person’s behaviour,” and a positive attitude is indicated by having the right behaviours.
1. Get to know the strengths of your team because you need to know the team is good enough to win. Look for those who think strategically. TAC has surveys that assist clients to identify a broad range of their team’s strengths.
2. Determine what KPI’s drive profit performance, and how do individual behaviours impact performance? Then share vital information with your team members to help them understand how the company achieves success.
3. Gather the necessary data on those KPI’s because decisions about strategic initiatives must be based on hard numbers and if possible, break this information down by business line or department to help isolate critical success factors and identify where improvement is needed.
4. A fresh strategic plan needs to include innovative ways of doing things that requires new behaviours, so ensure your team feels comfortable thinking creatively, expressing their opinions candidly, and welcome constructive criticism.
5. Create actionable items in the form of S.M.A.R.T. Goals (Specific, Measurable, Agreed Upon, Realistic and Target Date) then use them to drive the necessary behaviours.
6. Keep the team informed about progress by meeting regularly with them to evaluate results and celebrate results when appropriate.
Foster a positive attitude among the team members in order to ensure an environment that allows a well-developed strategic plan to deliver positive results.
Click to learn more about TAC’s Milestones strategic planning process. Click here to receive our Focus articles.
*Merriam-Webster