The key to better performance is organizational alignment

Why do so many strategic plans fail? Often, it’s not due to poor strategy, but a disconnect between that strategy and activity alignment within the organization. Explore how strategy mapping can reduce the challenges of implementation and drive performance in this Q&A with Brett Knowles, executive partner at PM² and thought leader in performance management.

What is strategy mapping?

Strategy mapping began as a tool developed in the late-80s to support balanced scorecard implementation. Since then, it has evolved into a skill set of its own that captures an organization’s strategic goals and priorities.

With strategy mapping, processes and projects are assessed for their impact and performance, which helps professionals identify KPIs (key performance indicators) and OKRs (objectives and key results), develop dashboards and better align people’s individual performance plans with what’s most important and effective.

How can strategy mapping help organizations improve performance?

Organizations are not typically good at strategy execution. Fortune magazine reports that seventy per cent of strategies fail not because they go wrong, but because they don’t happen – or aren’t executed well.

In Reengineering the Corporation, Michael Hammer observes that ninety-three per cent of what we do at work is wasteful. To beat the odds, organizations have to align their activities with what is strategically important.

Can you give us an example of activity alignment?

Any business activity that has a high impact on your goal is inherently more important than activities that do not contribute to it – or even detract from it.

For example, if your leadership team’s primary goal is to grow the organization’s user base, then launching a marketing campaign to gain new customers is more important than replacing a free start-up package with a registration surcharge.

This also allows people to prioritize their daily activities and consider how they can better align with corporate goals. In other words, if I had to choose between on-boarding a new customer or reducing the time to close a billing complaint ticket, I would invest my time on-boarding the new customer.

This kind of thinking works especially well if the individual’s performance plan is clearly linked to corporate goals and priorities.

How can CPAs begin implementing strategy mapping for their organizations?

Most organizations already have the building blocks in place, they just need the assembly instructions. The new course I’m facilitating for CPA Canada will guide users through most of the steps.

In Executing Performance Through Strategy Mapping, I address how to use the resources that already exist in your organization to build a strategy map, streamline processes and improve performance. The online instructions, videos and Excel templates provide participants with everything they need to not only learn the content and earn CPD credits, but also develop a working solution for their organization.

To learn more about the value of strategy mapping and performance management, register for one of these professional development opportunities:

Executing Performance Through Strategy Mapping
On-Demand | Online Learning | CPD: 4 hours
Take your organization’s performance to the next level by creating concrete plans that tie strategic objectives to KPIs.

Certificate in Driving Organizational Profit and Performance
Winter 2017 | Blended Learning | CPD: Up to 40 hours
Enhance your organization’s bottom line and sharpen your skills in performance management. Final capstone session offered in multiple cities. Registration opens in January.