The Right People for the Job

Most of today’s sizeable companies spend a good deal of time devising a strategy for how they plan to conduct business. Some are successful in implementing them…many are not. According to action learning and leadership development experts, one of the main reasons that even well-conceived strategies fail is that the wrong people were involved.

The question to be asked is who are the right people? They fall into several categories:

• The people who will be charged with executing the strategy. They should have a hand in creating the strategy and be involved from the beginning. If they come late to the party, they will feel far less engaged in seeing the strategy through to successful completion.
• Business leaders. The entire company leadership should buy into the reasons for the strategy and be committed to the process. They need to understand why the strategy is critical to future success and model confidence in the outcome through the inevitable stresses and strains of change.
• Key managers. Be sure management is on board with the program. They are the ones to see that their teams support the plan and keep it on track.