Strategic plans and challenges are unique to every organization.
Your business could be a small home-based business or a large enterprise business. Having a strategic plan is essential for any business’s growth.
When you build your strategy, there will be many roadblocks. Some are hard to detect.
Since these barriers are hard to notice, sometimes the consequences can hit you hard, even if your business fails.
You need to identify these roadblocks and fix them when you are designing your strategic plan at the beginning.
If you don’t consider this at the beginning, there can be situations where you won’t be able to reverse fallbacks.
In this article, I will take you through the
The 5 major reasons are considered the biggest roadblocks when designing a strategic plan.
How can you overcome those roadblocks to achieve your business goals?
Steps to Follow Before Designing Your Strategic Plan
- By collecting all the information you want, you will have a clearer, bigger picture of your business.
- Determine where you want to reach. Determine your vision and goals.
- Do an honest evaluation of your business’s current state.
- Pick the right team and assign responsibilities.
Why Do You Need a Strong Strategic Plan?
There are two choices you have.
- You can put all your efforts into chasing every piece of something that comes in your way.
- Or you can have a proper strategic plan to achieve your business goals.
In both options, you will achieve some level of success.
But I’m sure that having a proper plan will get you where you want in less time with fewer resources spent.
When you execute your plan, you will encounter two types of barriers.
- Noticeable Roadblocks
- Roadblocks that are hard to detect for you to take action on.
The following guide will help you overcome the roadblocks that are hard to identify.
I will also share insights on what you can do to overcome those barriers successfully.
Noticeable Roadblocks to Strategy Failure.
- Leadership ignorance and a lack of top-level competency to drive the strategic plan.
- Mismanagement and wrong resource allocations.
5 MAJOR OBSTACLES TO IMPLEMENTING YOUR STRATEGIC PLAN AND HOW TO FIX THEM
1. The Plan is Too Complicated.
Here you may have too many goals to implement. For example, you may have about 10 strategic goals on your list, considering all are important. You would have set many primary and secondary goals.
Overwhelmed objectives may not achieve any of your set goals. You may end up with partial accomplishments and have wasted considerable time and resources.
How to fix
Ensure no more than five short-term goals, and three would be ideal.
Keep your plan simple. Break down your long-term goals into small, doable activities.
2. You Don’t Have a Plan for Your Plan.
Setting goals is not only to achieve your desired outcome. You need to have a clear structure to make it actionable.
How to fix
To drive your plan, you need to have a detailed execution plan and a structure with actionable activities.
3. The Wrong People Have Been Assigned To Your Team.
Having the right team is critical to the success of your plan. Having the wrong people in the wrong jobs will fail the plan.
How to fix it
Identify each team member’s strengths and assign the right people to the job.
Ensure that each team member has taken ownership of their individual role. Importantly, leadership needs to show initiative in taking overall ownership of the plan.
4. Your Plan Is Too Rigid.
When you execute the plan, all other things will change.
Having an inflexible plan will not work with your changing customers, competition, technology, etc.
How to fix
Build the plan with the ability or flexibility to change in the short term. Keep options available to grab any new opportunities that come your way.
5. Not Being Honest With Your Plan.
Your strategic plan is going to be your internal document. No one will ask you to reveal anyone outside of your team.
Taking this to advantage, some just do the plan for the sake of having a plan without proper evaluation of SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats).
How to fix
When you are carrying out your plan, be honest about your challenges and your own weaknesses.
Importantly, be honest about what you will need to get you to your desired goals. Discuss your challenges with your superiors and teams prior to executing the plan. Have a plan for the challenges and needs you will come across.
Final Thoughts
Business development is a process of looking at the bigger picture and allocating the right resources at the right time.
To effectively take action, you need to have a proper strategic plan in place.
The planning process can sometimes be overwhelming when making decisions on prioritizing your business goals. Unknown roadblocks on your path to growth can slow your growth.
Identifying and fixing those barriers is essential to effectively execute your plan. When you do your next strategic plan, have these guidelines in mind to keep your plan active.
Try these methods and share your comments with us.
