You have adjusted your strategy for your function or division. That means change for your people and it requires new behaviours and capabilities. MCE can help you develop these capabilities in the people you rely on to implement your strategy.
Your goals, key performance measures and results.
∧Measurable Success
What you measure, you can manage.
MCE believes that the main reason for undertaking any kind of development is to achieve better business results and implementation of strategy.
We are willing to work with you, to agree up front on the results you want to achieve for your function or division and the metrics that will tell you whether it has been achieved. We will co-design a solution with you to achieve those results.
And we are willing to base part of our fee on whether those results have been achieved or not.
To request more information, or to set up a meeting with MCE about this offer, please click here and fill in the contact form.
∧How We Work with You
1. Start with Your Goals and Key Performance Measures You Want to Impact
Strategy Implementation Programmes are about investing in the capabilities of your people in a function or division, so they can implement the strategy. When development is linked to strategic goals, it is an investment and has a chance of getting a return in the form of performance improvement and achievement of strategic goals (in addition to capability improvement.)
Align initiative to strategy
When development is not clearly linked to strategic goals, it is an expenditure. People may learn new things but there is little knowledge of whether this has been applied to the job or if it is leading to improved performance. Development needs to be designed in clear alignment to a strategy; otherwise the investment can be wasted. Even worse, it can undermine the strategy if it is really misaligned. As a simple example, classical “sales training” in transactional sales can be harmful to those who need to learn to sell more complex products or solutions.
Align to key performance metrics
Selecting and targeting business metrics for improvement from the beginning improves your chances of getting a return on investment. It gives everyone involved in the process a real business target for improvement – the sponsors, the designers, the target group and their bosses. It provides a frame for the rest of the process.
MCE helps you start with Strategic Goals
At MCE we listen to you to understand your overall strategy and strategic goals. We look at your business performance metrics, and help you decide what can be improved through capability development. Our Senior Associates are ex-senior managers who have led major international businesses. They are used to setting and working toward strategic goals and performance targets.
2. Define the Capabilities Your People Need
Do your people have the capabilities they need to make an impact on the key performance indicators mentioned above? What are the performance gaps? Where is the organization not achieving its goals and why not?
Analyze the context around people
Many times, what looks like a “behavioural” or “capability” problem on the part of your people is really linked to a deeper structural problem – the processes or structure, certain policies or practices that are out of alignment with the strategy. If these are not addressed, development initiatives will not make much difference. People may learn the new capabilities but they will be unable or unwilling to implement them.
Assess capability gaps
MCE can help you to determine the capabilities correlate with best performance in a given role, within the broader strategic context. With our Talent Analytics or with your own performance data and assessments, we can help you to identify capability gaps, so that you invest in developing the most critical areas that will lead to business success.
Engage Stakeholders
Two major stakeholder groups need to be involved in the process. Both of them will need to see the “business case” for the programme if they are going to support it fully.
Senior manager support is needed throughout the process, not only at the beginning. Senior managers know the business issues that need to be addressed and the results they want to see and can keep the programme focused on that. Their involvement sends a strong signal to managers and employees. It gives them “face time” with their people. They will also likely learn from their people who have more front-line knowledge. When they are not involved, programmes tend to stray from the business focus and they are often disappointed in the end results.
The managers who are candidates for development need to “want to learn”. For that, they need to understand first how organizational performance will be improved, what needs to be changed and why. They need to know changes will be made in the processes and structure to support them t change.
MCE helps you define the capabilities your people need
MCE can help you in a variety of creative ways to do this “needs analysis” and engagement of stakeholders. We will explore with you to determine how we ensure together that the up front groundwork is done, rather than jumping to deliver a solution off the shelf. MCE Senior Associates are not trainers or consultants – they can talk with senior management and business line managers on a peer level. They have been responsible for large numbers of employees and understand the challenges in developing them to perform.
3. Design the Programme
A Strategy Implementation Programme design can contain a variety of interventions – workshops, coaching, webinars, goal tracking, and in-company business projects. All of them will be coordinated to enable your people to better implement your strategy. The programme design will always have two aims:
Business results: Achieve business results by structuring the programme around strategic priorities the company is facing today, and including business projects.
Capability improvement: By participating in the programme, the managers develop long term capabilities, as individuals and as a group, to achieve better business results repeatedly, for long-term success.
In order for these two aims to be achieved, the programme design should be:
Multidisciplinary: Instead of “teaching a skill” in isolation, the programme helps participants develop and apply the hard functional and soft interpersonal skills they need to do the job. It also ensures participants all fully understand the strategy they are working toward and can channel their new capabilities in this direction.
Practice-oriented: Managers are not students or passive trainees. They need to practice and apply what they learn to real business problems. This helps them see the value of what they are learning, it makes the learning stick, and it allows real-life problems to come up and be addressed in the programme. When managers are only taught in the abstract, or do exercises or games outside of the business context, they can have a lot of fun but it’s difficult for them to connect the learning back to the real world.
MCE Designs a Programme Customized to Your Business and People Needs
An MCE Senior Associate, with your input and that of your stakeholders, will design the Strategy Implementation Programme. You will approve the design before we move to implementation.
4. Implement the Programme
The implementation period can be a few days, weeks, or months. It can include coaching, preparatory work, business projects and assignments, and one or more face to face workshops. Throughout implementation, MCE will collect continuous feedback from the people involved. We will check base with you to see if any adjustments are required.
5. Follow Through on the Job
After the implementation, or in between workshop modules, it is very important that participants apply what they are learning on the job. Often, this gets ignored or left out of the process. MCE Senior Associates can support you with between-module coaching, or other types of implementation support, depending on the workshop.
6. Evaluate Results
It is worthwhile to evaluate the results of a strategy implementation programme, for three good reasons:
- PROVE: To determine whether or not there was an impact on the key performance indicators, whether the programme was worth the investment, and to report on results to senior sponsors
- IMPROVE: To determine what can be improved in future iterations of the programme
- FOCUS: To focus everyone involved on achieving the objectives
If the key performance indicators were impacted with positive business results, MCE is willing to have part of its compensation based on achieving your pre-determined and agreed-upon key performance measures.
Evaluating the Impact of a Strategy Implementation
Evaluation happens on several levels, and MCE can help you with each of them, depending on how far you want to measure.
0. Status Quo
This is a clear picture of the state of affairs before the programme began. Key performance measures the programme is targeted to improve, strategic objectives, pre-programme assessments, or a management briefing of issues.
1. Reaction
Typically administered as a questionnaire at the end of a programme. Participant reactions are easy and inexpensive to measure. They can generate quantitative “scores” and qualitative feedback and suggestions form participants. They are best used for improving future iterations of the programme. This type of “Level 1” evaluation typically measures “satisfaction” with the programme – did they like it, was it interesting. Even if participants “loved” the programme, it does not necessarily mean the programme was a good investment for the company. More utilitarian questions on the reaction survey can give a better indicator – what did participants find value or relevant to their jobs, how will this impact their business results? An ultimate, “net promoter” score can be assigned on whether participants would recommend the programme to a colleague.
2. Learning
Strategy Implementation requires a change in the mind-set of people. Participants can be tested, observed or interviewed in terms of acquired new knowledge, skills, or attitudes. This can be compared with the “Level 0” status quo situation.
3. Behaviour
Behaviour change happens back at the workplace. It can be measured with a follow-up questionnaire, multi-rater feedback, observation, interviews, self-reporting or even coaching.
4. Impact
The true value of the programme, in the eyes of business stakeholders is: what is the impact on our business results? This is measured in the company’s key performance indicators. It is not easy to determine how much of the result was due to the programme and how much due to other factors. However, when you set clear business targets for a strategy implementation programme from the beginning, the link from the programme to changes in mind-set and behaviour and finally business results are easier to follow.
Well-designed strategy implementation programmes will have both tangible business outcomes and more intangible “capability” outcomes. Both are necessary for creating competitive advantage.
5. Return on Investment
ROI is the financial benefits of the programme less the costs and expressed as a percentage. It answers the question “was it worth it”? ROI can only measure the return on hard business outcomes. It is difficult to quantify the value of intangible such as: better leadership, strategy alignment, culture…
Strategy Implementation Programmes Example
Leadership Development for a major industrial company
An emerging market industrial company, in response to changes in its political system and increasing globalization, wanted to develop the leadership capability of its identified change agents.
