How to Communicate Your Strategic Plan to Employees

Your strategic planning efforts are only as good as how well you communicate the plan to employees.  Here are some areas that you can focus on for communicating a strategic plan to increase the likelihood of success.Place the objectives and definitions in context. It's not enough to say that your quarterly strategic plan is to increase revenue by 10%. Your employees will nod sagely, but they may not have an exact idea of what they can do to meet this revenue plan. By placing it in the context of the larger company mission or shorter term goal, the individual employees start to see the picture more clearly and their role within it. So the next time you bring your department heads together, give them more context as to how their departments can meet these goals. For instance, acquire several new customers with incremental revenue targets.Talk about the significance of content. Content that incorporates the strategic plan - websites, blogs, client communications - creates a consistency in messaging. Focus the quality, completeness and depth of your company and team's content within the context of the greater strategic plan.Highlight the benefits of the strategic plan openly. When you talk openly about the benefits of the strategic plan, the employees know what they are getting behind and why. This allows them to feel more comfortable with, and even excited about, the way things are going.  When you talk about benefits, don't just gloss over the details. Actually give details about how the strategic plan at hand is going to benefit the company, the community, and everyone involved in the process.Clear up misconceptions along the way.  Misconceptions can arise from understanding the definitions of key metrics to the company culture you are striving to get achieve. Explain things, hold town-hall like meetings and respond quickly to misconceptions that may arise.Strategic planning is more successful when the entire company is engaged. By communicating the goals, values, and mission repeatedly to team managers, they can craft a plan to motivate employees.  When you follow up by integrating the ideas into company culture it not only serves as a reminder for the goals, but also motivation as to what the company is striving forward to.