Pens are not Cheerios...These words of wisdom from my favorite "almost 3-year-old", Harriet Sammis, pretty much sum up my feelings about trying to implement a strategic plan without giving serious consideration to cultural understanding and transformation. You're likely to get something you didn't intend.

Perhaps your strategic plan requires you to significantly change the way you do business. You need to reengineer your processes, reduce costs - maybe even reduce the number of employees. If your employees are not part of the solution, even the most compelling, well-written plan is never going to owned and adopted. It might as well just stay in that pretty binder on the shelf.  

How do you first understand and then transform the culture of your company? To identify the dynamics of your workplace, consider tools like employee opinion surveys, 360 feedback and cultural assessments. Look for industry norms to help you weigh your scores against similar companies in your industry. Measure regularly and then work to make improvements where your results fall short. In capitalizing on areas of strength and shoring up aspects that are weak, no one is more important than your front-line supervisors. Be sure each one "naturally" reflects the culture you want to create. Then, train, communicate with and regularly re-recruit these valuable role models.

All this employee involvement and cultural understanding seems like a lot of work doesn't it? Especially when what you really want to do is sell more of your product or service. But studies have shown that productivity and profit are boosted significantly when employees are aligned and in support of a company's strategic business plan. 

For a number of years, I worked with a client whose major priority was the involvement of ALL employees in owning and operating the business. When the tough times came, and some very difficult decisions had to be made, what happened to employee opinion scores? They actually went up!  What everyone had been working on together was recognized - not only in the findings of the survey, but in the results this organization was able to deliver despite the challenges and uncertainty.