From Strategic Plan to Strategic Practice: The Communications Connection

A key to the effective implementation of strategic plans is the communication of the strategic plans to executives in functional areas. A study of eighteen organizations revealed that their functional executives’ knowledge of the strategic plan was closely tied to their corporate planners’ assessment of the quality of the communication of the plan. In contrast, the functional executives’ knowledge was not so closely tied to the planners’ assessment of merely the quality of the business plan itself.Different organizations use different communication tactics. These tactics suggest practical actions to enable strategic planners to improve the communication of their plans.