Do people understand your strategic plan?

Many strategic plans are written as if we don't want employees to understand them.

In their book "Why Business People Speak Like Idiots," authors Brian Fugere, Chelsea Hardaway and Jon Warshawsky say that fear is the root cause of writing in an obscure manner. Fear of comitting to real action, upon which they'd have to deliver.

One of the traps to good writing is the "Obscurity Trap":

The Obscurity Trap. "This is just the kind of syner-gistic, customer-centric, upsell-driven, churn-reducing, outside the box, customizable, strategically tactical, best-of-breed, seamlessly integrated, multi-channel thought leadership that will help our clients track to true north. Let's fly this up the flagpole and see where the pushback is." These are the empty calories of business communication. And, unfortunately, they're the rule.

The Obscurity Trap catches idiots desperate to sound smart or prove their purpose, and lures them with message-killers like jargon, long-windedness, acronyms, and evasiveness.

The way to escape the Obscurity Trap is through plain language and candor.

Make your strategic plan easy to understand and therefore, easy to execute! Get staff involved in the creation of the plan, or at least, in giving feedback - before it is finalized. 

This makes it their plan, more understandable and easier to implement. 

Want a strategic plan that your employees will understand and execute?

Contact me Valerie.MacLeod@HainesCentre.com