Bridging the Gap: Turning Plans into Action with Symphonic Support
For many organizations, the hardest part of any strategic initiative is not crafting the plan but executing it. Bridging the gap between planning and execution often proves to be the stumbling block that derails even the most thoughtful strategies. Teams may find themselves juggling conflicting priorities, facing unforeseen obstacles, or losing sight of the bigger picture as they navigate the demands of daily tasks. This disconnect between strategy and execution is a well-known issue, but the Symphonic Performance Model™ offers a powerful solution to overcome it.
The Symphonic Performance Model™ transforms strategic planning from a static exercise into a living, dynamic process. By providing symphonic support in the form of tailored training, digital tools, and ongoing coaching, this model empowers organizations to turn plans into action, ensuring that their strategies come to life and deliver results.
The Execution Gap: A Common Challenge
Studies show that a significant percentage of strategic plans fail to deliver the intended results, not because they were poorly conceived but because they were poorly executed. In the rush to meet day-to-day demands, teams often lose focus on long-term goals. Immediate concerns take precedence, and strategic initiatives are relegated to the back burner. When execution falters, the entire organization can feel the consequences—wasted resources, missed opportunities, and a growing sense of frustration.
The gap between strategy and execution can emerge for various reasons: miscommunication, unclear priorities, lack of resources, or even resistance to change. While many organizations recognize this gap, few have the tools or processes in place to address it effectively. The Symphonic Performance Model™ steps in to bridge this gap by ensuring that execution is as much a part of the strategic process as the planning itself.
Symphonic Support for Seamless Execution
What sets the Symphonic Performance Model™ apart is its holistic approach to supporting execution. It offers a range of tools, coaching, and digital resources that guide organizations through every step of the execution process, ensuring that strategy doesn’t just live on paper but is actively put into practice. Much like an orchestra, where every musician follows a conductor’s cues to deliver a harmonious performance, the Symphonic Performance Model™ ensures that every individual, team, and department is aligned with the overall strategic vision.
Tailored Training to Meet Your Needs
One of the key elements of symphonic support is tailored training. Unlike generic workshops or one-size-fits-all programs, the Symphonic Performance Model™ offers training that is customized to the specific needs of your organization. This ensures that employees are equipped with the skills and knowledge they need to execute the strategy effectively.
The training focuses on helping teams understand not just what the strategy is, but how their specific roles contribute to its success. By making the connection between individual actions and organizational goals clear, the model fosters a sense of ownership and accountability among employees. This, in turn, boosts engagement and ensures that teams remain focused on executing the plan.
Digital Tools for Real-Time Execution
In addition to tailored training, the Symphonic Performance Model™ offers cutting-edge digital tools that provide real-time support during execution. These tools enable teams to track their progress, make data-driven decisions, and receive immediate feedback on their performance. This real-time insight allows for quick adjustments, ensuring that the strategy stays on course even as conditions change.
For example, a digital dashboard might display key performance indicators (KPIs) that align with the strategic goals, helping teams stay focused on what matters most. When obstacles arise, the tools offer immediate recommendations for overcoming them, preventing delays and keeping the execution process on track.
By leveraging technology, the Symphonic Performance Model™ transforms execution into a fluid, adaptive process that responds to challenges in real-time, minimizing disruptions and maximizing impact.
Ongoing Coaching and Support
Another critical component of the Symphonic Performance Model™ is ongoing coaching. While many organizations provide coaching during the early stages of a strategic initiative, they often fail to maintain this support throughout the execution phase. The result is that teams lose momentum, and strategic priorities fall by the wayside.
The Symphonic Performance Model™ addresses this by providing continuous coaching and reinforcement long after the initial training sessions have ended. Monthly group coaching sessions, live webinars, and one-on-one mentoring are available to ensure that teams stay aligned with the strategy. This ongoing support helps individuals and teams overcome challenges, refocus on long-term goals, and make necessary adjustments along the way.
The continuous coaching model ensures that execution doesn’t stall when problems arise. Instead, teams are equipped to tackle these challenges head-on, with the knowledge and confidence they need to move forward.
Closing the Gap Between Strategy and Action
At its core, the Symphonic Performance Model™ is about more than just providing tools and resources; it’s about closing the gap between strategy and action. By integrating execution into the strategic process itself, the model ensures that plans are not left to languish in binders or forgotten during the rush of daily operations.
One of the key ways the model achieves this is by creating alignment at all levels of the organization. From the C-suite to the front lines, every team member understands their role in the strategic plan and has the resources they need to execute it effectively. This alignment reduces miscommunication, prevents duplication of effort, and ensures that every action contributes to the larger organizational goals.
Moreover, the Symphonic Performance Model™ recognizes that execution is not a one-time event; it’s a continuous process that requires regular adjustments and recalibrations. By offering real-time feedback, ongoing coaching, and adaptive tools, the model keeps teams engaged and focused on delivering results, even in the face of changing circumstances.
Transforming Plans Into Reality
The ability to execute a strategy is what separates successful organizations from those that fall short of their goals. The Symphonic Performance Model™ provides the comprehensive support needed to turn plans into action, ensuring that strategies are implemented effectively and deliver the desired outcomes.
In a world where agility and adaptability are key to long-term success, organizations cannot afford to leave execution to chance. The Symphonic Performance Model™ offers a blueprint for closing the execution gap and turning strategic plans into reality.
Post by: Symphonic Strategies
Not everyone knows Dr. June Jackson Christmas’s name, but fellow leaders in her field are fully aware of how her contributions made other peoples’ lives better. Dr. Christmas, who passed away on New Year’s Eve at age 99, was a pioneering Black woman psychiatrist and one of the first scholars and practitioners to address the impact of social and economic factors on mental health
She made history early in life as one of the first three students who identified as Black to graduate from Vassar College, where she was in the class of 1945-4. (The few Black students who attended Vassar years earlier had kept their racial identities hidden and “passed” as white while on campus.) After college, like her fellow trailblazing Black classmate Beatrix McCleary Hamburg, Dr. Christmas chose to go to medical school to study psychiatry. Dr. Hamburg became the first Black woman graduate of the Yale School of Medicine and an expert in child psychiatry. Dr. Christmas, who was one of just seven women in her class at Boston University’s School of Medicine, said she originally hoped studying psychiatry might help her teach people not to be racist. It did help her address race and class as she fought to make sure vulnerable populations had better access to care.
Dr. Christmas was a clinical professor of psychiatry at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, a professor of behavioral science at the City University of New York School of Medicine, a resident professor of mental health policy at the Heller Graduate School of Social Welfare of Brandeis University, the first Black woman president of the American Public Health Association, and an appointed leader who shaped New York City’s mental health care policy. As the New York Times said, Dr. Christmas “broke barriers as a Black woman by heading New York City’s Department of Mental Health and Retardation Services under three mayors . . . As a city commissioner, as chief of rehabilitation services at Harlem Hospital Center, and in her role overseeing the transition of the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare to a Democratic administration for President-elect Jimmy Carter, Dr. Christmas ardently advanced her professional agenda.”
The Times continued: “Her priorities included improving mental health services for older people, helping people cope with alcoholism, and assisting children ensnared in the bureaucracies of foster care and the legal system. She also sought to ease the transition of patients from being warehoused in state mental hospitals to living independently . . . In 1964 she founded Harlem Rehabilitation Center, a Harlem Hospital program, which gained a national reputation for providing vocational training and psychiatric help to psychiatric hospital patients who had returned to their communities after being discharged.” This became a model for patient care.
All of this gives a sense of not just what made Dr. Christmas a trailblazing leader, but how she displayed the characteristics of a symphonic leader. Throughout her life she was used to seeing the impossible: possessing a mindset that is free from the constraints imposed by the current reality, even a 13-year-old growing up in Boston who organized a spontaneous sit-in to try to integrate a roller-skating rink in neighboring Cambridge. She brought that mindset to each new role where she seized the opportunity to make advances in patient care. When asked in an interview how she motivated people, Dr. Christmas answered: “Let people know that you are on their side. That you are behind them and you are supportive. I do care that a patient or staff person is able to stand up for himself or herself. When we motivate others we just don’t look at a person. We look at a person and at their environment.” This perspective shows several of the principles of symphonic leadership, and is an example of playing from the soul: the ability to shape situations in ways that align collective action with the protection and advancement of self-interest.
Eric Wilson, the co-chair of Vassar’s African American Alumnae/i organization, gave one more clue about Dr. Christmas’s leadership style with this description: “Dr. Christmas was as regular as they came. Humble, personable, so totally lacking in pretension as to be considered old-school cool, and beyond brilliant.” This hints at a third characteristic of symphonic leaders, moving the crowd: a depth of social grace where social interactions leave people wanting more.
At Symphonic Strategies, we’re always on the lookout for new examples of symphonic leaders to study and share with others. Women’s History Month is a wonderful opportunity to highlight and celebrate great women leaders, but be sure you’re aware of the great leaders around you every day.
Bridging the Gap: Turning Plans into Action with Symphonic Support
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