We received a question recently about the three biggest strategic planning challenges. It didn’t take long to think about the answer, because we see and hear about these strategic planning challenges repeatedly.
1. Thinking strategic planning only happens with senior management
We’ve been hammering away at this first challenge for years. An organization’s senior management team may be the ones charged with setting strategy and ultimately on the hook for whether the strategy is successful. That doesn’t mean, however, that senior management should be the largest group involved in planning, let alone the ONLY group involved.
Beyond the three strategic thinking perspectives essential to solid strategy we have advocated for years, we’ve formalized another view on who should participate. We’re now looking for three voices to become active in planning: familiar, challenger, and emerging voices.
2. Believing strategic planning takes more time than the organization can afford
If one part of our brand promise at The Brainzooming Group is about involving more “brains” in strategy, another important brand promise attribute is that strategic planning can move more quickly than people typically expect.
What’s vital for faster strategic planning is greater productivity, removing unnecessary steps, and being able to move ahead with the options that make the most strategic sense. Speedier planning doesn’t happen from using strategic planning techniques to turn everyone into strategists. It comes about through allowing people to develop and deliver the information and insights they know best. That’s why we prepare the planning templates and let clients do what they do best.
3. You have to start with a clean sheet of paper
Unless there’s a need for a major turnaround, chances are there is no need to start from scratch with a new strategic planning effort. Another element of speedier strategic planning is taking advantage of all the solid work that exists and moving forward with any strategic jump start you can get. That’s why we tell clients we re-work our process to fit them, as opposed to fitting the organization into static planning steps.
Take a Different Look at Strategic Planning Techniques
Whether you’re launching organization-wide strategy development or are focused on business unit or initiative strategic planning, you owe it to your organization to consider what planning looks like without the three typical challenges we shared here.
Call or email us, and we’ll show how things can be different. – Mike Brown
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If you’re facing a challenging organizational situation and are struggling to maintain forward progress because of it, The Brainzooming Group can provide a strategic sounding-board for you. We will apply our strategic thinking and implementation tools on a one-on-one basis to help you create greater organizational success. Email us at info@brainzooming.com or call 816-509-5320 to learn how we can help you figure out how to work around your organizational challenges.
