It’s the strategic planning season again in corporate America, and it’s difficult for me to not be a little cynical. I’ve been through dozens of strategic planning sessions, some good, but most just awful.
There are lots of good strategic planning processes and facilitators. That’s usually not the issue.
As Americans, we are culturally programmed to be optimistic about the future. Though we spend very little time actually doing anything to prepare for it. It’s apparent in our politics, and in our business. We want the immediate result, so we take the short-term action. If oil prices are up, we release strategic petroleum reserves. If profits are down, then we cut jobs. If we want jobs, then we create highway projects… that help facilitate our consumption of petroleum.
We are also connected everywhere in real time. And we expect the ability to connect, to give us a competitive edge, so we answer our emails at midnight. But there are other business and social cultures that take a longer view. These cultures think in terms of decades. They’re asking, what is the ultimate endgame or result that we want? Continuing the energy analogy above, China is now the world’s largest exporter of green technology in the world. They’ve been working on this for a decade or more. The longer-term view is a trait that we might be well served by, though I suspect that it’s too big a leap.
In my observation, there are two related sins in strategic planning. The first is making your plan entirely short-term and tactical. This can happen if you are constrained by current budgets, finances, conditions, or competition. You become so focused on what needs to get done in the near future that you make today the enemy of tomorrow. The second is that you come up with a great strategic plan, and then spend no time working on the tactical plan to get there.
This year, let’s resolve to take an intermediate view past the short term tactical. You don’t need to think a decade out, but three years would be ideal. Then establish the key steps it will take you to get there. Past that, work the tactical plan every quarter, and review your strategy yearly as you go along. You say you do that? Then have you arrived where you set out to go three years ago?
To coin a term, think and act… stratactically.
Do great things.
Lee Stocking
Prairie Sky Group
Making Sales Cry With Qualified Leads
lee.stocking@gmail.com
651-357-0110 (Cell 24×7)