Consultant's Corner continued-
Is Strategic Planning Dead? John Hendon President, Bell Consulting, LLC © 2008 Bell Consulting, LLC However, in today’s rapid paced, uncertain world, do we have the luxury of spending weeks, months, or even a year or more creating a new strategy when our environment is constantly moving? There are many people who don’t think that this is a realistic possibility, and even if it was, does it make any sense? Does strategic planning pay the bills? My answer is an emphatic yes. Why? The simple answer is that strategic planning minimizes wasted resources, which of course, minimizes cost. How does it do that? By providing an organizational direction and focus for planning. Without this focus different parts the organization will (not might!) go in significantly different directions. So, do we give up on strategic planning because of the pace of change? If we don’t give up, then how do we manage to create a strategy that can keep up with our rapid paced environments? Strategic planning is just as important as it’s ever been, in fact probably more so. Just because the business environment moves rapidly, doesn’t mean that we can’t strategically direct our organization. What we have to do is understand that the steps that we were taught in strategic planning classrooms do not necessarily have to be sequential. We can do almost all of these things at the same time. What’s necessary, more so today than ever, is that we create a directional focus with a solid basis in analysis of our environment and our own capabilities.
| In truth, most good managers have always treated the steps of strategic planning as indiscrete. In other words, they do multiple tasks associated with strategic planning all at the same time. However, they all rely on a directional focus to guide their decisions. Good managers have always been good adapters - adapters to their internal capabilities, their industry environment, government regulations, competitive pressures, and many other factors. So, in the twenty first century how can we as leaders and managers in our organizations go through the strategic planning process? The simple answer is that we need to treat the functions of strategic planning as concurrent events rather than sequential events. A strong vision and mission for the organization create focus. Everything else wraps around this focus. But we don’t have to wait for the focus to become crystal clear in order to start setting objectives, creating a strategy and working to correct organizational failures. As soon as we have an idea of strategic direction, we can start adapting the organization and its human resources to that direction. Once we have a clear focus for the organization, everything else can be done at virtually the same time. We can set incremental objectives, create processes and structures, analyze and adjust the human resources within the organization, insure that we have the right technologies, evaluate our customers and markets, and analyze any and all value added activities that we provide to those customers and markets, all within the same time span. It’s not your father’s strategic planning process. But then again, what is the same in business today as it was in 1970? There’s a reason why the upcoming generation of students and workers has grown up with a multitasking mindset. We as human beings have adapted to our environment. It’s time for businesses to make the same adaptations. |