For many organisations, it’s that time of the year to start thinking about the strategic planning cycle for the future.
It should be an opportunity to step back and reflect on where new growth opportunities will come from, and how the organisation needs to evolve to deliver them.
Remember ‘chance only favours the prepared mind,’ said Louis Pasteur.
But for many it is seen as a chore that gets in the way of delivering the current year’s financials.
Here are 5 common strategic planning pitfalls you might recognise:
1) A FINANCIAL EXERCISE that eventually backs into a strategy
2) A COPY & PASTE of last year’s narrative with some word changes.
3) Over-emphasis on YEAR 1.
4) INTERNALLY FOCUSSED on the existing business.
5) Process DELEGATED to a few people with limited linkage across functions.
Those who fail to plan, plan to fail.
In past years, the Harvard Business Review has reported that:
- 85% of leadership teams spend less than one hour per month on strategy, and 50% spend no time at all on strategy.
- 5% of employees are aware of and/or understand their company’s strategy.
- 71% of employees cannot recognize their own company’s strategy in a multiple-choice question.
- 67% of well-formulated strategies failed due to poor execution.
- 30% cite failure to coordinate across units as the single greatest challenge to executing their company’s strategy.
Here are top 5 must-dos in a high-performing Strategic Planning process.
1) Manage Strategy as a JOURNEY, not a one-off process.
2) DEBATE ‘real alternatives’ don’t just try to get everyone to yes.
3) Treat it as a GROWTH opportunity, not a financial exercise.
4) OVER-RESOURCE growth opportunities, everything is not equal.
5) Engage the WHOLE COMPANY BRAIN, you will need diversity of thought.
What are some of the Strategic Planning must-dos that you would add?
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