The Power and Perils of Strategic Planning

The future of any organization is tied directly to the strategic decisions made today AND the ability to effectively execute on that strategy!

While we all understand the importance of thinking and acting strategically, often the demands of running the day to day business distracts us from looking at what we must do to execute on the key actions for today and to enhance and ensure our companies future.

As we develop our business strategy we often focus our attention on the “fires” burning in our business. But our focus on the fire often inhibits our ability to objectively view the changing world around us and quickly react to it.

To complicate the process, the world around us is constantly changing..

Δ Changing Competition

Δ  Competing Products

Δ  Customer Needs

Δ  Customer Wants

Δ  New Business Models

Δ  New Business Theory

Research has shown that most organizations have some form of strategic plan.

These plans often consist of:

  • Vision
  • Mission
  • Strategic Objectives or Goals
  • Projects
  • Tasks
  • Anticipated Results

Unfortunately, for many organizations, the most important components – the Anticipated Results – do not materialize.

While those closest to the plan might fall back to justifications  based on outside environmental or economic factors – things outside of their control – the reality is that normally a plan fails through lack of foresight or execution.

For many organizations, strategic planning is a once a year event. The resulting plan is then fixed and reviewed at the end for successes and failures. This is the great peril of strategic planning – the false security created by having a plan. Having a plan is only the fist step – it is the execution of that plan over time that will determine the organizations success or failure to achieve anticipated results.

Strategic planning must always be a dynamic process. To be effective, the strategic plan must be a living document. It provides a road map for day to day activities that are designed to build towards the organization’s long term and short term goals.

An effective strategic execution process requires ongoing activity, effective delegation of key responsibilities, and monitoring of results at short and regular intervals. For greatest effectiveness, this process must be embedded into the culture of the organization so that each plan participant understands how their actions can affect the organizations strategic results.

To support embedding the process of strategic execution within an organizations culture, CorePurpose has developed the Grounded for Growth program.

Grounded For Growth:

Strategic Execution as a Competitive Advantage

The current economic climate has severely affected our for profit and not for profit communities. This has resulted in organizations reducing staff, delaying hiring decisions, and reducing or eliminating services or new product announcements.

The Grounded for Growth program is designed to help move these organizations from a short term, reactive operating environment to a long term strategic planning and execution environment.  The program helps you:

  •  build an executable plan for growth
  • effectively execute on the plan to attain the desired results.

The program is built around 4 components:

  •  A 2-day group training workshop on strategic planning for the core management team.
  • Monthly one-on-one coaching with the chief executive and key leaders to support staying on plan.
  • Quarterly Strategic Planning Reviews (QSPR) with the core management team.   The company will learn how to run the QSPR in the first session, and hold independent QSPRs for review of Q2, Q3, and Q4.
  • A 1–day kick-off for the planning cycle for the following year.

Project Outcomes & Objectives:

  • Integration of Strategic Execution into the organization’s culture
  • Growth of Key Performance Metrics as plans become actions
  • Increased Employee Satisfaction as plans are aligned up and across the organization.

Strategic Execution Brings:

  • Cross organizational Alignment of Goals and Objectives
  • Increased Employee Purpose and Satisfaction
  •  Improved Communication across the organization

When we execute effectively…

 →  Our Plans

                         become Actions

→  Our Actions

                       deliver Results!