What Makes For a Great Plan?
In my October 11 blog I described a strategic planning session in which seven executives of a major U.S. corporation realized that their own actions perpetuated the corporate culture they wanted to change. In today’s blog I want to share with you some of the properties of the actual plan they developed which I believe will lead the company to a successful turnaround. I don’t need to divulge any particulars or break my oaths of confidentiality. All I have to do is to tell you that the plan not only had fiscal integrity, but also demonstrated five distinguishing properties:
1. Minimalist: The plan had only four mission-critical strategic priorities, ones the team agreed were non-negotiable for delivering competitive success. Any plan with more than five “priorities” winds up prioritizing nothing, and the results wind up as mediocrity or steady state. There’s a clear limit in the amount of resources and attention necessary for genuine commitment and breakthrough performance. So fewer priorities are better.
2. Unambiguous: The plan with its mission-critical strategic priorities and rationales was succinct (3 pages), clear, lucid, unmistakable, understandable, and easily communicable. No ambiguity, no fuzziness, no professional obfuscation, no excessive verbiage, no thick documents, no 100-slide power point presentations.
3. Bold: The plan and priorities represented a direction that would make the company externally unique compared to what competitors are doing, and internally unique (different) relative to how the company had conducted business in the past. Any plan that is basically “more of the same” guarantees that you’ll have exactly that: more of the same.
4. Inspiring: The plan and its priorities excited the team. It generated the “fire in the belly” effect. The executives were eager to get out there and make it happen. Any plan that is developed as a job “task” and viewed by leaders with uninspired analytical detachment is guaranteed to have minimal impact.
5. Offensive: In the past, the plans had concentrated on protecting the company’s market share and defending its customer base from competitors. This plan went on the offensive. It focused on creating a new market, attaining organic growth that outpaces the industry’s growth, and attracting a sizable portion of competitors’ customers. And in a nice play on words, the plan was so offensive that it would be “offensive” to competitors. Any plan that is defensive is by definition reactive and one step behind the competition.
6. Sponsored: Strategy without execution is simply a nice document. Each executive (other than the President) volunteered to sponsor one of the four strategic priorities (obviously, two of the priorities had two sponsors). Criteria for sponsorship had nothing to do with the executive’s current job, function or experience. The only criteria that counted was the personal passion of the executive for a particular initiative, as well as his/her personal commitment to do whatever it takes to help make that initiative happen.
Does your company’s strategic plan have these properties? Maybe it should.
1. Minimalist: The plan had only four mission-critical strategic priorities, ones the team agreed were non-negotiable for delivering competitive success. Any plan with more than five “priorities” winds up prioritizing nothing, and the results wind up as mediocrity or steady state. There’s a clear limit in the amount of resources and attention necessary for genuine commitment and breakthrough performance. So fewer priorities are better.
2. Unambiguous: The plan with its mission-critical strategic priorities and rationales was succinct (3 pages), clear, lucid, unmistakable, understandable, and easily communicable. No ambiguity, no fuzziness, no professional obfuscation, no excessive verbiage, no thick documents, no 100-slide power point presentations.
3. Bold: The plan and priorities represented a direction that would make the company externally unique compared to what competitors are doing, and internally unique (different) relative to how the company had conducted business in the past. Any plan that is basically “more of the same” guarantees that you’ll have exactly that: more of the same.
4. Inspiring: The plan and its priorities excited the team. It generated the “fire in the belly” effect. The executives were eager to get out there and make it happen. Any plan that is developed as a job “task” and viewed by leaders with uninspired analytical detachment is guaranteed to have minimal impact.
5. Offensive: In the past, the plans had concentrated on protecting the company’s market share and defending its customer base from competitors. This plan went on the offensive. It focused on creating a new market, attaining organic growth that outpaces the industry’s growth, and attracting a sizable portion of competitors’ customers. And in a nice play on words, the plan was so offensive that it would be “offensive” to competitors. Any plan that is defensive is by definition reactive and one step behind the competition.
6. Sponsored: Strategy without execution is simply a nice document. Each executive (other than the President) volunteered to sponsor one of the four strategic priorities (obviously, two of the priorities had two sponsors). Criteria for sponsorship had nothing to do with the executive’s current job, function or experience. The only criteria that counted was the personal passion of the executive for a particular initiative, as well as his/her personal commitment to do whatever it takes to help make that initiative happen.
Does your company’s strategic plan have these properties? Maybe it should.
posted by Oren Harari at 11:17 AM
2 Comments:
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I visited strategic planning
It's not exactly what I was looking for but it was nonetheless interesting to read.
Hey this blog is not about strategic planning
I have been doing hours of research on "strategic planning" and it brought me to your blog on What Makes For a Great Plan?. Anyways, Oren Harari I was reading your blog and I think it is really cool. It’s really a pleasure reading your posts! Keep up the great work.
Keep blogging away :-)
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