The State of the Company
We are students of strategy and as such have examined and analyzed probably north of 25 methodologies over the years. Some of which, we have helped author. One of those, for strategic planning, had a phase that I loved the name of; Take Stock. It means look at the organization’s progress against plan, the long-term plan and the near-term plan and see what can be learned. Are you ahead or behind? If ahead, what is the magnitude of the positive gap and what categories of actions should be considered to make this advance permanent? If behind, what is the magnitude of the negative gap and what kinds of actions might be necessary to bring things back into alignment?
Plan the Planning
Set aside time now to step outside the day-to-day environment and focus on the plan for 2022 and then 3-5 years into the future. If you have a strategic plan, this can be an update cycle for that plan. If you don’t have a 5-year strategic plan in place, plan three days to get that in place.
We advocate a scan-focus-act cycle. Scan the environment for input into the planning cycle. You will need information about external, non-negotiable factors affecting the business in addition to your take stock assessment findings. Using group facilitation techniques focus the team on the top priorities. Be careful to gather ALL their input so that everyone feels heard and so that ALL the good ideas are captured for later review. We always recommend reviewing the year to capture positive, unexpected surprises. This year especially, the team should look for the unexpected tailwinds. None of us would have signed up for this mass experiment in remote work etc. BUT now that we’ve run the experiment, it would be a terrible waste not to capitalize on this expensive lesson.
Finally, the act phase turns the team’s attention to planning actions that will respond to the scan findings, particularly those which demand the teams focus. This is where initiatives are planned that will develop the organization’s capabilities and address the positive and negative gaps.
Conduct the Planning
Execute the strategic planning plan that the team put in place above. Make sure that a proceedings document is produced for the team to refer to in the years to come. It can inform future leaders about what went well, what the team might struggle with and how naive or prescient the team was in evaluating the risks and responding to them. It would be interesting to read these documents from 2019 today. Many lessons can probably be garnered from the organization’s ability to pivot (or not) in a crisis. In fact, do that NOW before the planning cycle starts, there may be some valuable insights in there.
Call To Action
Begin your strategic planning cycle now:
1. Plan the planning cycle.
2. Take stock of the organization.
a. This should include reading the strategic planning documents from 2019.
b. Review external non-negotiable factors affecting the organization
c. Analyze the gaps
3. Conduct your strategic planning activities off-site in a low distraction environment.
4. Document the strategic plan AND the planning process and findings in a proceedings document for review next year.
I hope you found something to apply to your business in this MBR. Let me know either way.
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