More Strategic Planning Insight

Through my previous postings, you've seen a consistent thread emphasizing the importance of Strategic Planning. Recently, Kinsey has published some research results that just might convince you to take a long look at the process. In this post, we'll examine two of their most significant findings.

1) When key corporate decisions were made outside the Strategic Planning process, TWICE as many were likely to have resulted in EXTREMELY POOR results.

Wow, pretty strong statement. Why would this be? Suppose Strategic Planning is defined as. "An informed and chosen executive team, representing all disciplines, that is commissioned to discover, discern, and plan the future organizational, market, & operational direction, which includes implementation and measurement."

Perhaps it is then easier to understand why, when circumvented or incompletely done, it fails. For instance, when the president alone, or with maybe a confidant, makes all the decisions, isn't it more likely that he/they will miss some things)? The biggest recipe for failure is to use incomplete data or limited information. On the other hand, isn’t going through a process over time, with experienced people, more likely to succeed? You bet. Simple premise, but so often ignored.

2) Making (a) person(s) accountable for implementation raised success 64% over those companies who did not.

It already is accepted that the single worst error resulting in failed Strategic Plans is not accomplishing implementation. Simply put, if the time & money is spent to go through the process & write a plan, why would we throw all that away by stopping short of implementation? We know we shouldn’t, and as in any goal setting endeavor, there must be measurement and accountability: specifically so. What we plan, measure, and collectively review, we will do.

Thank you Kinsey!