Strategic plans are useless!

by Don Harkey

Strategic plans are useless… if they are not utilized. Too many times, strategic plans are carefully developed, cataloged, and filed, only to become obsolete at the first unexpected event that was not discussed in the creation of the plan. The reason this occurs is due to a common misunderstanding about the purpose of a strategic plan. Organizations start by developing a “desired future” and then try to plan a path to get from where they are to where they want to be. This works only as long as barriers don’t appear on the path. Great strategic plans don’t focus on providing the path, they focus on providing the criteria for making good decisions on the journey.

A military strategist typically has no idea what an enemy army is going to do. So in order to be successful, they must establish “rules of engagement” based on a master “vision” of what they are trying to accomplish. The most successful leaders successfully communicate that “vision” to all of their commanders and soldiers in the field. This way when (not if) they encounter an obstacle or a decision that needs to be made, they have a foundation from which to make the decision. If that foundation is based on something that the soldiers can rally around (be passionate about), then they will make more good decisions. The entire army is aligned, moving in the same direction rallied around a common goal.

Organizational leaders have come to rely too much on metrics and scorecards derived from strategic plans developed in the boardroom. These metrics are hard to rally around and seldom provide a truly clear path to success. Instead leaders need to spend time taking a hard and realistic look at their organization to determine its strengths and weaknesses and most importantly, its passion. This provides the foundation for making decisions with great clarity at all levels of the organization. It frees up the leaders and supervisors to innovate and create value toward that common purpose. It gives the “soldiers” a flag they can rally around.