Getting to the Game Changers
1) Strategic planning is an effort you undertake when you realize that you need to make strategic decisions and actions. In simple terms, strategic decisions are game changers; not merely decisions to do more of what we already do. So, by design, strategic planning is preparing to do something different which also means stopping doing something we currently do.
2) Strategic planning helps you to do know when to make moves that are counterintuitive when viewed in the short term. Like spiking a football or sacrificing a piece in chess – being able to earn a long term gain from a short term pain.
3) To take a strategic view, organizations usually spend effort assessing the horizon… taking a brutally honest look at their own strengths and weaknesses and then stacking them against the opportunities and threats that are out on the edge of the horizon. By design, this means that habits and institutions and processes that are working just fine for now may be considered a weakness when taken to the horizon. The generic acronym for this type of strategic assessment is called SWOT for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
4) To do an assessment, it is vital to take a 360° look across the many dimensions of your organization. Too many executive teams make the mistake of thinking that their small enclave of personalities and experience speaks to the organization as a whole. To prevent this tunnel vision is why surveys are used, along with all the rigor of statistical sampling and testing.
5) When doing strategic assessment, it is critical that you focus on challenging how you live out your organizational purpose on the journey to your organizational destiny. This is where the terms mission (i.e. purpose) and vision (destiny) come in. This strategic view is not accomplished by looking at your current activities, even though that is where the hard data usually is.