In this two-part series on strategic planning, we discuss six common mistakes that organisations make when they chart the future direction of their organisation. In next month’s post, we’ll tell you how to overcome these challenges.
- Wanna vs Gotta
In government, strategic planning is often a requirement of central agencies or legislation (we’ve ‘gotta’ have a strategic plan) and is done purely for compliance purposes—to tick the box. Even if executive teams understand the importance of strategic planning, it doesn’t mean they ‘wanna’. Their heart isn’t always in it.
In fact, many agencies won’t admit that it’s simply a tokenistic activity. They say they’re genuinely committed to the process, but often don’t demonstrate this in their behaviour. I’ve seen CEOs who preach the importance of strategic planning, before leaving the meeting after just 30 minutes! The urgent often triumphs the important and this culture becomes ingrained in organisations.
- Strategy vs Stagnancy
Strategic planning should be about helping your organisation prepare for and adapt to the future. This may include consideration of changing client and community needs, new technologies and different policy environments.
The problem is that many organisations approach planning as a mere restatement or extension of the status quo, rather than thinking about where they need to be and the changes they need to make to remain relevant and successful. They see strategic planning as ‘business as usual’ planning, which is a big mistake.
- Creativity vs Metrics
Strategy is inherently a creative process, rather than a highly-structured, cookbook-style recipe. It’s fundamentally about change and repositioning an organisation. This means it requires more than just an extension of the present, but an imaginative and sometimes intuitive approach that goes beyond the metrics.
One popular example lies in the newspaper and book publishing industry, where there have been fundamental disruptions to long-standing business models thanks to the internet. For strategic planning to be effective, these industries need to tap into a creative skill set to envision a new future, rather than just crunching numbers and restating what has worked in the past. This process of transformation isn’t limited to the publishing industry, but also applies to the government sector as well.
- Action vs Intention
There’s a saying that planning means nothing until it degenerates into work! It’s a common mistake in government agencies, where organisations invest time, effort and resources into developing a glossy-looking strategic plan that may be perfect…except for the fact that it sits on the shelf gathering dust for the next 12 months. The organisation devotes too much time to planning, and too little to implementation.
- Plain English vs Corporate Jargon
Many strategic plans are dense and unnecessarily complex, with an overabundance of jargon. Often, executive teams can’t articulate what the plan actually contains or how it will affect the organisation. In my experience, this is often a result of expert planners running the planning process at the expense of those who should be taking the lead: the executive team. As a result, the strategic plan tends to alienate the very communities the organisation aims to support.
- Platitude vs Accountability
The strategic planning process often fails to answer the fundamental question: how will we know if our organisation is successful? Even if organisations know where they want to be and even if their strategic plan sets out the key steps to get there, there is often silence on what that success will look like and how they will measure it.
Worse still, some organisations prefer to make a series of platitudes, rather than honestly committing themselves to results that are accountable for achieving and measuring.
Stay tuned for our next opinion piece on how to overcome these common mistakes in strategic planning.
