Strategic Planning: An Executive's Aid for Strategic Thinking, Development and Deployment

Food For Thought

Strategy is an element in a hierarchy (note: The following is a variation of a hierarchy presented in The Strategy Focused Organization.⁶

Mission — Why we exist

Core Values — What we believe in

Vision — What we want to be

Strategic Goals — What we want to be — quantified

Strategy — How we will get there

Balanced Scorecard — Implementation and focus

Strategic Initiatives — What we need to do

Individual Objectives — What I need to do

Desired outcomes: Delighted customers, satisfied shareholders, effective processes, a motivated and prepared workforce. Do the current corporate communications fulfill the Mission, Core Values, and Vision elements?

Strategic planning provides:

1. Better informed, more timely decisions through continuous strategic thinking and improved communication.

2. Clear direction to the organization on what the company will do and perhaps more importantly what it will not do. Focus is achieved not through prioritization but through deciding what will not be done. This frees up synchronized, cross-functional resources to do what top management has strategically chosen to do.

3. Greater empowerment with clearly understood boundaries communicated to the entire organization. Every element of the organization understands the direction and his or her actions required to support the company's strategies.

Strategic Planning does not substitute facts for judgment, does not substitute science for the manager. It does not even lessen the importance and role of managerial ability, courage, experience, intuition, or even hunch — just as scientific biology and systematic medicine have not lessened the importance of these qualities in the individual physician. On the contrary, the systematic organization of the planning job and the supply of knowledge to it strengthen the manager's judgment, leadership, and vision.²

George Palmatier is a partner with the Oliver Wight Companies He is co-author of the books, The Marketing Edge, Enterprise Sales and Operations Planning and Demand Management Best Practices. For more information, contact Oliver Wight Americas by calling 800-258-3862, email at info@oliverwight.com or visit the web at: www.oliverwight-americas.com.

Strategic Theme — a statement or reflection of what top management believes must be done to succeed. Strategic themes reflect executives' view of what must be done internally to achieve desired outcomes. Strategic themes do not directly reflect financial outcomes. As such, strategic themes typically relate to internal business processes.

Strategic Thinking — a process of analyzing, evaluating, and reflecting on the nature of the business — understanding its current situation, conceiving possible future states, creating a vision of the organization's future, developing potential means and methods to achieve the vision, weighing the choices and deciding upon a course of action.

Strategic Plan — an agreed-upon plan of action in support of the company's vision and mission incorporating top management's strategic themes.

Strategy Map — a logical and comprehensive method for describing and communicating strategic plans demonstrating the linkages from strategic goals to tasks /actions.

Strategic Measures — key performance indicators of the degree of success in achieving the organization's strategic goals.

This article includes multiple references to a number of sources for support. They include:

1. The Oliver Wight ABCD Checklist for Operational Excellence, Fifth Edition, John Wiley & Sons, New York, 2000

2. Drucker, Peter F., Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices, Harper Collins, New York, 1974

3. Robert, Michel, Strategy Pure and Simple, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1993

4. Tregoe, Benjamin, & John W. Zimmerman, Top Management Strategy, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1980

5. Treacy, Michael & Fred Wiersema, The Discipline of Market Leaders, Addison-Wesley, Reading MA, 1995

6. Kaplan, Robert & David Norton, The Strategy-Focused Organization, McGraw-Hill, New York, 2000

7. Bossidy, Larry & Ram Charan, Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done, Crown Business, New York, 2002