What's the problem?

• Lack of resources –  an obvious constraint, which affects most aspects of working life, not just strategic planning! But strategic planning is particularly resource-hungry, and it’s often difficult to get the right balance between focusing on this and people ‘doing their day job’.  Some suggestions that might help here:

  • encourage the view that strategising and organising is part of the day job, as well as managing and doing – although the present might need action now, thinking about the future and making it happen are important as well!

  • resource needs vary over the course of the ‘strategy journey’ – who is involved, and when, might change depending on their skills (some are better at strategising than organising) and their responsibilities (e.g. when it’s important to communicate and involve). It’s not always right to involve someone simply because of their position in the organisation – a different perspective, skill mix or degree of challenge might be more appropriate at times.

  • pace the process – there’s times when more information and analysis are needed, and times when people need to be engaged in making decisions, for example.

• Lack of relevant skills or experience. A tricky area, this – and the answer is seldom a text book or quick-fix course! It often helps to probe further – sometimes the organisation hasn’t undertaken a strategic planning process before, and there’s a lack of confidence, rather than ability. Or it could be that there’s a particular aspect that’s difficult – mapping out the process, knowing how to get started, making sense of all the information, ensuring effective challenge. Being clear about what the problem is will enable you to find the necessary help, from within the organisation or externally.

• Lack of involvement and ownership. Not involving the right people – not engaging the right people. Poor communication. Not spending enough time explaining. Not listening. Whatever the cause, the result is a potentially fatal weakness in any strategic planning process. At its heart, strategic planning is about people – it’s how the people in an organisation work out where it’s going and how it’s going to get there. Keeping this perspective paramount is key (even when the numbers and pound signs are flying around!).

• Failure to follow-through. However clever the analysis, or ambitious the objectives, or amazing the document, unless a strategic plan is implemented it’s worthless! This is one of the most common failings. It’s the vital fourth stage in the process – understand, decide, plan, then do!  - and it requires a new burst of organisational energy and commitment to ‘make it happen’. And the ‘strategic plan’ needs to be seen as a guide, a starting point that’s referred to continually to help the organisation on its journey of implementation and adaptation as its situation evolves.

• Not tackling the right issues. There are two interpretations of this: not identifying the right issues, and not dealing with those that have been identified. Sometimes it seems that there’s something that is just too hard for an organisation to get to grips with. It could be a core problem that requires too much effort for the organisation to really understand, or it’s not yet ready to face. Examples I’ve come across include not achieving a sufficiently good understanding of customers and their motivation;  not challenging current strategy at a time of potential market change, resulting in ‘more of the same’ rather than innovation;  and not wanting to tackle senior management relationship issues  to enable the organisation to move forward.

• Underestimating the culture. Organisational culture is such a powerful influence that it’s easy to underestimate its inertia effect when introducing new ways of thinking or working. The ‘gravitational force’ of an established way of doing things can hinder implementation of strategic initiatives – there’s a tendency to ‘roll back’ to the status quo. To effect lasting change, it’s important to recognise - and plan for – the various aspects of culture (see the November issue of perspectives, ‘Organisations, culture and change’).