There are many critics of strategic planning and rightly so. A strategic plan that does not become inter-woven into the culture of an organization can be extremely damaging and, quite frankly, a complete waist of time. An organization can start down the road of a strategic planning exercise, develop a wonderful and well thought out plan then have the whole thing fizzle during its implementation or during its subsequent reviews. A strategic plan is one of those things where you get back what you put into it.
Perhaps the most damaging aspect of strategic planning is when the plan itself becomes a tool for entrenching an organizations activities; the very aspect of organizational behaviour that strategic planning is supposed to prevent. Nowhere is this more likely to occur than in the annual strategic plan review (I’d argue plan reviews should be done more frequently but that’s for another post!). A strategic plan is a living document and is designed to ebb and flow with the changing environment in which an organization operates. The strategic plan review is established to not only act as a way to build cohesiveness within an organization but also to ask the most fundamental questions of an organization: Is what we are doing still relevant? Should we still be doing what we are doing? If not, what should we be doing?
Too often the strategic plan review becomes a cheer leading session where affirmation is given as to what an organization is doing and the more difficult questions are avoided. The more difficult questions are often those to do with existing business activities and whether an organization should still be doing them. It is hard to look unbiased at an organization, especially when you are in it, and come to the conclusion that you shouldn’t be doing what you are doing in favour of something else. A certain amount of institutional inertia builds up. Jobs and careers can be on the line. It is human nature to feel protective of the things that we have built. Change tends to be frightening to many. Too often, the strategic plan becomes a document to justify what an organization has been doing rather than what it should be doing. It becomes less about looking to the future and more about looking at the past.
It is difficult to avoid this pit-fall of strategic planning since it is a result of human behaviour – we are all subject to this flaw. Many organizations will choose to use an outside facilitator to help build and review their strategic plans as a way to minimize institutional bias. This, however, is also not without problems. If the same facilitator is used year after year they become effectively embedded in the organization and can become protective of their own self interests. A facilitator is just that, someone to facilitate discussion and does not absolve an organization of the need for leadership.
Ultimately, an effective strategic plan relies on effective leadership that is not afraid to make difficult decisions. There is an irony here of course. An organization that has effective leadership is likely one that would be successful regardless of whether it had a formal strategic plan or not. The fact is that strategic planning and effective leadership are not mutually exclusive. You can’t do one without the other.
