Month: January 2023

Posted on

Best timeline for strategic plans

You are about to begin a fresh round of strategic planning. The team is eager, but before the retreat starts, you have a tricky decision. What length of time should your organization create a plan for?

Some already have strong opinions. The head of sales wants a 2-year plan. He needs the retreat to be short so he can go back to hitting his numbers.

At the other end of the spectrum, the V.P. of innovation and research wants some clear guidance on which technologies to pursue. The choices are wide, and a poor decision could doom the organization. She is thinking of a 40-50 year planning horizon.

They are both persuasive, but you need to make a choice. What are your next steps as the sponsor of the upcoming strategic planning retreat?

  1. Punt the Decision

Fortunately, there is an approach that relieves you of duress. Given the importance of the planning horizon, get the team to make the choice during the meeting. How does this work?

First, explain to them why this is critical – the specific year and time elapsed (e.g., 2043, 20 years). It’s a critical one that deserves the input of all involved. As such, it should be crafted in real-time, face to face, but only when all the facts are on the table.

Therefore, the act of choosing the horizon should not be the first item on the agenda. Instead, begin by following a process to share pertinent information from all areas together in one place so that the team has a common understanding. During this preliminary session, remind the team that the next session will require them to choose a planning horizon. Ask them to keep this in mind as they review past performance and today’s issues.

This should actually help them remain hopeful. Why? Some of your company’s challenges probably only have complex, long-term solutions. In prior meetings, leaders gave up because they didn’t have enough time available. Now, they do.

When the subsequent session begins, explain the mistake of choosing a planning horizon which is too short or too long. Offer them the following two “warnings” to help pick the optimal timeframe.

  1. The Too-Short Warning

Ask the team, “What happens if we choose a tiny horizon?” They may admit (after some reflection) that a 2 to 3-year plan will simply extend the past. Why? It’s only human.

They won’t say it out aloud, but people unconsciously prefer continuity and hate uncertainty. Our default mentality is to pick a predictable future. A short planning horizon keeps things comfortably the same.

But what about the power of a transformation? You should also remind them that if they don’t use time as a deep resource, they won’t create a Jim Collins-like Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG). Such objectives are meant to inspire and uplift. They give meaning and add resilience, especially to younger staff.

Also, with a short planning horizon, key problems which need time will remain unsolved. Plus, you’ll also be missing important trends. For example, a 5-year planning horizon blocks you from seeing developments which take 7 years to mature. By contrast, if your competitors consider a longer time frame, they might include the trend in their thinking to their advantage.

Finally, aggressive executives love short-time frames because they see it as a way to force staff to work harder, and achieve results sooner. The problem is that some projects (like pregnancy) can’t be rushed. Don’t pretend that magic is real, or you’ll see employees merely going through the motions, doing the minimum.

Why? At its heart, short-termism is a synonym for selfish leadership. “My current needs trump your future needs.” It’s as if the team is also saying, “Instead of making difficult decisions now, we will leave them for you young folk in the hope that you still have time.” It’s the very opposite of sustainable business thinking.

  1. The Too-Long Warning

Sometimes team members become true believers in long-term reasoning. They say “the more the merrier!” and call for a one-hundred year planning horizon. They may even cite examples of Asian organizations which do so.

However, you should take a look at your environment. Chances are, a planning horizon which is too long will mystify stakeholders who can’t relate. Instead of being inspired, they’ll become cynical.

Also, you might not have the resources or skills to plan too far out. Remember, whatever horizon you choose must be connected back to today.

Get your team to find consensus on the optimal time horizon in a healthy, real-time debate. It will set the stage for the success of your organization’s strategic plan.

Francis Wade is the author of Perfect Time-Based Productivity, a keynote speaker and a management consultant. To search his prior columns on productivity, strategy, engagement and business processes, send email to columns@fwconsulting.com.

Posted on

Culture Still Eats Strategy for Breakfast

You have heard the saying that “Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast”. It has a ring of truth to it, but you don’t want to believe that strategic planning is futile – a victim of large, negative forces which cannot be overcome. But if it’s neither entirely right nor wrong, can we still use it?

The most depressing naysayers warn us that fancy plans can only go so far. Jamaican culture on a whole, or a specific corporate culture, will only allow so much change, but no more. But is this just a cynical way of looking at the world? Should it be discarded, or is there an element of truth that should be included in your planning for 2023?

After all, you don’t want to waste time shaping interventions meant to move the company forward, which could be doomed from the start.

In this context, what is culture made of? While there are many definitions, let’s assume that it comprises unconscious habits, practices, and routines. We all have them. And when we humans come together in an organisation, we can’t help but bring these elements, combining them into one.

For example, all companies have people who complain about being treated unfairly. Some leave their ruminations in the car park. Others spend most of their workdays kvetching to themselves. But our definition would focus on the complaints which are continually shared in workplace conversations.

By contrast, the occasional complainant, who resolves matters quickly, does not add to the culture. When a single problem is solved, it goes away.

This definition of culture is one your strategic planners should adopt. Why? Most teams I work with want to include some kind of cultural transformation in their long-term plans. Unfortunately, they lack expertise in this area. They only know enough to label organisations they have experienced from the past, judging some as superior, and others toxic.

However, they don’t know how to create a large-scale shift from one level to another. Without this expertise, their objective remains more of a hopeful wish than anything they can operationalise. To make things more concrete, here are some practical steps to take to forge the kind of culture that supports your strategic plan.

  1. Go Past Current “Values” and “Purpose” Statements

If your company hasn’t revamped its core statements in the last year, chances are they are no longer offering much guidance. In the worst cases, staff only use them to point out hypocrisy gaps…the places where your leaders are not walking their talk.

If you find yourself in this kind of situation, the standard advice is to undertake a refresh. Rather than driving up further cynicism and resignation, retire the statements and declare that they have done their job. Set up an effort to define new ones in light of a fresh strategy. Point out their purpose: to help accomplish a specific long-term vision.

This is Blue Ocean-style, opportunity creation at its finest.

But most leaders may still want the documents to be vague, echoing the tone of the ones they are replacing. Today’s best practice calls for a different approach. Instead of being ephemeral and high-level, look to define specific behaviours so they can’t be mistaken.

  1. Specific Behaviours Listed in the Corporate Strategic Plan

It may become clear as you do your planning that some of your corporate culture must be changed. For example, a culture of constant victimhood isn’t likely to be innovative and entrepreneurial…the behaviours your new strategy needs to succeed.

But these initial phrases are only clues. They aren’t detailed enough. Instead, take a deeper dive into the specific behaviours you want to change. Here, they need to pass the Video-Tape Test. If they can be enacted on film, then they are clear enough to be included in your strategic plan.

For example, a phrase like “responsibility” may fail the test because it doesn’t speak to a specific behaviour. By contrast, “I apologise to those I have wronged” is a specific behaviour which is undeniable.

It’s also one which can be trained, coached, measured and added into a performance system. As such, it becomes a tool to assist in accomplishing the strategic plan.

While you may group similar behaviours for ease of transmission, it’s important to be careful. Why?

The fact is, this isn’t about a change for its own sake. Instead, the planning team should see a clear cause-and-effect relationship between newly envisioned behaviours and critical elements of the strategy.

As such, these are carefully defined, culture-change projects designed to shift specific behaviours. Although such efforts are challenging, don’t allow them to languish or be eaten up by a toxic culture no-one supports.