Why Strategic Plans Often Miss the Mark
Take a serious minute to look at the image above.
That’s the typical organization at work. On the left is what is intended from the strategic plan and goals.
In the middle is how these plans are layered on top of the organizational system, the middle.
On the right is what happens when the message was not embedded in the system.
It’s self-defeating right? Expecting change and seeing the status quo emerge ever stronger.
Do you really need a Strategic Plan, or Something Else?
If planning is important and you’ve invested time and energy into the plan, then understanding what has to change within the organizational middle is equally vital.
But often managing the action post planning is left to individuals, without teams assigned, and without alignment. It’s not a judgement. It’s just what we’ve observed across hundreds of assignments.
But That’s Not the Only Problem. It is Something Else.
The organizational middle is like a plumbing pipe. The more additions you add to it, the harder it is to maintain flow.
Think of additions as more headcount. More tools. More expectations between departments. More systems that rely on managing hand offs. More need for organizational alignment across the business.
Each is like a kink in the pipe until the blockages are seen and sorted for the emerging new plan.
Lack of flow is the Something Else.
The kinks are the problems that often don’t get addressed in strategic planning events billed as transformation, goal setting or otherwise.
To gain traction on the strategic plan, you have to uncover where it is going to hit roadblocks and then straighten the organizational pipe, as a project.
No one wants to talk about roadblocks. Debbie Downer syndrome. Potential is far more exciting.
But here’s what happens when we dive into the gold hiding behind roadblocks.
We find clarity. Clarity gives us leverage to unravel just the parts that will ensure flow from idea to reality to results.
Experience Traction in Our Strategic Planning Sessions
Let’s talk about what you want your business to be able to do then that it can’t do now, even though you’ve invested in strategic planning, and thought everyone was ‘aligned’.
