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Strategic Planning - The Creative Side
Bob Ryan, About Purpose, Inc. ©2001
Strategic Planning. Everyone knows we should do it. Fewer formally construct a plan. Fewer still actually use it to guide their decision making and operations.
The sad truth is, that you will act according to a strategic future. The only question is whether you will be proactive with the strategic future you create, or whether you will be reactive with the future your competition creates.
Friends, strategic planning is not an option. Just do it.
While there is a great deal of academics and science to strategic planning, the best plans tap into a creative energy and create an excitement that permeates managers, employees, and all other stakeholders. This article will not only give you the basics you need to work on your strategic plan, but will suggest creative approaches that will make it more enjoyable and more effective.
How do you do strategic planning?
Strategic planning is typically accomplished in four steps. The first two steps are collectively called SWOT analysis. In these two steps the company looks inward at its own Strength and Weaknesses, and then outward at the Opportunities and Threats in the environment. The third step is strategy generation. To take advantage of the opportunities the future holds, and to successfully duck the threats, what do you need to do? The last step is actualization. In this step you assure the plans will be carried out by identifying specific objectives, people responsible, resources needed, target dates and evaluation techniques.
I usually advise clients to do SWOT analysis in the reverse order – external threats and opportunities first, then internal strengths and weaknesses. But it will never catch on. “OTSW” doesn’t spell anything!
Consider the logic. If we consider our own strengths and weaknesses first, we may inadvertently blind ourselves to opportunities because we don’t feel able to take advantage of them. Catch the vision of the future first, then decide what you have to do to reach out and grasp it.
Your strategic plan can be as simple or as sophisticated as you like. This is usually determined by what you have the resources (especially time) to do. There are tradeoffs. The more research you do, the better your demographic, financial and operational data are, the more specifically you can tailor your plan. However, you can easily get analysis paralysis and spend all your time planning and none doing. Figure out what the best trade off is for your organization. If this is your first strategic plan, I recommend keeping it simple. Each time you revive the planning process (which should be yearly for most organizations) you can add a level of sophistication. Remember, part of the purpose of strategic planning is to generate excitement, not groans and overwork.
Creative ways to get it done and get it done well
There are many ways to go about strategic planning. In small organizations, it is often done by the owner and a few key staff. In larger organizations, it may include large scale input on a national or international level, from hundreds or thousands of stakeholders. Strategic planning can take place as part of ongoing, regularly scheduled meetings, or it can be focused on one or two “retreats” specifically designed to create the plan.
After helping organizations with strategic planning for over 25 years, I find that the best plans are those which result from creative planning and execution. I share with you some of the ideas I have seen produce great results over the years. Use your imagination. You know your organization and your people. What will engage them? What will excite them? What will bring out their best thoughts and ideas?
Threats and Opportunities
1. Use a keynote speaker to identify the trends in your industry or your market segment.
2. Bring in a motivational speaker to inspire and encourage your planning team with regard to the environment that is unfolding.
3. Commission a college or high school theater class to write and perform a drama or a comedy that highlights your beliefs about key issues that must be dealt with in the next 3-5 years.
4. Tap into your own staff, board, etc. by staging a News Show or Awards Ceremony in which the participants place themselves in the future and report on what “is” happening at that time.
5. Conduct and tape Key Person interviews or Focus Groups, and then splice together interesting footage to be shown at the kickoff of your strategic planning process. Alternatively, put together a live panel discussion responding to a well-thought out list of questions.
6. Administer a 360 Degree Feedback instrument that gathers information about the environment from the full range of your customers, providers, shareholders, staff and board. Share the results in a Power Point presentation. E-mail Bob Ryan.
Strengths and Weaknesses
1. Ask the participants to portray the “real” organization by creating human sculptures. They can use only their own bodies, positions, body language, voices, etc. Alternatively, split a larger group into teams and have them create sculptures using only objects found in the room. Then have each team report to the larger group on the meaning of its sculpture.
2. Before the beginning of the planning process, have a consultant come in and do personality profiling to help the participants understand the differences in the ways that they approach and deal with the work environment. Contact a consultant.
3. If you suspect there is a wide range or a lack of knowledge about what values are commonly held and/or how values affect behavior, consider using a values profile. Alternatively, with a reasonably small group, play the game, Scruplesâ, and invent your own questions to ferret out differences in how people make decisions based on their values.
4. One creative way to identify issues and problems within an organization is to use the problem identification approach that players of the game, Clueâ, use. They carefully eliminate suspects (issues or problems) by determining “what isn’t.” (I will send you a free copy of this on request, which was developed by Dale Mize of Advanced Quality Engineering.)
5. As in the Threats and Opportunities section, administer a 360 Degree Feedback instrument that performs a collective performance appraisal on the organization. Include as wide a range of observers and participants as you wish. (Ask me about a powerful and easy-to-use software program that is available to perform 360’s of all kinds. It makes the gathering of information a snap.) E-mail Bob Ryan.
Strategy Generation
1. If you have trouble getting people to think outside the box, consider using a tool like the Creative Whack Packã by Roger von Oech. Despite its unfortunate, violent name (based on “a whack upside the head”) this deck of cards serves to bring out the creative side of any group. It comes complete with instructions for several different ways of using it.
2. If you have a large group, or one that is fairly reserved, use a process to stimulate thinking and build on a few good ideas. I call it Seeding the Clouds. Simply write a few good ideas (say, 8-20) for future strategies on index cards (one to a card). Shuffle them in with blank index cards and pass them out. Ask the participants to write their own ideas (one to a card) and build a stack of cards. The group is now instructed to share ideas with each other. As each person hears an idea s/he likes, it goes on a blank card in the deck. People must keep moving and talking with each other, one-on-one or in groups until all the ideas have been discussed. Then you ask the participants to tack their ideas up in similar groupings. It becomes quickly apparent which ideas generated excitement and there is an immediate sense of buy-in and ownership.
3. A very popular approach to strategic planning is the Balanced Scorecard. An approach created by Kaplan and Norton (see The Strategy-Focused Organization) the balanced scorecard directs our thinking from our mission, values and vision into a balanced strategy that satisfies shareholders, delights customers, creates effective organizational processes, and motivates and prepares the workforce. It helps us keep all four elements in mind and to quantify how we are going to meet expectations.
Actualization
Yes, you can just make a list with people responsible, date expected, outcome and resources used. And it will probably just get put on a shelf while the pressures of the tactical and operational business push the strategic out of the way. Consider one or more of these ideas to assure your strategic plan will become reality.
1. Schedule a strategic planning road rally. At specific times during the year, schedule an all-company or all-department event. Those responsible for different parts of the strategic plan present their progress in the most exciting, attractive way possible. The “spectators” vote on who’s ahead based on progress, excitement generated, presentation, etc. Make this fun. Decorate and give prizes. Have hotdogs and cokes. Give out key chains or tee shirts. Use your imagination.
2. Assign a reporter to provide continual coverage of strategic plan progress. Have that person interview people responsible for plan segments and report in the company newsletter, e-mail, company meetings, videos, etc. what’s happening, where – and here’s the important part – how it affects everyone. Choose a good communicator. Give him/her license to be creative, funny, diverse, etc.
3. Post visuals around the organization and/or send out e-mails or newsletters with a variation of the United Way Thermometer. Show progress over time on the objectives being accomplished in the strategic plan.
Summary
All right, you’ve got the idea. Make strategic planning a creative, on-going process. Make it interactive and exciting. Make it a key part of your year’s activities – not just a one-time event. Make it alive.
Most importantly, just do it.