{"id":1245,"date":"2018-04-11T17:32:31","date_gmt":"2018-04-11T17:32:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/isadviser.com\/?p=1245"},"modified":"2018-04-11T17:32:31","modified_gmt":"2018-04-11T17:32:31","slug":"strategic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/isadviser.com\/en\/strategic\/","title":{"rendered":"HBR : Your Strategic Plans Probably Aren\u2019t Strategic, or Even Plans"},"content":{"rendered":"

It happens all the time: A group of managers get together at a resort for two days to hammer out a \u201cstrategic plan.\u201d Done and dusted, they all head home. But have<\/em> they produced a plan with a strategy?<\/p>\n

At the start of my public seminars on strategic planning<\/a> I ask attendees, who rank from board members and CEOs to middle management, to write down an example of a strategy on a sheet of paper. They look at me quizzically at first as they realize that this is a tough assignment. I reassure them that this is indeed a hard question and they\u00a0plow ahead.<\/p>\n

The results are always astonishing to me and them. Here are some of the responses from the list I received at my most recent session: actions (\u201claunch a new service\u201d; \u201creview our suitability to the retirement business\u201d); activities (\u201cmarketing our products through the right channels\u201d); objectives (\u201cachieve $100m net revenue\u201d) and broad descriptions of what goes on (\u201cplanning process from beginning to end of product\u201d; \u201cworking for your stakeholders\u201d).<\/p>\n

Sorry folks, but not even one of these responses is a strategy.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, while C-suite executives talk \u201cstrategy,\u201d they\u2019re\u00a0often confused about what it means. Why this confusion? The problem starts with the word itself\u00a0\u2014 a scarily misunderstood concept in management and board circles. The most basic mix-up is between \u201cobjective,\u201d \u201cstrategy,\u201d and \u201caction.\u201d (I see this frequently in published strategic plans as well.) Grasp this, I tell my audience, and your day will be well spent.<\/p>\n

An \u201cobjective\u201d is something you\u2019re trying to achieve\u00a0\u2014 a marker of the success<\/em> of the organization. <\/em>At the other end of the spectrum is \u201caction.\u201d This occurs at the individual level<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 a level that managers are presented with day after day. So naturally when they think \u201cstrategy\u201d they focus on what they do.<\/em> But this isn\u2019t strategy either. \u201cStrategy\u201d takes place between these two at the organization level <\/em>and managers can\u2019t \u201cfeel\u201d that in the same way. It\u2019s abstract. CEOs have an advantage here because only they have a total view of the organization.<\/p>\n

The key to strategy is that it\u2019s the positioning of one …<\/p>\n

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It happens all the time: A group of managers get together at a resort for two days to hammer out a \u201cstrategic plan.\u201d Done and dusted, they all head home. But have they produced a plan with a strategy? At the start of my public seminars on strategic planning I ask attendees, who rank from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1246,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false},"categories":[26],"tags":[60,27,81,194,107,17,87,126,146,212],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/isadviser.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1245"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/isadviser.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/isadviser.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/isadviser.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/isadviser.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1245"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/isadviser.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1245\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1247,"href":"https:\/\/isadviser.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1245\/revisions\/1247"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/isadviser.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/isadviser.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/isadviser.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/isadviser.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}