I think one of the most important aspects of a strategy development process (throughout different industries) is the planning phase. The planning process is the cornerstone of the strategy and, when done effectively, can lead to a strong implementation. Legendary basketball coach John Wooden said, “failing to plan is planning to fail.” While this was in the context of sports, I believe it applies to strategy across industries. The strategic planning process is often difficult but can lead to great results. One of the toughest aspects of the process is deciding who should be involved. In The Real Value of Strategic Planning, Sarah Kaplan and Eric Beinhocker state that as the group of people involved in the process gets larger, it becomes increasingly difficult for meaningful participation and leads to more unnecessary politicking.[1] In many instances when the group is too large, any strategy that is created can easily be tossed aside, leading people to revert to their old ways. It’s better to keep the group small, with only the most important company actors present.
Take for example the Carnegie Mellon University Strategic Plan 2025, found here. In this plan, the university outlines its overall vision and mission and details how it wants to impact the individual, the community, and the world at large by 2025.[2] But how many people were involved with the planning and to what extent? Was it the trustees, the university leadership, or a combination of both? Whatever it was, I feel that it needed to be a smaller and more intimate group of decision makers to start the process before being expanded to others.
With the onset of the coronavirus pandemic which resulted in the closing of many businesses and severe negative impacts on many others, organizations including CMU may need to put more of an emphasis on their strategic planning or reevaluate what they have done in the past in order to prepare for the future. Many organizations that plan in accordance with a classical strategy may need to consider how to be more adaptive or more visionary, if this is even possible to do. They may also need to reconsider how they evaluate current performance. An organization could be doing extremely well one day but could suffer greatly in the face of hardship. The coronavirus pandemic has been a huge disruptor to so many industries, but it may also be a disruptor to the ways in which we plan strategy and evaluate current performance. Or when things start to get back to normal, we’ll revert to our old ways.
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