16 steps to the next level

In our work with and in organizations, we see it up close: Plans are made but are not implemented or are poorly implemented. The promise of the vision of great future success is not reached. It's business as usual. The organization does not change. Strategic planning gets a bad name.

We have been asked to lead a "deep dive" workshop, Beyond the Basics: How to assure your planning will take your organization to the next level, at the Association for Strategic Planning's 2015 Annual Conference. To jump-start our thinking, we have cataloged 16 causes of planning failure and suggested remedies. Here's our "watch out for it and what to do about it" list, designed to help leaders involved in strategic plan implementation assure that their efforts take the organization to the next level.

CAUSE: Playing it too close to the vest.
Only the top leadership is involved in the planning process.

EFFECT: No tree falls in the forest.
A plan is in place but no one else in the organization knows about it or cares about it. Little or nothing happens due to the plan.

REMEDY: Bring everybody along for the ride.
Make the planning process more inclusive so those called to implement the plan help create it and are invested in it.

CAUSE: Navel gazing.
Not looking at the external situation - trends and forecasts - in creating the strategic plan.

EFFECT: "It's a small world, after all."
The plan does not address external effects on the organization and produces either minimal results or has no transformative effect.

REMEDY: Mind the weather and the conversation.
Conduct an environmental scan of the external environment, looking for trends and forecasts potentially relevant to the organization's future, as input into visioning and strategy making.

CAUSE: No food.
The plan is in place but resources are not in place for execution.

EFFECT: Malnutrition or starvation.
Plan implementation is ineffectual or the implementation program dies because the necessary people, funds and other resources are not devoted to execution.

REMEDY: Focus on resource needs.
Work to identify resources needed for success when developing and adopting strategies and action steps. Link strategy execution to the annual budget. Organize and otherwise source strategy execution as needed for success.

CAUSE: Out of gas.
Plan implementation starts with a bang, but then fizzles out.

EFFECT 1: Coasting to a stop.
Little or no implementation progress occurs after initial efforts.

REMEDY: Spotlight implementation.
Unless the leadership keeps plan execution in the spotlight as of utmost importance, others will tend to fall back to their prior operational activities. Have a specific focus on reporting progress and results. Have regular update sessions. Be clear that plan implementation is a priority.

CAUSE: Unfenced range.
In the name of the vision everything the organization does and can do becomes important.

EFFECT: Lost cows.
People and units go off on tangents, wasting energy, attention and resources that otherwise could drive movement to the vision.

REMEDY: Fence the range!
Make it clear that whatever does not make the lists of "official" strategies and annual actions steps is out of bounds. Otherwise, unless the activity or initiative is essential for current operations or, after review, should have been included in the plan, rein it in.

CAUSE: Grandiosity.
The plan envisions a grand future for the organization.

EFFECT: You can't get there.
The vision is not obtainable, and strategies won't work in attaining needed results.

REMEDY: Keep in touch with reality.
Use stakeholder input and environmental scan results to ground planning in reality. Widely circulate the draft plan to get feedback on how realistic it is. Don't immediately discount contrarians.

CAUSE: What, me worry?
The leadership goes through the motions of planning without real commitment.

EFFECT: Plan sits on the shelf.
The leadership really does not think meaningful change is needed.

REMEDY: Paint a compelling picture.
At the start of the process, have an internal or external change agent with standing demonstrate the risk of not planning and the reward from planning, using tools such as benchmarking, competitive analysis, trend and forecast analysis and case studies.

CAUSE: Complexity.
The plan is chock full of strategies to implement, each with pages of action steps to execute across the organization

EFFECT: Lost in space!
Not knowing what's most important to do and how all the strategies and action steps relate yields confused and insufficient execution.

REMEDY: Keep it simple, stupid!
Limit number of strategies and phase actions steps.

CAUSE: Left hand does not know what the right is doing.
Units, departments and teams act to implement the plan through their own lenses and without coordinating with one another.

EFFECT: Unintended consequences.
Plan execution is disjointed; results are not what was intended.

REMEDY: Understand dependencies and communicate.
When setting up implementation action steps, address execution dependencies among organizational elements. Have dependent units coordinate using meetings or cross-unit teams. On a regular schedule, share information with the wider implementation group - a dashboard, updates from teams, whatever brings clarity to who is doing what, progress and issues, obstacles and resource needs.

CAUSE: Fog.
The leadership is clueless about plan execution actions and results.

EFFECT: Running off the road.
The organization gets off track in implementation.

REMEDY: Measure and report.
Use metrics and reporting to keep track of what is happening in plan execution and its effectiveness and results.

CAUSE: Habit.
Newton's First Law applies to people and organizations as well as objects. They develop habits and a rhythm that is hard to change.

EFFECT: No change.
Nothing changes in organizational direction or results despite the plan for (positive) great change.

REMEDY: Apply an "unbalanced force."
Newton's First Law states, "An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force." Strategy implementation is a major exercise in organizational change management. Leaders and the planning group can do much to develop and maintain commitment to the plan and implementation. Leaders should "own" and articulate the vision, strategies and need for change at every juncture. Wide enlistment of people in plan implementation will build engagement, Messaging about the plan and implementation can build on logical and psychological appeals. Two-way communication about the need for execution and to hear views and concerns about plan implementation activities is vital. Incentives, starting with visible praise and reward for those driving implementation, helps build a culture of change and progress.

CAUSE: Pretending.
The plan is developed and put in place solely to deceive others into thinking the organization is actively using strategic planning and strategic management to derive a better future state. (Could also apply to sub-elements of the plan - X really is a target for attainment but Y is there only for show or to appease of others.)

EFFECT: Potemkin Village.
Despite appearances, there is no real plan in place or being executed. No organizational change or improvement work based on the plan is underway.

REMEDY: Call it like it is.
Leaders whose intent is greater success need to assure that the planning is not just "window dressing." Outsiders with the greatest stake in organizational success - Directors, analysts, lenders, other stakeholders - need to be clear-eyed when appraising plans and to call it like it is when the plan is only meant for "show."

CAUSE: Not my job.
Key actors in the organization resist changing activities and roles as prescribed by the implementation plan.

EFFECT: The planning effort gets stuck.
Actions fundamental to effective implementation do not take place, despite general buy-in and activity otherwise dictated by the plan.

REMEDY: Require accountability; remove the naysayers.
Assign accountability for action step implementation and visibly track implementation by responsible parties. Don’t let naysayers who will not change block the needed change. If they do not “get with the program” on their own, require that they get with it, and if they still don’t, then wall them off in a role where they will not damage the effort or remove them from the organization.

CAUSE: No marching orders.
People, teams and units are unclear about their role in plan implementation.

EFFECT: No movement.
Strategies that look good on paper do not get implemented.

REMEDY: Cascade action steps.
Implementation requires more than setting strategies and asking the organization to pursue them. Specific action steps need to be developed and assigned for all relevant organizational levels and units.

CAUSE: Didn't expect that to happen!
Something major occurs affecting the organization - think 9-11, Home Depot security breach, death of Steve Jobs, NFL players' abuse charges - that was not anticipated in the strategic plan.

EFFECT: Well, that won't work now!
Plan premises are affected to the point where the strategies and action steps being pursued will not deliver the envisioned future - or even more fundamentally, the envisioned future is now not obtainable or is not desirable.

REMEDY: Develop scenarios; restart the planning.
To help such an event from derailing the strategic plan, engage in scenario planning as part of the planning process - game out higher likelihood situations that could occur and develop response steps to "save" the current plan. After a "killer" event occurs, re-start the planning process where the current plan does not work. If the strategies are ineffective or wrong, redo the strategies. If the gaps are not what reality has subsequently demonstrated, start at gap identification. If the vision is not right, start all over.

CAUSE: One and done.
Plan implementation stops after the first year.

EFFECT 1: Abandoning the car on the roadside.
The initial investment in organizational transformation is squandered; no future progress is made toward to the vision of greater success. The organization resets at the level of minimal change (if any) achieved in year one.

REMEDY: Don't view planning as an event!
Institute strategic planning and implementation as a core organizational process, not as an event. Build annual assessment and re-planning (altering strategies and developing a new set of action steps annually) into the original strategic plan.

If you see other reasons why plans do not deliver results, please share them. We want our session to be as comprehensive as possible in identifying causes of plan failure and addressing what to do about them.