Out of the wilderness
There are times in my life when I need to take a trek, explore new territory, look at things from different angles, hear new voices, let ideas simmer and stew, start new endeavors and then push them along to see where they go.
That's what I've been doing the past seven weeks rather than blogging on strategic thinking and strategic action.
So what did I learn and stir up that others interested in strategic thinking and strategic action might find useful?
First, I spent the best part of a week at the Association for Strategic Planning's annual conference and scored some great in-depth learning about important tools and approaches. I will delve more into what I learned and implications in future posts, but here are several things worth sharing now in condensed form.
Balanced Scorecard
I took a deep dive into The Balanced Scorecard strategic planning methodology, in sessions conducted by Howard Rohm and Gail Perry of The Balanced Scorecard Institute. For those not knowledgeable about the Balanced Scorecard, which was developed by Robert Kaplan and David Norton, it is useful in answering key questions about:
Opportunities and strengths you need to leverage.
Weaknesses or threats you need to overcome.
Your strategy profile areas.
Processes you must improve
Capabilities and capacities you need.
The Balanced Scorecard helps you balance the organization's competing needs and interests going forward. Go to The Balanced Scorecard Institute's website to learn more.
Rohm stressed that the Advanced Balanced Scorecard System goes beyond balancing needs and interests by:
Becoming a planning and management system that drives higher organizational performance.
Integrating strategic planning and strategic execution.
Clarifying and communicating the organization's vision, mission and strategy to employees and stakeholders.
Aligning day-to-day work to mission and strategy.
Prioritizing programs and projects.
Using strategic performance measures and targets to measure results.
Providing strategic guidance for budget performance and operational planning.
I don't doubt the advanced use of the Balanced Scorecard can deliver the benefits Rohm outlined, but I am concerned about the complexity of application and maintenance of the system. I hear repeatedly from those using the Balanced Scorecard in its less comprehensive application that it's a lot to implement, maintain and perfect. Is the typical medium-sized or smaller organization ready for the commitment over time and across the organization that using the Balanced Scorecard as a full-blown planning and management system will take?
Scenario Planning
Those who have followed my blog posts know I am obsessed about risk and how to address it in strategic planning. That's why I wanted to be sure to take in the session on scenario planning conducted by my friend Diane Meister of Meridian Associates, Inc.
Here's a short summary article from The Economist about scenario planning. A telling indication of scenario planning's value cited in the article is that the New York Stock Exchange built a second trading floor outside of Manhattan prior to the 9-11 attacks as a result of its scenario planning activities.
Meister advocates using scenario planning to support a three-year strategic risk management plan. Her approach calls for smaller and medium-sized organizations not to address a plethora of risks but to ferret out one to three high impact risks that could derail current growth strategies and key initiatives. For each of these risks, develop a simple scenario with a clear name that everyone will quickly grasp. Spend more time on developing high-level strategies to address each story rather than on perfecting the stories. Then identify and track predictive indicators and act early if it seems one of the stories is starting to unfold. Make a small bet when things start to go the wrong way, such as beginning work on a new product development concept.
The idea of focusing on the potential biggest risks seems very wise to me, as does Meister's urging that outsiders be involved in an organization's strategic risk identification process to give it a wider perspective from different viewpoints.
Faster, smarter decision cycles
Leland Russell, co-author of Winning in FastTime, and consultant Joyce Reynolds-Sinclair presented best practice approaches to accelerate and improve decision cycles. They stress that the "new normal" involves increasing complexity and speed due to information technology, global competition and interwoven financial markets. We are called on to improve the quality of our organizational strategies and plans and to conceive and act on them in shortened decision cycles.
While their approaches to deal with this increased complexity and speed are too lengthy to describe here, the basics are offered on the FastTime Leadership website.
The call for more robust and agile planning is one we should not ignore. I continue to see lengthy and over-involved planning processes being applied. The worry, of course, is the ship will have left the dock before the passengers arrive, that the strategies will be obsolete or ineffective by the time they are applied.
2012 Strategic Leader Survey
Another key activity I undertook in my time away was to develop and issue an e-survey to a wide variety of company and non-profit leaders. The purpose was to learn about how their organizations plan and make decisions and what they and their organizations need to become more strategic and gain the greater success that strategic planning and strategic management offer. Here are some important gleanings from the 2012 Strategic Leader Survey, which I just wrapped up:
A "strategic gap" exists in many organizations. While 81% of the organizational leaders responding to the survey say strategic planning plays more than a slightly significant role in their organization, only 26% say their organization makes strategic decisions using a formal strategic planning process. Nearly two-thirds say strategic decisions are made by the CEO or a small group.
The top three changes that the leaders would make in their organization's approach to strategy development if they only could are: (1) Improve identification of and focus on strategic issues; (2) Develop a method to monitor process again strategic plan; and (3) Improve company alignment with the strategic plan.
When asked about a multitude of skills that the leaders might think important for strategic management, the five in which the leaders say they are in most need of developing greater competencies are: (1) Identifying market opportunities; (2) Strategy formulation; (3) Communicating vision and strategy; (4) Leading change; and (5) Business planning.
You can learn more about the state of strategic planning and strategic management and how to improve it by getting the full 2012 Strategic Leader Survey Report at http://strategicbusinessleader.com/strategicleadersurvey.html.
Strategy Groups
A final channel of activity has been to explore how peer groups of non-competitive organizational leaders might be combined with information presented by subject matter experts and one-on-one strategy consultations with the participants to help group participants become strategic leaders.
I have been seeking ways to better promote strategic thinking, planning and action for greater organizational success, to push people and organizations to set and achieve lofty goals. My quest has led me to the strategy group concept, which I am now ready to roll out as an option for those interested in gaining the greater benefits of strategic thinking, planning and action. The 2012 Strategic Leader Survey validated the need for such groups and an interest in participation. You can learn more the strategy groups concept on the Strategic Business Leader website.
