A long while ago this blog was created to drive our vision that every organization has a strategic plan and is acting on it.  Our quest was and remains remedying what we saw and still see as a major deficit in many organizations: The lack of strategic thinking, strategic planning and plan implementation.

What distinguishes humans and human organizations from other organisms and their groupings are intentionality and goal-seeking. Wolves hunt in packs and flocks of geese fly south for the winter, but their survival behavior is a result of evolution, not of thought that produces group behavior and direction. This understanding of the advantage that accrues to humans who think and act as leaders and functional group members is why I shudder as though I hear fingernails screeching on a blackboard when I encounter an organization without intentional direction. It's simple to keep doing the same thing; it's thoughtful, indeed, smart to change what you do to achieve a better result (or avoid losing out to smarter organizations).

Here's a list of a dozen statements about strategic planning.  Can you tell the myths about strategic planning from the truths (or at least what I know to be the truths as a certified strategist who has been involved in planning for decades)?

Value is at the heart of business success.  Learn what customers and other stakeholders will value, find ways to create value, grow value and maintain the value you provide in the face of others' frontal assaults and flanking innovation. Yet, we are in a world that on the face seems price driven. Whether it be Wal-Mart versus Target, automobile dealers, commodities suppliers or trade groups, price is where the action seems to be.

In World War II the allies learned early on that it was better to sail merchant ships in protected convoys across the Atlantic Ocean as opposed to letting each ship chart its own course at its own rate. The escorted convoy offered more protection from deadly submarines, mines and air attack. Sometimes the protection was ineffective, even illusory, but the method did save ships and deliver essential food, goods and war material. Yet going it alone sometimes seems better. That's the theory of Blue Ocean, described by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne in their book, Blue Ocean Strategy. Blue Ocean encourages not doing the same thing as market leaders and competition and instead finding an open market space or niche that is uncontested. The iPad, Salesforce.com, Southwest Airlines, the Tata Nano, Netflicks - these are all examples of products and services that are more or less "Blue Ocean." Bue Ocean certainly seems compelling - clear water, no competitors attacking, growth and great destinations ahead!   Yet, Blue Ocean is easier envisioned than achieved.

What's the latest episode of your business? You know, what drama or problem or issue or sudden event are you wrestling with? Between news media encapsulation of whatever is happening at the moment as "the big thing to pay attention to" (something I somewhat regrettably helped promote as a former reporter and editor), television sit-com enactment of life as a series of short vignettes and Wall Street analyst intense scrutiny of every company move and short-term performance, we are taught to look at life as what's happening NOW in front of our noses. From a strategy perspective, this myopia is a very bad thing.

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.

Remember the classic Seinfeld episode?

This funny story of George's potential employment with Vandelay Industries, part of what is reportedly Jerry Seinfeld's favorite episode of his show, came to mind a few days ago when both Kraft Foods and Abbott Laboratories announced names for their new spin-off companies.

It happened several times this past week.  I'm networking and meet a business person.  I introduce myself as a consultant dealing in organizational strategy.  The other person responds with something like, "Oh, I'm in strategy, too, I'm in change management."  Yet, when we talk it becomes clear they are not operating at the strategic level, they deal with tactics, facilitating the introduction and development of projects, programs or processes in or between functional areas or departments (IT and accounting, for instance).

Does a cat know it's a cat?  If it knows it's cat - or doesn't know it's a cat - how does that influence its behavior? As a cat owner, I can tell you cats are highly assertive and very effective at getting their way.  Sam the cat has me well trained to meet his needs.  I am not sure what he thinks he is, but he has a strong self identity from which flows the set of actions he takes every day: sleep, eat, play, roam, watch birds, seek affection, bite, and so on.

As a strategic planning professional, I'm driven by these questions: How can I be a better strategic planner What's "state of the art" and "cutting edge" in strategic planning; What are significant strategic planning trends? What are the problems with strategic planning and how can they be addressed to improve planning use, process and outcomes? I've initiated discussions to try to get at these issues in three LinkedIn groups: Strategic Planning Xchange, Association for Strategic Planning and Strategic Planning Society. The discussions have been robust, offering great insight on planning issues and trends.

Strategies are the major planned steps that will move the organization across the strategic gap from where it is today and where it otherwise is heading to the brighter future offered by the organization's shared vision of success. Organizational success most always arises from crafting and executing strategies to move toward a vision.

Strategic planning occurs in a realm that can make operations, sales and other highly tactical, results-focused people very uncomfortable.  Taking a big step back, pushing thought laterally, entertaining other realities, trying to look over the horizon to see what is or will be there, gaming various futures and seeking strategies that will reroute or even upend the organization can be quite unnerving to people who are focused on winning the current battle being fought on the ground.Yet these people are to be celebrated, because they are the implementers.  Without implementing strategies, however elegant the strategic plan and resulting strategies are, the organization will go nowhere and certainly will not change for the better.

There's the idea...and then there's making it happen. I think we should be focusing on the "ideas versus execution" challenge. The idea is important, but the execution is more important.  Seeing the mountain and saying, "hey, let's climb it" is far different than actually climbing it.

Serial entrepreneurs like me typically retain strong memories of our first big entrepreneurial venture, sometimes great, sometimes not so great. Whatever the outcome, we are best served by learning from what we did, so in future ventures we avoid what did not serve us well.

The speed of strategy is not related to calendar time.  Timing for the right market move, investment or shift in focus is predicated on opportunity or threat, and ability, not the start of the quarter or year.  Sometimes the need for commitment to or change in strategy is slow in developing, other times it arises lightning fast. The annual budgeting and resource allocation cycle is of course a key step in plan implementation.  But it should not drive the strategic planning process.  Finding winning strategies and getting on the road to implementing them should be driven by opportunity, need, threat, change, competition and other similar factors.  Like budgeting, planning should be recurring, but just making it a rote process ahead of budgeting disconnects it from the events that make planning so important.   Fundamentally, the time to plan is when you either don't have strategies that are pulling you to an idealized future vision for the organization or when your strategies are not longer effective or appropriate.

The nomenclature issue has vexed me throughout my planning career, most recently as I prepared to sit for the Strategic Management Professional certification examination.  The study materials and references covered the gamut of planning practices, systems and approaches.  It was obvious that no standard language exists in strategic planning.  (The CPAs and CFOs have it easy, with accounting organizations and governmental bodies promulgating accounting standards.  As long as you know what set of accounting standards you are following, you can look up the term and know what it means!)

Talking this morning with a serial entrepreneur whom I highly respect, the question of business scale came up.  What's the right size for your business?  Should you stretch to grow?