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Home > Executive Report > Opinion

Make Strategic Planning Matter
Ron Price (January 20, 2009)

Strategic planning is too often associated with boring, predictable meetings that sap participants of energy and dilute accountability. To engage people and produce results, strategic planning should be treated as an ongoing, dynamic process with three distinct phases.

For any business, strategic planning is a necessity. It's the key to looking to the future and creating a direction intentionally as opposed to simply reacting to the marketplace on a daily basis. In today's fast-paced marketplace, strategic planning helps company leaders maintain their sanity and build a company based on the values that matter most to them.

Historically, strategic planning meant going offsite for a few days once a year and laying out the company's goals and direction for the next 18 to 36 months. And most businesses, especially the larger ones, feel they need to engage in this exercise to get everyone on the same page. However, surveys show that most executives are dissatisfied with the results they get from that investment of time. In fact, over 50 percent of executives say that they're unhappy with their strategic planning process right now. So while they think strategic planning is necessary, they don't fully realize the benefits they were hoping to attain from it.

Unfortunately, this often results in a cynicism about the strategic planning process throughout the organization, which further results in a lack of accountability and a lack of ongoing clarity in terms of the company's strategy.

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