StratTalk eNews — Issue 3, June 2008
June 2008Issue: 3
Welcome to StratTalk eNews. We’ve dedicated this issue to thinking, planning, and acting strategically. This edition captures 75 years of our management experiences and observations specifically in the past 10 years spent traveling around the world conducting 60 Minute Strategic Plan workshops with close to 10,000 people from every imaginable industry and discipline in attendance. We intend to share the feedback from thousands of people and tips with regard to strategic planning. And it is our fondest hope that we can form a strategic community to dialog regarding your experiences.
John E. Johnson, CEO
Anne Marie Smith, President
Leadership: Instant Gratification
The 60 Minute Strategic Plan is designed for people who are too busy or impatient to go through a lengthy conventional strategic planning process. We fondly describe this audience as attention deficit adrenaline junkies hooked on immediate action and results. Since the 60 Minute Strategic Plan has 12 steps, we wanted to devote each issue to one of the 12 steps. For those of you who have never read about the 60 Minute Strategic Plan, here are the 12 steps:
- Issue
- Assumptions
- Values
- Vision
- Customer Benefit
- Other Beneficiaries
- Obstacles
- Vital Signs
- Strengths, Weaknesses, and Opportunities
- Strategic Initiatives
- Actions
- Title
It is startling to know that over 80 percent of all medium- to small‑sized businesses have no strategic plan. So we begin all 60 Minute workshops by asking participants to describe the obstacles they have to strategic planning, summarized as follows:
- Don’t have the time, takes too long, costs too much
- Plan gets overridden by other agendas
- We failed to set aside budget to execute the strategy
- Management or Team fail to buy-in
- Plan quickly outdated by new information
- We failed to execute or follow up
- Plan was either too visionary or too tactical; i.e., too far out or not far enough
- Why bother the plans in my head (an entrepreneurial favorite)
12 Tips Regarding Step 1: Selecting the Strategic Issue
The first step in the planning process involves identifying the Issue. This is the step where you identify the strategic issue for which you want to devise a plan. Strategic Issues impact an organization and its future. They can be opportunities for, or obstacles to, growth. Organizations have a lot of issues to deal with; the job is to pick the one that is of highest priority or where you will see the most impact.
Here are 12 tips every manager should know about the Issue:
- 1: It represents an obstacle to, or opportunity for, growth.
- 2: When resolved, it creates a customer benefit.
- 3: When resolved, it improves competitiveness.
- 4: It cannot be resolved doing “business as usual.”
- 5: It calls for new levels of personal performance.
- 6: Strategic progress must be measurable and communicated.
- 7: Strategic activity is always superimposed on full work schedules (i.e., takes extra work).
- 8: It must have consistent strong leadership.
- 9: Senior management must buy into the effort and the result.
- 10: You, the driver of the issue, have the power to implement the strategy.
- 12: It requires budget support.
- 13: Strategic effort calls for constant vigilance, monitoring, and follow up.
Blog-O-Licious
The new StratTalk Blog has arrived. We are excited to provide weekly posts about ongoing strategic planning issues, ideas and suggestions. We started the blog to create an interactive forum where our CEO John E. Johnson can interact with members of strategic planning community in a positive and effective way. We welcome all of our readers to join in the ongoing discussion. If you have any questions, we want to hear from you. Please send Johnson an email at JohnE57@aol.com.