Are You Ready for Strategic Planning?
by Sally Mizerak

Before your organization begins a strategic planning process, you need to ask some critical questions. Starting this process if you are not ready, able to sustain the effort or committed to implementing the changes that result will result in either frustration or failure.

• Are you doing this for the right reasons? Are you looking for next year's work plan or are you looking for a substantial competitive advantage that can take you to the next level?

• Are the right people involved? Is this the small group who will then try to sell the plan to the rest of the organization or is there a representative group that can speak for different constituencies?

• Is there sponsorship at the top? Is the CEO a personal champion? Is he or she willing to be a full participant in the Steering Committee?

• Is there an understanding that strategic planning is a process, not an event? Is there an adequate commitment of time and resources to support the process?

• Is information available to support planning? Is there internal information to assess strengths and weaknesses? Is there external data to assess competition, trends and opportunities?

• Is your organization willing to ask tough questions about weaknesses and quality of leadership? Will leaders look at themselves first, understanding that organizational transformation follows personal transformation?

• Is your organization willing to take risks and change? Will stakeholders support change?

• Are there good communications systems to support planning and to engage people as changes evolve? Rumor can undercut change. There must be culture of open communications and trust to build buy in to change.

• Do participants have the interpersonal skills to communicate effectively, tackle tough issues honestly and focus on solutions not blame?

• Do the leaders expect strategic planning to work? If they expect it to succeed it will. If they are sure it won't succeed because of prior negative experiences, they can ensure its failure.

If you answered YES to 7 or more of these questions, you are probably ready to consider strategic planning. However, #3 is a required Yes. If you don't have sponsorship at the top of the organization, plans will not be implemented and everyone will be resistant to planning the next time.

Look at the questions you answered NO to. Except for #3, all of them can be addressed through coaching, training, systems development or better information. This is not meant to discourage you from strategic planning, only to caution you not to rush into it before you are ready.

Effective strategic planning can create a capacity for change that will serve your organization well for years to come. It is a vehicle for developing vision, creating team learning and strengthening leadership skills while creating an innovative plan for the future. It takes time, energy, resources and commitment but it can produce new direction, improve management practices and get people behind a common goal in a way that gives new meaning to their work. If you're ready, it's worth the effort.

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Sally Mizerak is President of Performance Drivers, Inc. Sally is an experienced facilitator, strategic planner, consultant and speaker on strategic, customer-driven change. Learn more about Sally . . .

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