Best timelines for strategic plans

You are about to begin a fresh round of strategic planning. The team is eager, but before the retreat starts, you have a tricky decision. What length of time should your organization create a plan for?

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Culture still eating strategy for breakfast

You have heard the saying that “Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast”. It has a ring of truth to it, but you don’t want to believe that strategic planning is futile – a victim of large, negative forces which cannot be overcome. But if it’s neither entirely right nor wrong, can we still use it?

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Culture Still Eats Strategy for Breakfast

You have heard the saying that “Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast”. It has a ring of truth to it, but you don’t want to believe that strategic planning is futile – a victim of large, negative forces which cannot be overcome. But if it’s neither entirely right nor wrong, can we still use it?

The most depressing naysayers warn us that fancy plans can only go so far. Jamaican culture on a whole, or a specific corporate culture, will only allow so much change, but no more. But is this just a cynical way of looking at the world? Should it be discarded, or is there an element of truth that should be included in your planning for 2023?

After all, you don’t want to waste time shaping interventions meant to move the company forward, which could be doomed from the start.

In this context, what is culture made of? While there are many definitions, let’s assume that it comprises unconscious habits, practices, and routines. We all have them. And when we humans come together in an organisation, we can’t help but bring these elements, combining them into one.

For example, all companies have people who complain about being treated unfairly. Some leave their ruminations in the car park. Others spend most of their workdays kvetching to themselves. But our definition would focus on the complaints which are continually shared in workplace conversations.

By contrast, the occasional complainant, who resolves matters quickly, does not add to the culture. When a single problem is solved, it goes away.

This definition of culture is one your strategic planners should adopt. Why? Most teams I work with want to include some kind of cultural transformation in their long-term plans. Unfortunately, they lack expertise in this area. They only know enough to label organisations they have experienced from the past, judging some as superior, and others toxic.

However, they don’t know how to create a large-scale shift from one level to another. Without this expertise, their objective remains more of a hopeful wish than anything they can operationalise. To make things more concrete, here are some practical steps to take to forge the kind of culture that supports your strategic plan.

  1. Go Past Current “Values” and “Purpose” Statements

If your company hasn’t revamped its core statements in the last year, chances are they are no longer offering much guidance. In the worst cases, staff only use them to point out hypocrisy gaps…the places where your leaders are not walking their talk.

If you find yourself in this kind of situation, the standard advice is to undertake a refresh. Rather than driving up further cynicism and resignation, retire the statements and declare that they have done their job. Set up an effort to define new ones in light of a fresh strategy. Point out their purpose: to help accomplish a specific long-term vision.

This is Blue Ocean-style, opportunity creation at its finest.

But most leaders may still want the documents to be vague, echoing the tone of the ones they are replacing. Today’s best practice calls for a different approach. Instead of being ephemeral and high-level, look to define specific behaviours so they can’t be mistaken.

  1. Specific Behaviours Listed in the Corporate Strategic Plan

It may become clear as you do your planning that some of your corporate culture must be changed. For example, a culture of constant victimhood isn’t likely to be innovative and entrepreneurial…the behaviours your new strategy needs to succeed.

But these initial phrases are only clues. They aren’t detailed enough. Instead, take a deeper dive into the specific behaviours you want to change. Here, they need to pass the Video-Tape Test. If they can be enacted on film, then they are clear enough to be included in your strategic plan.

For example, a phrase like “responsibility” may fail the test because it doesn’t speak to a specific behaviour. By contrast, “I apologise to those I have wronged” is a specific behaviour which is undeniable.

It’s also one which can be trained, coached, measured and added into a performance system. As such, it becomes a tool to assist in accomplishing the strategic plan.

While you may group similar behaviours for ease of transmission, it’s important to be careful. Why?

The fact is, this isn’t about a change for its own sake. Instead, the planning team should see a clear cause-and-effect relationship between newly envisioned behaviours and critical elements of the strategy.

As such, these are carefully defined, culture-change projects designed to shift specific behaviours. Although such efforts are challenging, don’t allow them to languish or be eaten up by a toxic culture no-one supports.

Role of the Corporate Strategy Officer

Your company is thinking about creating a new role: strategy specialist. This person should support the entire strategy creation cycle and help produce a strategic plan with impact. But what exactly should be that person’s responsibilities? What uncommon value should they add?

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What Role Does a Corporate Strategy Officer Play?

Your company is thinking about creating a new role: strategy specialist. This person should support the entire strategy creation cycle and help produce a strategic plan with impact. But what exactly should be that person’s responsibilities? What uncommon value should they add?

The challenge of filling this position is unique. Why? Strategy is the main job of the CEO or MD. They birth a new plan in a retreat or offsite, then ensure it gets implemented effectively. The effort is meant to define the future of the organization and accomplish outstanding results.

In many companies, the top executive is the only person who is consistently looking far ahead.

As such, strategy specialists are playing specific support roles. Here are some unique activities they should undertake.

  1. Manage and Change the Strategic Planning Process

The best practices for crafting a strategic plan are constantly in flux. For example, if you are still doing a SWOT analysis in your planning meetings in 2023, it’s a sign of outdated thinking.

The most qualified person to manage and update the strategic planning process in your company could be the strategy specialist. They can do the research needed to uncover improvements and test fresh technology. This keeps the process running efficiently, engaging participants along the way.

The truth is, it’s quite hard to create a great strategic plan with a bad process. Some may think it’s a matter of personality, but I differ. While a “strong” leader can make a difference, this is a group effort.

A strategy specialist recognizes this fact and knows that a top quality plan needs a wide range of employees to implement them. What holds them together is a well-defined process and skilled facilitation.

  1. Craft a Special Role During Implementation

When the planning cycle is over and implementation has begun, a strategy specialist needs to be wary of picking up the role of de facto project manager of “strategic initiatives.”

Instead, leave that role to the Project or Programme Management Office – PMO. This is, after all, their area of expertise. Alternately, focus on feeding the executive team with critical updates from outside. Here’s why it’s important.

Once a strategic plan has been completed, it’s not like adding another unit to a 1,000 home housing scheme. A carbon copy. Instead, it represents a compilation of brand new thinking.

As such, each strategic plan is built with a number of untested hypotheses, which themselves rest on a foundation of assumptions.

No-one can know for sure whether the hypotheses and assumptions are correct. But the strategy specialist must track whether they hold up as life unfolds.

In other words, long before an executive detects that there’s a huge threat to the current strategy, the specialist should have picked up early warning signs. In this sense, he/she is like a detective, scanning the horizon for bits of pertinent information which indicate a changing headwind.

It may be an industry trend. Or a fresh technology. Or a new government regulation. Perhaps a surprise competitor has emerged. These are all developments which threaten the foundations of the current strategy.

As such, they must be weighed and measured to determine if a revisit is necessary.

  1. Measure Implementation

At the same time specialists monitor the external world, they should ensure that the plan is taking root in the organization.

Most companies have past horror stories about strategic plans which were crafted, and sounded good on paper, but never reached implementation.

There are a number of pitfalls which can occur. Some have to do with a lack of accountability. There are difficult, feedback conversations which just don’t take place.

Part of the reason lies with a manager’s missing skills. But he/she also lacks data.

I recommend you use the Balanced Scorecard to measure how well your strategic plan is being implemented. It can also be used to test the assumptions and hypotheses within the plan.

In both cases, the company’s leaders can see at a glance whether implementation is actually taking place. But are they required to watch the numbers this closely?

Absolutely. Every single strategic plan is intended to move the needle in an organization. This change occurs at the expense of prior habits and priorities. The battle to make these changes is real.

The specialist ensures that this progress is being made. They also raise a flag when not enough is happening to ensure success.

In summary, the strategy specialist role is an unusual one that most organizations have not identified clearly. However, every serious organization must perform these functions. Even if they are all conducted by the CEO, they should never be allowed to fall through the cracks.

Has Your Vision Statement Lost Its Punch?

You want to engage your staff around a bright, hopeful future. At some point in the past, a two-paragraph vision statement did the trick. But lately, it’s gone stagnant. What should you do to restore the inspiration it once provided? Should you change the words, or try something different?

You aren’t alone. Most companies have vague statements which sound a lot like each other. With phrases such as integrity and world-class being thrown around, you could probably swap your statement with another company’s without anyone raising a fuss.

The truth is that traditional vision statements have lost their potency, like a drug which has reached its expiry date. Today, there’s clickable inspiration available on Facebook, WhatsApp and TikTok, and your old statement just can’t compete.

But there’s a lesson here as well. In your next strategic planning retreat, you need to do more than build your vision of the future with a few flowery words. Here are some concrete steps to paint a vivid picture or end-vision employees find irresistible.

  1. Give Your End-Vision a Deadline

When you announce a traditional vision statement, if it has no year attached to it, folks in your audience do something interesting. Some believe it will be reached within a year, at most. Others assume 100 years. And if you leave this discrepancy in place, you force staff to eventually ignore it altogether. Why?

They see it as a farce. A con job.

And don’t complain that this wasn’t your intention. The world has changed and expectations have risen. Now, a vision statement needs a year attached to bring the kind of accountability which makes people sit up and pay attention.

If you already have a statement, but it’s “timeless”, launch a new effort. Don’t simply tag on a cool deadline. The way you picture the future must keep up with modern norms if you want it to be noticed.

  1. A Vision Needs to Be Both Quantitative and Qualitative

Executives often make the mistake of believing that staff are motivated by financial results the way they are. Why? Most leaders’ rise up the ranks is a function of their ability to impact the bottom-line. Consequently, when they join the C-Suite, they are fluent in a certain language: the drivers of shareholder value.

However, employees aren’t interested as much.

Instead, a vision must be described in terms that do more than benefit the wealthiest 1%. Today, staff want to make a difference in the work they do and smart leaders develop empathy for this fact.

As such, the best executives describe holistic “visions” in detail. What do they look like? For a particular target year far off in the future, both quantitative and qualitative terms are used. They include as many as 20-40 descriptors and metrics. Together, these paint a rich picture of an end-game that pulls everyone in.

  1. A Vision Must Include ESG Goals

At the moment, Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) goal-setting is in its infancy. For most companies, it’s a response to investors’ complaints.

As such, organizations are adding a layer of ESG tactics on top of their profit motives.

But most of these efforts are reactive and will miss the boat completely. Why? The ESG movement is actually a revolt against short-termism.

How did it come about? By focusing only on 5-year results, corporate leaders forced organizations to be profit-driven only. As such, other factors and impacts were overlooked.

It’s an easy error to make. For example, many international companies doing business in Jamaica have ignored their surrounding communities. That is until their executives have to be airlifted and escorted from the compound in the middle of a violent strike.

But there’s a solution. Take your company through the process of developing a 15-30 year vision along with a strategy to accomplish it. This will return the balance. Why? When you plan far into the future, you are forced to consider all salient factors.

However, if you try to squeeze ESG concerns into your five-year plan, prepare for your staff to decry its stupidity. They may not complain openly. But their reaction will be to seek inspiration elsewhere, where they can find some authenticity, e.g. church or social media.

Not that this is easy. Big picture, long-term engagement is not taught in business schools.

But it can be learned and coached into existence. And it can be programmed into your business by following a sound long-term strategic planning process.

The world is approaching a time when only holistic visions, which are big, realistic and balanced, will gain respect. Investors have begun to notice and so have employees. Don’t let short-termism ruin your leadership.

What Happens When Vision Statements Lose Their Potency

You want to engage your staff around a bright, hopeful future. At some point in the past, a two-paragraph vision statement did the trick. But lately, it’s gone stagnant. What should you do to restore the inspiration it once provided? Should you change the words, or try something different?

To read prior columns visit https://blog.fwconsulting.com

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit longtermstrategy.substack.com/subscribe