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PlanningStrategic planning

Don’t Let Strategy Become Planning

by Roger Martin

 

February 5, 2013

I must have heard the words “we need to create a strategic plan” atleast an order of magnitude more times than I have heard “we needto create a strategy.” This is because most people see strategy as anexercise in producing a planning document. In this conception,strategy is manifested as a long list of initiatives with timeframesassociated and resources assigned.Somewhat intriguingly, at least to me, the initiatives are themselvesoften called “strategies.” That is, each dierent initiative is astrategy and the plan is an organied list of the strategies.!ut how does a strategic plan of this sort dier from a budget" #anypeople with whom I wor$ %nd it hard to distinguish between the twoand wonder why a company needs to have both. &nd I thin$ they areright to wonder. The vast majority of strategic plans that I haveseen over 30 years of working in the strategy realm are simplybudgets with lots of explanatory words attached. This may be

the case because the %nance function is deeply involved in thestrategy process in most organiations. !ut it is also the cause of thedeep antipathy I see, especially amongst line executives, towardstrategic planning. I $now very few who loo$ forward with 'oy to thecommencement of the next strategic planning cycle.To make strategy more interesting — and dierent from abudget — we need to break free of this obsession withplanning. Strategy is not planning ( it is the ma$ing of anintegrated set of choices that collectively position the %rm in itsindustry so as to create sustainable advantage relative tocompetition and deliver superior %nancial returns. I %nd that once

this is made clear to line managers they recognie that strategy isnot 'ust fancily)worded budgeting and they get much more interestedin it.*bviously you can+t execute a strategy without initiatives,investments, and budgeting. !ut what you need to get managersfocused on before you start on those things is the strategy that willma$e these initiatives coherent.That strategy is a singular thing there is one strategy for agiven business — not a set of strategies! It is one integratedset of choices" what is our winning aspiration where will we

play how will we win what capabilities need to be in placeand what management systems must be instituted#

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That strategy tells you what initiatives actually ma$e sense and areli$ely to produce the result you actually want. Such a strategyactually ma$es planning easy. There are fewer %ghts about whichinitiatives should and should not ma$e the list, because the strategyenables discernment of what is critical and what is not.

This conception of strategy also helps de%ne the length of yourstrategic plan. The $ve %uestions can easily be answered on onepage and if they ta$e more than %ve pages i.e. one page per-uestion then your strategy is probably morphing unhelpfully into amore classical strategic plan.This de%nition of strategy can be disconcerting to those who havespent a lifetime generating traditional strategic plans. /ot long ago Ifacilitated a day long strategy session with the senior team of a verysuccessful 012 billion company with an outstanding 34*. !y the endof the day in part than$s to a goodly amount of pre)wor$ by the headof strategy, we got to a nice set of integrated choices. Icongratulated the group on its great thin$ing and wor$ing andairmed what I 'udged to be an excellent strategy.#y enthusiasm notwithstanding, the 34* was troubled. I as$ed himwhy. “Is that all we have to do"” he as$ed, as if he thought he hadcheated on an exam. I am sure he expected that he had to %ll bindersand long lists of initiatives to feel that he had been thorough in this year+s strategic planning process. I reassured him that he had givenstrategy anything but short shrift. &nd that day strategy prevailedover planning. I suspect that 34* will never go bac$.So if you pass the %ve)page mar$ is time to as$5 &re we answering

the %ve $ey -uestions or are we doing something else and calling itstrategy" If it is the latter5 e'ect, e'ect6