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Is Your Strategy Gathering Dust?
by Mike Wagner
 He was the CEO of a financial services firm with 30 employees located in three states. Our business discussion began with his seemingly innocent question, "Does your company lead strategic planning sessions?"
The tone in his voice told me he wanted my answer to be, "No." So I probed a bit more, "That's an interesting question, why do you ask?"
He pointed to a shelf in his office containing a series of binders labeled 2003, 2004, 2005... all the way up to 2009.
"Those are our strategic plans for the last seven years. An elegant binder for each year - and not one of them has made a real difference in this company. I asked you if you did strategic planning because I want to know...
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Brand Challenge:
Does everything in your strategic plan tie back to serving your customers better and turning them into raving fans?
Too often organizations go into strategic planning sessions with a "what's best for us" mentality. These plans are rarely implemented because what's best for you is rarely what's best for your customers. Strongly-branded organizations understand that good business decisions and plans start by knowing who your customers are and what is important to them.
Challenge: Use these simple questions to challenge what should be included in your next strategic plan:
- Who is our strategic plan for?
- What customers are we trying to reach with this plan?
- How will achieving each action item affect our customer experience?
If you can't connect action items back to providing a remarkable customer experience, it doesn't belong in your strategic plan. Focus on customers in your next planning session and watch the number of actionable ideas soar.
Ask the Rabbit
Q: It's that time of year when we start the annual strategic planning process. It seems like the only tangible thing we get out of this is another binder that sits on my shelf collecting dust. Is all this really necessary?
A:Most of us have experienced exactly what you have described: numerous meetings where you're expected to bring forth goals, objectives and action items for the coming year. Often they don't change much from the previous year since most items were never implemented. It is often a frustrating "ritual" many practice because that's what good companies do".
In our experience, clients have achieved greater success in determining their Sweet-Spot Customer and Brand Promises before a traditional strategic planning session. Then everyone is focused on the same customer and outcomes when planning.
In fact, several of our clients have "traded in" this traditional, once a year strategic planning process for the day-to-day empowered leadership that is achieved through Performance Branding. |
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