As a strategic planning facilitator, whenever someone asks me if it’s possible, useful, or necessary to develop a strategic plan during times of volatility and uncertainty, I always say some variation of “yes.”
Except…
There are three scenarios where a new strategy may actually be unhelpful — or at least not your best investment of time. Maybe one of these applies to you right now?
Continue reading “When not to plan”“It all feels like too much.”
When you find yourself thinking this, or bravely speaking it aloud, it can be hard to remember what levers you have available to pull to make things feel more manageable. There are multiple pathways to ease the pressure.
Continue reading “Five Ways to Take Some Pressure Off”Being strategic involves more than strategic planning, but that planning cycle is one place it often shows up. When I think about the strategic planning work that has been most impactful over my career, the impact has come not from the content of the plans themselves but from the commitment of the leaders behind them to use the strategy as a decision-making guide. These are people who have embedded the intentions of their strategic plans into the daily workings of their organizations over the long haul. As a result, they have plans, as I say in the strapline of my book Sightline, that “gather momentum not dust.” Here are two such examples, in the early stages of their strategy implementation cycle:
Continue reading “Strategy Exemplified”We tend to be sloppy about the word “strategic.” If we were sitting in a group and I asked you to define it, I suspect people would struggle with the task. They’d probably default to someone who can write a strategic plan. Yawn.
Continue reading “The Secret Sauce of Strategy”You’ve likely heard about Yvon Chouinard’s recent decision to transfer his ownership of his company, Patagonia, into a “Purpose Trust,” with the proceeds going to fight climate change.
As a strategist, two elements of this decision stand out to me: go all in, on a few things.
Continue reading “All In”
