Before you finalize your next strategic plan, ask yourself: Will it drive meaningful change?
Or will it become another document that sits on the shelf, only to be revisited when it’s time to create another strategic plan?
Too often, leaders create the strategic plan in isolation from the people who can ensure it translates into daily operations.
The result is a strategic plan that may look good on paper but fails to achieve the intended results.
A strategic plan is a powerful tool. It provides a roadmap, aligns people with the organization, and can create momentum.
However, in my work with executive teams, I have identified three fundamental flaws in strategic plans and planning processes that hinder organizations’ progress.
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Flaw #1: Assuming Setting Goals Equals Change
Setting strategic goals is not enough.
Just because people understand the goal doesn’t mean they will adopt the new behaviours and activities needed to meet it.
People will only take action toward the goals when they:
- have internalized the need, commit to adopting the behaviours, activities and attitudes, and unlearn current behaviours and activities.
- see and believe they are capable of engaging in the new behaviours and activities.
- believe that the organizational culture and environment support the new behaviours or activities outlined in the strategic plan.
Setting the goal provides direction, but achieving it requires changing behaviour.
Flaw #2: Failing to Identify the Specific Changes Needed
A goal, like expanding into the western market, may sound clear. However, because it’s abstract and broad, it doesn’t identify the changes people will need to make.
What will employees need to do differently?
You can’t achieve the goal unless you support and enable people to make the transition.
Flaw #3: Ignoring Your “Whirlwind”
Chris McChesney, in his book The 4 Disciplines of Execution, states that setting too many goals and not accounting for the “whirlwind”, that is, your daily operation, is one reason strategy fails in implementation.
Every organization faces the same dilemma: how to enable change while maintaining its current operations.
Failing to consider this results in burnout, change fatigue, and people reverting to the current state.
These three flaws compound, causing leaders to underestimate how complex, demanding, and uncomfortable adopting the changes needed will be. When you pair that with a resistant mindset- the belief that people resist change- the result is often people engaging in lots of activity, but achieving very little real change in the operation of the organization.
It’s like a heart beating too fast. Although it’s working faster, it’s not delivering what the body needs, creating a potentially life-threatening situation for the individual.
The same is true for your organization. When your organizational capacity and capability for change don’t match the amount of change being launched, you put your entire organization at risk.
Three Actions to Ensure Your Strategic Plan Creates Sustainable Change
1. Create a Clear, Concrete, and Concise Outcome Story
Setting goals is just the beginning.
Your outcome story illustrates what your organization and people will feel and experience once the goal is reached. It’s a story that inspires action and helps people let go and move toward something new and different.
When I helped one executive team turn their strategic goals into a clear outcome story, it reduced the conflict that had been paralyzing them and enabled the team to work together and move forward.
2. Assess the Full Scope of the Changes Required
It’s easy to think that once you have set a goal, you are done. However, setting the goal is only the decision to make a change.
The real challenge lies in navigating the whitespace between where you are today and where you need to be to realize that goal.
Achieving strategic outcomes requires a clear view of all the changes needed across the organization. This includes changes in individual and leadership behaviour, processes, structure, technology, and the acquisition of new knowledge and skills.
One company discovered that their strategic goal of a new CRM system was more than a technology implementation. To support that single strategic goal, the company needed over 25 changes. The changes ranged from new beliefs about customer interaction to behaviours, skills, processes, and learning a new technology.
3. Create and Use a Change Map
Every organizational change, regardless of size, sends ripples through your organization.
Changes are rarely isolated. They’re interconnected with operations, other initiatives, and your broader strategic goals.
A change map provides a clear, visual view of the changes and their interdependencies. It enables you to approach change strategically, capitalize on collateral benefits, and mitigate the impact of any single change on your operational capacity.
As one client put it, the change map “was a new way of thinking through our goals and strategy.”
Will Your Strategic Plan Enable Real Change?
Is your strategic plan achieving the results you intended?
If not, and you’re ready to design a strategic roadmap that enables real change, let’s have a conversation.
