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State of the Art Best Practices Report
The Top 12 Strategic Management Mistakes by Corporations
Problem #8 Continued...
Now, planning and change, planning and change, planning and change on a continual basis—day-day, week-week, month-mon and year-year is our PRIMARY job. And, Strategic Thinking at the highest level is where our added value to the organizations should now be. We have to be flexible and adaptable as planning in the 21st century is about Planning for Change.
And, Strategic Planning is just the highest form of planning and the first of the Five Functions of Management—not a fad or just a nice thing to do. These are some of the highest skills required of leaders if you look at the Leadership Competencies Pyramid as part of this 8th Best Practice. Strategic Planning is Level Six (the organization in its environment) and Strategic Change is Level Five (the entire organization).
However, the helicopter view of life and work tells us that the environment around us is not static but ever changing and so must we. Hence, planning and change. Jack Welch said it best:
If the rate of change on the outside exceeds the rate of change on the inside,
the end is near!
So make sure you schedule and take the time to focus on the future, not just the day-day. Whenever you have regular meetings with your team, separate your agenda into two items like this:
- Desired Outcomes and the Strategic Changes it requires—specific actions, values and the like
- Then, and only then, cover day-day operational activities
Planning and Change are the PRIMARY job of Leaders
Society
It is just amazing to me how little Leaders in the public sector understand their job as it relates to planning. Chief Executives (whatever their title) seem to miss that this is The PRIMARY job they have. We see one of two things:
- They do not even have a Strategic Plan for their organization. Or,
- While they have a supposed planning process, in the pursuit of egalitarianism, they have this process led by a cross-section of Employees do it, while they abdicate their role and any involvement in the process personally. No wonder the Plan has no backing.
Organization
In private sector organizations we do see many CEOs take this role of Planning seriously. However, they often seem to see it as a yearly ritual (especially Credit Unions) without being tied to any formal execution, implementation or change process. Then they wonder why no change occurred
Strategic Management
What is the difference between Strategic Planning and Strategic Management? One is a subset of the other. Strategic Management includes Strategic Planning plus Strategic Change as well as Strategic and Systems Thinking. In other words:
Strategic and Systems Thinking + Strategic Planning +Strategic Change = Strategic Management, which should be institutionalized as a Yearly Strategic Management System and Cycle even though the Strategic Plan itself should look out 3+ years. You do not implement a Strategic Plan, you implement an annual plan BASED on the Strategic Plan.
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