Before retiring I spent over 30 years developing strategic plans as the CEO of my own firm. I dealt largely with non-profits but also had some business clients. As with many such plans, the end result always called for raising significant amounts of capital which gave me an opportunity to see how well the plan would sell to its particular constituency. Since none of the capital campaigns failed I have to assume the underlying strategy was sound and it became apparent that a few basic principles were the reason. Here are some rules I set out as my guide and they always proved effective. They were not always popular rules and, when politics were involved, they became somewhat controversial. So be it.
1. Probably the most important rule, and the one hardest for my clients to grasp, is that effective strategic plans are 100% conceptual in nature. The minute you start discussing how to implement anything, you are straying. Implementation is a tactic but it is definitely not a strategy. A good strategic planner needs to learn how to think differently. I hate to use the expression "think outside the box", never being aware of exactly what is inside the box, but you know what I mean. For example, deciding that the basic character of a city should remain unchanged is a strategy. How accomplish that is a tactic.
Another example, would be a nonprofit wanting to greatly expand it's constituency through the introduction of additional programs. That's a strategy. What those programs might be is a tactic. It takes constant vigilance to keep the two from merging into some intellectual mish mash that will go nowhere. I worked, for a short period of time with a retired admiral. When he was on active duty he commanded a huge fleet of ships as well as shore facilities and you would think strategic planning was in his blood. He couldn't tell a strategic plan from a restaurant menu, and the project he was interested in never came to pass because the first thing he insisted on doing was printing a brochure. That might have been a great tactic if it were only backed up by a great strategy but it wasn't. Failed strategic plans are quite often called "mission statements."
2. An effective strategic planning group is small. There should never be more than 6-8 people sitting around the table developing strategies. I lived in a city once that formed a "strategic planning committee" consisting of 39 members, many of them citizens off the street. When asked for my opinion I told the mayor it was doomed to fail. They went ahead and, sure enough, the process fell flat on its face and the mayor lost his job the next election. How he expected the average citizen to have any idea how to develop a strategic plan was never made clear.
Planning committee members should represent the brightest minds that can be assembled. I don't necessarily mean highly educated people. I was a college president and I can tell you the last person I wanted on a strategic planning group was a faculty member with six degrees. If you look hard enough at the available people to serve, it won't take you long to recognize those that can think outside the box, who may, at times, come up with some screwy ideas, but also a brilliant one from time to time. The only rule to be applied to these people is that they must never have a personal agenda - a free and open mind is the basic requirement. You are looking for a Thomas Jefferson or an Abigail Adams, not their cooks.
3. Never put a political figure on a strategic planning committee. First, they all have their own agendas, hidden or otherwise, dooming the effort from the start. However, once the plan is approved and someone asks "how are we going to get this done" a politician can often be invaluable in providing an answer. Another person who should never be invited to serve on a planning committee is a current or past member of the governing board. You are seeking fresh ideas, not those that are anchored in the past or the present.
4. Keep the language in the plan straightforward and simple. This is not the time to engage in creative writing. If you need charts and graphs or other visual aids to make a point use them but be stingy about it. You are not producing a brochure you are laying out concepts.
5. A good strategic planning committee will have, as its chair, a strict disciplinarian. By its very nature, strategic planning will produce many ideas, some of them really off the wall. That's as it should be, but it helps if it is agreed to limit the amount of discussion that takes place regarding any particular idea. If five or six people can't determine if an idea is good or bad in say, one hour, you probably have an individual in the group who won't shut up, or the idea isn't worth further discussion.
6. It's often necessary to call in non-members of the committee to ascertain facts or explain ramifications of an idea. If you are developing strategies that relate to public safety you certainly need to talk to the sheriff. Other than that, the proceedings of the committee should stay within the committee. Discussing what takes place in committee meetings with anyone should be forbidden. If you do not do this, word will leak out and pretty soon a member of the press will be camped on your doorstep. If that happens serious problems might occur. Later, rather than sooner, the public, or the institutions' constituency needs to be informed because they are the ones who have to buy into the plan, but leaking out details of the plan before it is complete will almost always ruin any chances for success.
7. Tip O'Neal, the legendary Speaker of the House of Representatives said "all politics are local". In the world of strategic planning, virtually every good plan is regional. It always puzzles me to see one town form a planning group and 30 miles away another one does the same and then 35 miles in the other direction yet another one does the same. They obviously never heard of the phrase "sphere of influence". If you picture the largest town in the middle of a bull's-eye, moving out in concentric circles, the towns within a 2 hour driving distance are within the larger towns' sphere of influence. If a business comes to the area and employees 300 people those employees will most likely come from all three towns. Regional planning is cost-effective and particularly successful when an effort is being made to attract new industry. It's somewhat of a paradox that local political prejudices tend to obstruct regional planning but once the process is started they tend to disappear.
Following these rules, although not a guarantee that a good strategic plan will emerge, will certainly stop an organization from making the usual mistakes. I can't emphasize enough that the plan will only be as good as the minds that develop it. I've had extremely bright people on some of the strategic planning committees I worked with, many national and international figures, and it often took several sessions before they grasped the difference between conceptual thinking and tactical thinking. The mind, particularly the American mind, is accustomed to thinking "let's get it done" which is an attribute of tactical planning, and often overlooks the need for an underlying strategy. During WWII, Eisenhower and his staff decided the invasion of Europe was an absolute necessity if they were to win. That decision was a strategy. The D-Day invasion was the tactic that proved the strategy successful. If Ike could do it for the world you can surely do it for your organization.
Ed_Dugan
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