Strategic planning is an indispensable organizational mechanism designed to establish priorities in the enterprise, focus energies and internal/external resources, strengthen operations, and ensure that employees and other stakeholders are working in unison toward shared goals. Using the plan to forge understandings around intended outcomes/results, leadership can then assess and adjust the organization's direction in response to a constantly changing environment or marketplace. Oftentimes, many professionals don’t fully comprehend the intrinsic values harvested from the essential mechanics of Strategic Planning.
Strategy forces leadership to confront a future they can only guess at. It’s about casting your fate to the wind, using calculated risk. Even worse, once choosing the strategy, this requires making decisions that overtly cut off myriad possibilities and options. Strategic Planning at its core requires a leap of faith, not entirely into the unknown, but not without challenges either. It’s really the most courageous portion of planning a successful future for your enterprise and fear and discomfort are an essential part of strategy making. The cliché which comes to mind is…”No guts, no glory”. It’s a true test of the emotional fortitude and conviction needed to succeed in the marketplace, based upon the strategy set forth as the roadmap to the winners circle. You are taking the empty-handed leap into the void, on a charted course only a well-oiled team can endure. Hence, ‘teamwork excellence’ is the lifeblood essence prerequisite to manifesting the desired results.
Strategic Planning has played an even more precious integral role in securing freedom from tyranny and political oppression. Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower and his general staff were known for their enthusiastic use of military strategists and battle planners to win decisive victories to end WWII such as “D-Day”, also known as, Operation Overlord on June 6, 1944. Operation Overlord was a Strategic Planning masterpiece, among the most complex in world history, which called for the movement of a total of 3 million men in 47 divisions, moved by 6000 ships with aerial cover provided by 6000 fighter aircraft of every kind. Operation Overlord was an overwhelming success (with major casualties only occurring at Juno and Omaha Beach) and was indicative of how well planned the Allied invasion really was.
“You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world”.
—Eisenhower, Letter to Allied Forces
Strategic Planning is the key element in managing a nation’s strategic resources and public infrastructure and so it goes for an enterprise. Planning the way forward, with the least amount of resistance in a competitive marketplace at the lowest impact to the company on all levels, results in longevity and profitability for the stakeholders.
In a wise quote from among the best known strategic planners - “It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence it is a subject of inquiry which can on no account be neglected”. – Sun Tsu
Roger Martin, author of the Harvard Business Review said, “True strategy is about placing bets and making hard choices. The objective is not to eliminate risk but to increase the odds of success”.
The way forward begins with knowing and carefully honing your Mission Statement, then using the phased approach of what I call the “Four D’s”…Define, Design, Develop and Deploy. Each phase vertically integrated into a finely-tuned series of interlocking cogs that all work precisely together like a fine Vacheron-Constantin watch, while using time to measure your most equitable vector to success.
~ Christopher Harriman, CEO Brightside Industries Group, LLC
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