By Paul Plotczyk, President, WSA

In many companies, strategic planning is an annual activity that involves whisking top executives off-site to discuss the future of the enterprise.

The goal is to create alignment around a well-thought-out strategy that will provide continued success for the organization.

The result is often a voluminous document filled with more tasks and initiatives than can reasonably be completed while still maintaining the current business operation. In other words – a select list of great ideas that may or may not come to fruition while dust gathers.

What are the key flaws in the traditional strategic planning process? How can we improve the process? Is deliberately seeding the corporate rumor mill the answer?

What's Wrong with Strategic Planning Today

Few would argue the need for strategic planning but most would agree there is lots of room for improvement in the process.

Here are some key criticisms of the annual "gather the executives in a room" approach to strategic planning:

• Takes the top team away from the day-to-day business activities of the organization.
• Chews up huge organizational resources as several layers of leadership and support are consumed with the preparation of the event for weeks in advance.
• Honest debate, brainstorming and possibility thinking don't happen because there is too much competition among the team at the top.
• The feeling of goodwill and working for the good of the organization, often a product of executive off-sites, is short-lived. Too soon everyone retreats back to their silos and it is business as usual.
• The strategies and solutions that emerge from the event are often viewed as proclamations from the ivory tower of leadership and impractical to implement.
• It advances the thinking of an important but small portion of the organization. What about all the "divergent" thinkers that don't get a voice?
• The politics of the organization can engender posturing and turf wars rather than productive thinking and innovative strategic direction.
• It is a once-a-year event – what do you do when internal or external upsets occur a month after the strategy session?
• Does little to engage the 50% of the workforce that a recent Gallup pole described as "passively disengaged, just phoning it in."

The Solution – Strategy Dialogues and Rumor

One of the most effective tools we have used with clients to create improvements in their stategic planning process is the Strategy Dialogues. This approach leverages a combination of structured dialogue and informational conversation (e.g. rumor, "water cooler" conversations) to advance thinking about key strategic issues without creating a huge time sink and drain on the organization's resources.

Strategy Dialogues do not eliminate strategic off-sites but the tool does address all of the downsides of that traditional approach to strategic planning.

What is a Strategy Dialogue?

Strategy Dialogues are structured, facilitated small-group meetings of approximately three hours duration and typically composed of 6 -12 different people in each session. These sessions generally occur over a three to four month period prior to a formal, strategic planning event.

Who Participates?

Strategy Dialogues are designed to actively enlist the involvement and brain power of people who are involved in the real work of the organization and whose jobs are directly impacted by decisions made at the top.

The Strategy Dialogue approach recognizes and leverages the knowledge of the workforce and the potential power that comes from increased collaboration and employee engagement, regarding the future of the enterprise.

What Do They Talk About?

Participants are asked to discuss topics in each dialogue session that are critical to the development of strategy for the enterprise. The dialogues are substantive discussions responding to "what if" questions of the future, exploring intended and unintended consequences for the organization if it were to pursue one strategic direction versus another.

For example: "What if we were to contract out all of our engineering services? How does that impact our business internally? In the marketplace?" Or, "What if we were to consolidate our business around our primary global markets? How does that impact customers?"

What Happens to the Information?

The data gathered from the conversations, ideas, suggestions, etc. that are discussed in the Strategy Dialogues is used to form the agenda, preparation and content of a strategy development session involving executives and key members of the organization, usually within 3 months after the start of the Dialogue sessions to keep the flow of information fresh.

The Rumor Factor - Let's Give Them Somthin' To Talk About

Rumors are the mechanism which many people rely on as a primary source of information, often at the expense of accuracy. According to many studies on communication/information flow within organizations, "water cooler" conversations are often the most trusted sources of information.

Strategy Dialogues encourage and leverage this well used and popular information source.

Following each Strategy Dialogue session, participants are encouraged to talk openly about what they have heard to others within the organization, and to engage them in a thoughtful dialogue, which we ask them to share at the next session.

3 Primary Benefits of Rumor

There are 3 primary benefits of using this informal communication method:

1. It keeps ideas where they need to be in this type of discussion - in the creative domain of possibility thinking rather than pushing them into realm of final decisions.
2. It allows ideas to be explored without the weighty and dire sense of importance they would carry if they were introduced by some executive comment or in an executive session were politics and positioning often rule.
3. It involves and advances the thinking of a much broader population of stakeholders than is typically possible or usual.

4 Key Benefits of Strategy Dialogues

Strategy Dialogues are an ideal way to focus on specific issues that need to be addressed in forming a sound strategy.

They are designed to deliver results in four domains:

1. An increased willingness to collaborate. The results of collaborative behavior developed through this method would include an increased level of comfort, trust, improved working relationships, and provide a boost to the increased need for cross-boundary integration in many organizations today.
2. Shared ownership in the future of the enterprise. If the organization is to continue to play a significant role in its' particular industry, the goals of each division/group need to be in sync. For true strategic and operational success, collective ownership for the creation and execution of a strategy is required - or what's known as a shared "sink-or-swim" attitude.
3. Reduced resistance to change. Strategy Dialogues go a long way to engaging multiple layers of employees in the strategy implementation process which often mandates some type of change. People see strategic planning to be more than just one meeting where seemingly knee-jerk decisions are made that can have significant, unknown consequences. It becomes a systemic, organization-wide effort that builds on the knowledge of key employees and customers, and becomes a process that occurs over time.
4. Builds organizational balance and sustains competitive advantage. Strategy requires choosing what promises to make to customers and other stakeholders, and designing a way to deliver on those promises. The open discussions in the Dialogue meetings provide a method of learning to the need for the balance of strategy and action, which is key to developing and sustaining competitive advantage.