Strategic Planning – Why Do Organizations Need Strategic Planning
Do you know of an organization that performs extremely well during a crisis? Maybe your own?
Organizations do well during times of crisis because executives, managers, and individual contributors all gain clarity of purpose, expectation, and action. Clarity, along with a sense of urgency, breaks down organizational barriers allowing people to work efficiently together toward achievement of the shared goal(s). These factors enable the organization to resolve the crisis quickly and return to normal operations.[wcm_restrict plans=”25541, 25542, 25653″]
On a day-to-day basis, especially during a period of continuous success, organizations tend to lose clarity of purpose and the sense of urgency. Over time, bureaucracy builds as a diminished focus on the organization’s mission prevents well intentioned executives and managers from relentlessly eliminating resource waste. Bloated processes make cross-organizational execution more difficult; driving employees to focus on their personal performance and success instead of that of the organization. Silos form and performance declines. Therefore, it is critically important for leaders to clearly define the organization’s goals and actions and to instill the sense of urgency that motivates employees to work effectively and efficiently together in pursuit of mission objectives.
Strategic planning provides the foundation for creating clarity of purpose and action on a day-to-day basis. A well-defined, measurable mission supported by specific organizational objectives and reinforced by vertically cascaded, horizontally shared performance measures and effective executive and managerial oversight creates and maintains the clarity of purpose needed for continuous success. Without the unifying vision provided by strategic planning, an organization may lose sight of its goals, stray from the road to success, stumble, and ultimately fall; failing to keep pace with competitors in today’s extremely aggressive marketplace.
Final Thought…
Some organizations become victims to cyclic performance. When this occurs, the downward slide is typically viewed as a crisis for which the organization rallies to improve performance. Having realized a performance upswing, the organization becomes complacent, losing its focus and once again falling behind the competition. This cycle is often the product of ineffective strategic planning and will likely continue until a strong, unified vision is created and embraced by all members of the organization.
It is the hope of all StrategyDriven Contributors that the concepts and materials provided on our website will help you to develop and communicate the unified vision needed to make yours a truly StrategyDriven Organization.[/wcm_restrict][wcm_nonmember plans=”25541, 25541, 25653″]
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About the Author
Nathan Ives is a StrategyDriven Principal and Host of the StrategyDriven Podcast. For over twenty years, he has served as trusted advisor to executives and managers at dozens of Fortune 500 and smaller companies in the areas of management effectiveness, organizational development, and process improvement. To read Nathan’s complete biography, click here.