Strategic Plans That Get Executed

From the Executive Suite to the Front Line

Strategic PlanYou’ve done it.  You’re holding it in your hands. The perfect strategic plan. Months of effort by leaders from across the organization. You can almost taste the success it promises.  Well, almost…

Until you remember that’s how you felt holding last year’s plan.  The one you only accomplished 30% of.

Still, there’s a sense of satisfaction that you met the goal of creating a plan. The planning season is over, time to move on to other battles.  You distribute the plan and everyone puts it on the shelf next to last year’s plan.

It would be nice to break the cycle of strategic planning that doesn’t generate results, but how? Continue reading Strategic Plans That Get Executed

A Plan is Nothing…

…Planning Is Everything

In a 1957 speech, President Dwight D. Eisenhower quoted a statement he had heard in the Army, ”Plans are worthless, but planning is everything”[1].  Eisenhower understood that the thought processes and collaboration involved in planning are more valuable than the document.
Some organizations are good at creating and executing strategic plans.  Others don’t see the value in planning, or at least not enough to give it the time it takes.  In between you have those who faithfully create their plans and set them on a shelf to collect dust until next year’s planning cycle. Continue reading A Plan is Nothing…