Strategies, plans and the best of intentions

Are you involved in some kind of strategy, visioning or planning process at the moment?

Of course you are.

We love to create strategies, visions and plans. And more than anything, we love to create strategic plans.

In today’s article, however, we’re going to unpack the difference between a strategy and a plan, and explain the pitfalls of strategic planning.

What is a strategy?

A strategy provides us with a long-term view. Something aspirational to move towards. To inspire us.

A good strategy is light on detail and heavy on storytelling and imagery. It paints a picture of where we want to go and some broad suggestions about how we might get there.

“A good strategy has an essential logical structure that I call the kernel... It is like a signpost, marking the direction forward but not defining the details of the trip."

- Good Strategy Bad Strategy: The Diference and Why It Matters by Richard Rumelt

This idea of a “kernel” is important. It means we can explain a strategy in a few words.

• Our heritage strategy is to enable Māori stories and histories to be shared with our community.

• Our business development strategy is based on relationships and networking.

• Our community health strategy is to partner with local communities so they can support their own wellbeing.

Of course, an actual strategy document might have a bit more flesh to this “kernel”. Typically this might include:

• A vision - an explanation of where we are going

• Priority or focus areas - some high-level ideas for how we might get there

• Values - the underlying beliefs that will help us to reach our vision

• Context - an explanation of the conditions influencing us.

The timeframe for a strategy can vary depending on its purpose. Generally, a strategy should encourage us to look at least ten years into the future, if not more.

“We have a 500 year intergenerational vision… It is something that we live and breathe every day… It excites us. It scares us. But it’s a way of being. When we look back 500 years from where we evolved and then 500 years into the future, it gives us a level of comfort and security that we do have a good future, as long as it’s guided by our values.”

- Miriana Stevens, Ngāti Rārua, Ngāi Te Rangi, Ngāti Ranginui - speaking for Te Kai a te Rangatira

So in summary, a strategy is:

• Long-term

• Visionary, aspirational and inspirational

• Easy to explain and remember.

What is a plan?

A plan is a short-term picture of inputs, outputs and outcomes. It might be for the next month, 6 months, 12 months or (for larger investments) it might stretch to 3 to 5 years.

Once you have your long-term picture about where you want to go, now you can get into the detail.

The value of a plan is it provides a shared run-sheet for people to allocate resources, time and energy. It tells you what you need to do. It tells you what resources you need. And it tells you what risks to be aware of.

So, in summary, a plan is:

• Short-term

• Focused on activities, resources and timeframes

• Detailed.

What’s the problem with making a strategic plan?

Different rhythms are required for strategy and planning

Strategies and plans need to be reviewed and reflected on. And they each deserve different rhythms for this.

A long-term strategy might be reviewed every two or three years. An aspirational, long-term strategy should not be out of date within 12 months, unless there are drastic changes in your environment in that time.

A short-term plan, however, often needs to be updated every month, week or day. As we learn more about the impact of our actions, we need to change the plan. Often, as soon as we write the plan - it is out of date. If we were to review it every 12 months, it would be so out of date as to be worthless.

That’s the problem with combining your strategy and your plan in one place. You review the strategy part too frequently, and the plan part far too infrequently.

By separating our strategy and planning, we can create different rhythms for reviewing our path and adapting based on what we’ve learned in the real world.

The real world is complex

"Unfortunately there is very little evidence to demonstrate that strategic planning as an approach is successful in situations of complexity, despite the prevalence of the approach. It is important to remember that a critique of “strategic planning” is NOT a critique of being “strategic” and nor does it mean we eschew “planning.” - Zaid Hassan, The Social Labs Revolution

Zaid Hassan is one of a growing number of systems thinkers who see strategic planning as a key barrier to effectively making progress on the biggest challenges of our times.

This is because strategic planning often strips the aspiration out of our strategy. When we combine strategy and planning, often it is the rational detachment of planning that wins the day.

“[This] banishment of messy and potentially embarrassing emotions is one hallmark of the expert-planning paradigm,” Zaid explains.

Henry Mintzberg, author of 17 books on strategy, explains that this results in:

• Detachment - which means that “experts are detached from the situation on the ground and critically have no skin in the game.”

• Predetermination, which means that “activities are plotted out in advance” with the assumption that they will not need to be any different than planned.

• Formalism, which means that “if it cannot be measured or somehow expressed on paper, it cannot be taken into consideration.”

Planning is essential; having a rigid “plan” can often lead us to ignore what’s happening in the real world out of a sense of obligation to what we previously agreed.

Given the world’s complexity, we need to hold lightly to our planning, so we can adjust course as we learn by doing.

Strategy and planning need different mindsets

When we combine strategy and planning, the planning mindset almost always wins

The planning norms Mintzberg mentions above - detachment, predetermination and formalism - tend to creep into our strategy when we combine strategy and planning.

Instead of being aspirational with our strategy, we become realistic.

Instead of taking time to listen to all voices when developing our strategy, we condense the process and ignore important voices.

Instead of being visionary, we become pragmatic.

Instead of embracing emotions and storytelling, we turn to logic and analytics.

Strategy and planning require different mindsets and processes. When we combine them, the planning mindsets often win the day - leaving us with a half-baked strategy effort.

In summary, you should separate strategy and planning because:

• You need to review your action plans far more regularly than your strategy.

• Otherwise you’ll end up with too much detail and not enough strategic clarity.

• This helps you to actually say “no” to things - allowing you to say “hell yes!” to other things.

Action Steps

What can you do with this newfound perspective?

Two things.

First, the next time you find yourself in a conversation about a strategy or a plan - push pause on the conversation to check... 

• Are we creating a strategy (that is - a bold, aspirational, long-term view of where we’re heading)?

• Or are we creating a plan (that is - a short-term view of activities, resources and timelines)? 

Second, give us a call and we can guide you through the process.