The Problem with Most Strategic Plans

Most strategic plans are not really strategic. They are operational plans with a longer time horizon — lists of things the organisation intends to do, dressed up in the language of vision and direction.

That is not a trivial distinction. A genuine strategic plan makes choices. It says what the organisation will not do as clearly as what it will. It identifies where the organisation is going to focus its limited resources, and why that focus is the right one. It is, at its core, a theory about how the organisation will create value — and a commitment to test that theory.

Most plans do not do this. And the consequences are significant.

What happens when strategy avoids choice

When a strategic plan tries to do everything, it effectively does nothing. Resources get spread across too many priorities. People receive conflicting signals about what matters most. The organisation moves in multiple directions simultaneously and makes limited progress in any of them.

This is not usually the result of poor intentions. It is often the result of a planning process that is more concerned with inclusion than with clarity. Every team wants its priorities reflected in the plan. Every stakeholder wants to see their concerns addressed. The path of least resistance is to include everything — and to call the resulting document a strategy.

The problem is that a plan without priorities is not a strategy. It is a wish list.

The discipline of saying no

Good strategy requires the discipline to say no — to good ideas, to legitimate priorities, to things the organisation genuinely cares about. That is uncomfortable. It requires making judgments about what matters most, and accepting that those judgments will not satisfy everyone.

It also requires honesty about capacity. Most organisations have more good ideas than they have the resources to pursue. A strategic plan that does not account for this is not a plan — it is an aspiration.

The organisations that execute strategy well tend to be the ones that have been ruthless about focus. They have identified the two or three things that will make the most difference, and they have concentrated their energy there. They have been willing to defer or abandon things that are genuinely worthwhile, because they understand that doing fewer things well is more valuable than doing many things adequately.

The planning process matters as much as the plan

A strategic plan that is developed by a small group and then communicated to the rest of the organisation is unlikely to be well-executed. The people responsible for implementation need to understand the reasoning behind the strategy — not just the conclusions — if they are going to make good decisions when circumstances change.

That means the planning process needs to involve the people who will be responsible for delivery. Not to give everyone a vote on the strategy, but to ensure that the strategy is informed by the knowledge and experience of the people closest to the work — and that those people understand and are committed to the direction that has been set.

It also means being honest about uncertainty. A strategic plan that presents a confident picture of a three-year future is probably not being honest. The organisations that navigate uncertainty well are the ones that have thought carefully about what they do and do not know, and have built enough flexibility into their plans to adapt as they learn.

What a useful strategic plan looks like

A useful strategic plan is not necessarily a long document. It is a clear articulation of where the organisation is going, why that direction makes sense, what the organisation will focus on to get there, and how it will know whether it is making progress.

It makes the assumptions explicit. It identifies the risks. It is honest about what the organisation does not yet know. And it is short enough that the people responsible for executing it can actually remember what it says.

That is a higher bar than most organisations set for their planning processes. It is also a more useful one.