The Case for Bringing Outside Planning Consultants In

Posted by on August 30, 2010

An internal corporate strategic planning team can bring significant benefits to its organization. The awareness and understanding internal teams bring to the table mean that they can deliver strategic and operational plans that have the following advantages:

• They are based on the organization’s proven ability to deliver.
• They are optimized for the company’s political environment.
• They leverage the core competencies of the organization.
• They take into account corporate culture.
• They are communicated through known channels in the organization.

With the many advantages of internal strategists one may wonder why an internal corporate strategic planning team would ever seek the assistance of outside consultants.  In fact, there are many good reasons to look outside the organization. Here are some of the most common realizations that cause an internal team to consider outside strategic planning resources:

• The organization’s plans are failing to consistently deliver intended outcomes.
• The organization’s growth has stalled.
• Corporate culture is eroding and/or the organization is experiencing morale problems.
• Revenue and/or profitability are declining.

So what can an outside strategic planning firm do to address these issues more effectively than an internal team can do alone?  Let’s look back at the advantages listed above for the plans delivered by the internal team and compare those to what an external strategist can bring to the table. 

The capacity to create strategic plans that are based on the organization’s proven ability to deliver:

In any organization, there are actions or decisions that are made which can result in positive acceleration (increase in speed) or negative acceleration (decrease in speed).  Knowing in advance how the organization will respond enables strategists to devise their plans with realistic timeframes within which the organization will be expected to deliver.  This “historical acceleration” brings into account how fast the organization can reach a desired goal. 

For example, a plan might have the desired goal of increasing revenues by 15% over a certain time period based on accomplishing a certain set of tasks.  While it’s true that internal strategists have “been there, done that” when it comes to knowing the abilities of the organization, external strategists bring with them techniques that allow them to measure the historical rate of change.  These mathematical techniques can bring the external strategist’s understanding quickly in line with the internal team. And many times, the external team can be even more accurate since there is no bias involved in assessing the organization’s actual historical acceleration. 

The ability to optimize plans for the company’s political environment:

Internal strategists have a special understanding and view of the inside politics of the organization.  Sad but true, politics creep into almost every organization and bring with them the undesirable effect of clouding the judgment of otherwise objective thinkers.  When it comes to justifying decisions and creating priorities in the strategic planning process, politics can create pressure to boost the priority of an otherwise less important initiative or to make a strategic decision that might not otherwise be considered.  An outside consultant can bring objective and rational thinking into the strategic planning process and, when needed, can take the “unpopular” position in the face of corporate politics.

Understanding necessary to leverage the core competencies of the organization:

Every strategic plan relies on the core competencies of the organization to successfully implement it.  Core competencies, which represent the fundamental knowledge, abilities, and expertise of an organization, are what separate one organization from another and certainly what enable objectives to be met.  A corporate strategic plan must take into account a clear measurement of what the organization’s core competencies truly are and what, if any, shortcomings exist.  Too often core competencies are misidentified, overstated, or misjudged by those inside the organization.  In contrast, the right outside consultant can bring an objective approach and a well-refined process for identifying those critical core competencies.  

The insight to devise strategic plans that take into account the culture of the organization:

Culture forms the foundation of how an organization works and how work will be completed when working toward desired outcomes. Clearly, understanding culture is critical to building an effective strategic plan. Internal strategists live and breathe the culture of their organizations on a daily basis and therefore are likely to understand it quite well.   But an outside perspective can bring new light to how culture is viewed since external consultants will consider organizational structure, behaviors, and relationships.  Pairing this outside perspective with internal experience can provide useful and often eye-opening input to the corporate planning process.

Knowledge of an organization’s existing communication channels:

Closely aligned with culture, a corporate plan cannot possibly be effective without effective communication throughout the organization, at all levels.  As with cultural awareness, communication within the organization can be facilitated by the experience of the internal strategist.  Unfortunately, most internal strategy groups lack the multidisciplinary and culture-based approach to plan effectively for both culture and communication throughout the organization.   The right external strategist will bring a refined approach to viewing the organization holistically and crafting communication approaches that target the right people

External strategists are trained to view the organizational environment from a holistic standpoint and find the communication gaps, areas of improvement within the organization, and baseline the organization’s true strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. By leveraging the experience of an external strategist, the internal strategist can be assured that communication approaches will target the right people in the right ways.

Try Planning from the Outside In.

Internal strategic planners clearly have their place in the corporate planning process.  The deep insight and internal understanding of the inside strategists are hard to replace. Yet, with inside knowledge comes the side effects of political swaying, less objectivity, and “planning as usual.”  Many of today’s successful organizations effectively combine an internal view with an external view to bring about a holistic approach to planning.  This “two heads are better than one” approach puts insiders in close partnership with outsiders to create successful outcomes in strategic planning and implementation.

To learn more, read our full length article titled, “The Role of the Internal versus the External Strategist”.

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For permission to use or reprint any portions of this copyrighted article, contact Method Frameworks at articles@methodframeworks.com.

About the Author:

Joe Evans is the President and CEO of Method Frameworks.  Joe is a published author, frequent speaker and recognized expert in corporate strategic planning. To contact Method Frameworks about scheduling Mr. Evans about an upcoming speaking engagement, visit www.methodframeworks.com/business-speaker or email requests to media_relations@methodframeworks.com.

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