10 Operational Planning Steps That 85% of Corporations Wish They Knew

Considering that 85% of corporate strategic plans fail to deliver on their intended results (according to KPMG), it’s no wonder that operational planning has come to the forefront of the minds of CEOs across the globe. Data suggests that most organizations would certainly benefit from adopting a more formalized approach to strategic planning and that many companies have routinely failed to successfully and fully implement their strategic goals due to poor operational planning. What can be done to correct the problem?

Besting Your Plan’s Performance: The Time To Start 2012 Strategic Planning is Now

You Should Be Getting Year-Over-Year Performance Increases

If plan governance isn’t instilled as a core element of the executive team’s reality, focus on accomplishing strategy wains quickly.  Why?  Because time flies past rapidly and organizations face so many daily distractions that the interference begins to blur the big picture for all but the most focused executives. Ideally, strategic plans should be refreshed quarterly, updated annually and rewritten every three years. It should be an ongoing part of business operations to re-check against plan goals and objectives.

Corporate plan management is a day-to-day and week-by-week activity.  The long-held belief that strategic plans are addressed once a year serves to obfuscate the ever-green nature of what plans really represent.  They require a switch in our mindset away from treating strategic planning as if it were a project.  Instead, it is an ongoing journey that requires us to recheck our position against the map frequently to avoid getting lost.

Corporate Strategy and the Elephant in the Room

What Holds Companies Back From Developing Great Strategies?

Recession weary executives have a new challenge to face.  Times have changed and businesses must re-evaluate their pre-recession strategies.  The elephant in the room is in full view, but organizational leaders do not like to talk about it or even think about it.  Yes, the elephant in the room, that no one likes to address, is outdated strategy and the need for new and improved strategic thinking.  Making change to the way we have operated in the past in difficult.  A starting point for change is to correct the self-inflicted organizational dysfunction that occurs during strategy development.  Half-baked strategic decision making based on wishful thinking and antiquated assumptions must stop now.  Corporate strategies will never be perfect or foolproof, but they can be systematically improved through process changes and “testing” strategies ahead of committing to them and gambling our reputations, jobs and the very life of the business. To see our economic recovery continue, we need to see smart strategies from our business leaders and the brilliant teams of people working for them.