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TrendTalk: A Newsletter on the Future of Business
Strategy Setting: Myths, Tips, and Approaches |
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Today the best strategies are set by organizations that can balance the paradox of
having definite plans in an uncertain environment. Being focused on the future instead
of the past and having a strong, flexible, robust strategy is the key to success.
Heading into the future without perspective or strategy is like driving down a dangerous
mountain road with one eye on the rear view mirror and the other on the gas gauge.
I recommend a three and a half step process: Predict. Plan. Prepare. But not too
specifically. Let me explain. You must think about the future to plan. Most planning is
done in a vacuum with passing lip service to the market, environment, competition, clients,
customers, and staff. Almost no serious scanning of the key factors is done in most strategy
setting meetings or processes.
First Step: Predict.
Identify a range of possibilities, probabilities, and low-probability/ high-impact
situations for the future in your strategy. Avoid the trap of getting too definite
about the future. That’s what I mean by "not specifically." Even professional futurists
will tell you that predictions are, at best, educated guesses that give you a clue for
a direction to go in, not a definitive roadmap to the future. Predict instead a range
of possibilities for the future, getting more definite in the near future than the
distant future. "Near future" I define as the next 2-5 years. Distant future
anything longer than 5 years. Most business people get nervous with these timelines
but many futurists working on long term planning think these timelines are short.
A short addition to the prediction. The most useful work you’ll do in this stage
involves what you’re uncertain about. Take your uncertainties and predict the
range you can expect. For example, the market’s adoption of a new competing
technology or potential government regulation or general economic conditions.
Use this range to check your plan for flexibility.
Second step: Plan.
This is where the traditional takes over and business people feel more comfortable making
plans in light of an image or set of images of a future environment. This is also, paradoxically, the place
where the best planning takes into consideration the uncertainties. Take the plan and check it against the
range of uncertainties. Will it work in a hypercompetitive situation? What if the government decides to
re-regulate your industry? How about if there’s a strong economic up or downturn?
Third step: Prepare.
This is another "fuzzy" area for most organizations and individuals. Preparation is
the art of laying the groundwork for not only the most current plan, but the range of possibilities for the
future. The preparation steps go into the plan. The preparation steps help keep the plan flexible, honest,
robust, and effective.
Finally, no plan is effective if it is held static for the typical year’s period before the next planning session.
That’s why the very best planning organizations update, alter, revise, revisit, and actually use their plan on a
regular incremental basis. Yearly is too long. Weekly is too short. Somewhere in between is just right.
Predict, plan, prepare and feel more at ease with the knowledge that you’ve developed a strategy that can help
you prosper in a confusing, competitive, and uncertain future.
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