Let’s face it. Most strategic planning is less than perfect. A team of executives spend a lot of time and energy attempting to understand the competition, the unique strengths of the company, opportunities that could be captured, and to develop a plan that would be outstanding if all worked as designed on paper. They then go out into the workforce and attempt to deploy the plan into the fabric of the organization, only to find that even the next level down in the hierarchy doesn’t quite understand. Like a bad copy of a copy, that poorly understood plan is inaccurately replicated to the next level, and on and on. By the time the work force that can really carry out the plan receives information, it is badly flawed and possibly dramatically outdated. The ship changes course, but for the wrong reasons and probably in the wrong direction. The think – deploy – act lag time and imperfect understanding frustrates the senior levels to the point of asking “how many times do we have to say this? Why is it so hard for everyone to understand…” or worse, “What are they doing? This isn’t what we intended…”
The bad news is that I just wrote and published a book that largely encourages this poor cycle of communications. The book, titled “Action with Traction,” explains how to figure out the mission, vision, values, goals, strategies, and initiatives in the organization. I included chapters on project management, process management, process improvement, and even change management. As the author, I am obviously biased but I think it is good stuff – at least compared to how strategic planning has been carried out since the turn of the 20th century.. Unfortunately, in today’s world, the lessons I included in the book are not enough. A management team that follows what I wrote will likely fall short in the deployment of the plan. There is more that must be done in order to get the organization all on the same page, rather than having much of the organization on an old page copied inaccurately from the original.
Organic strategic planning is probably the wrong term, but since I am giving a speech with that title in a few weeks, I am steadfastly going to hold onto that label as the answer to the problem of strategic plan deployment. In fact, I think this is a nice label to introduce the idea of modernizing strategic planning with web based tools in such a dramatic way that everyone (okay, perhaps not quite everyone but close) can not only understand the strategic plan, but help evolve it in real time.
Deployment of plans through staff meetings, company-wide planning meeting, abridged copies of the plan, and one-on-one meetings has been around a long time. There really weren’t options. The addition of the memo and later email was breakthrough, but the fundamental problem that deployment using these tools is primarily one-way exists.
Enter blogs, wikis, Tweeter, Facebook…and a host of other collaboration community tools. These tools have changed the nature of social networking and soon will change the nature of strategic planning. These tools, also called social media, are defined by Wikipedia as follows: “Social media is online content created by people using highly accessible and scalable publishing technologies. At its most basic sense, social media is a shift in how people discover, read and share news, information and content. It’s a fusion of sociology and technology, transforming monologues (one to many) into dialogues (many to many) and is the democratization of information, transforming people from content readers into publishers. Social media has become extremely popular because it allows people to connect in the online world to form relationships for personal, political and business use.”
Here is a quick assessment of some of those tools as well as the old tried and true tools, as they relate to strategic planning and especially to a continuous evolution of plans (a process) rather than an annual event (a project).
The meeting…anytime two or more people get together around a specific topic, they have a meeting. This can be effective if managed correctly, but it is an expensive use of everyone’s time. It is especially powerful in building consensus and building commodore between individuals. Effective facilitation can minimize unproductive time, but it is very expensive. A meeting is a many-to-many form of interactive communications that has the advantage of body language and the disadvantage of everyone having to dedicate their time for the length of the meeting. It is also serial in nature in that to be effective, only one person at a time can be driving the communication.
In strategic planning, meetings are often the format for marathon thinking as the strategic planning event unfolds. Each level of management is expected to have creative brilliance in a fairly short period of time as they meet to determine the future of their organization. This is rather unrealistic, but is aided with pre-work in good organizations.
The memo…the old written memo is quickly fading against the speed and agility of on-line alternatives. The function of the memo (communicating something) remains, but the vehicle has evolved from paper to computer or phone screen. The memo is a one-to-many form of communications, although using edit features, it is possible to allow several people to participate.
In strategic planning, the memo is how many of the plans are communicated to ‘the troops.’ It is a semi-formal way of placing the plan into action. Unfortunately, the memo is often skim read and then filed in some safe spot only to be accessed if there is a dire need.
Email…email is fast, it can be one-to-many in format or one-to-one, has all the benefits of the memo, and is hugely flexible. It has the dual benefit and liability of chain emails, allowing a large number of people to participate in an online conversation. Unfortunately, these conversations are typically unstructured and the sheer volume of email most people receive leads to lost, ignored, or skim read information.
Threaded dialogue (forums)…forums are strings of discussion between people over a period of time. A topic is established and a site opened for participation. Those with proper authorization can then post questions, comments or responses, allowing for a rich exploration of a topic. Forums are very common as a form of help and self-help around specific products or services, as well as medical and other topics many people can offer opinions to questions posted by interested participants. Forums are one-to-many as well as many-to-many in format, are topically based, self-documenting, and voluntary in participation. Participation can take place over a long period of time, as well, from any location having adequate internet access.
In strategic planning, the threaded dialogue (forum) can be used to explore competition, alternative approaches to a market, the development of a new concept, or just about any aspect of the plan. It can be a powerful way to involve many people without requiring them to sit through a meeting or engage in potentially confusing strings of email. It does require someone to be thoughtful about the subject to be discussed and for all participants to ‘tune into’ the conversation (unlike email, where the conversation comes to everyone the author believes should be involved). This extra discipline of tuning into the conversations can be troublesome if not managed correctly.
Document libraries…document libraries provide a place online for secure storage and access of documents. Anyone with proper authority can create a folder and file a document. They can also provide a new version of the document and, in most cases, both the new version and the old version will remain available.
In the old days, reports and plans were placed in binders and either stored in a central location to act as a department or corporate library or, more likely, kept on a shelf at someone’s desk. Later, these documents were more often online in someone’s computer or perhaps on a shared intranet drive. New document libraries expand that to allow access to the library through the internet and radically improve the control of these documents. Corporate information can be corporate (universal) rather than potentially being lost if the owner employee leaves the company.
In strategic planning, supporting documents and final plans can be intelligently linked and made available to everyone that needs access. They can be spreadsheets, word processing documents, images, or just about any digital file. However, the power of the wiki might overshadow much of the use of document libraries.
Wikis…Wikis, invented by one of our own from Portland, Oregon, are effectively documents that can be opened up for shared editing, extensive categorizing, and immediate availability from anywhere on the internet. Past versions of wikis are usually captured, allowing a complete history of how an idea or entire document evolves, and who made what changes. Wikipedia is one of the best examples of the power and reach of the wiki tool. Many help files and user documentation for software now is in wikis, and entire employee manuals, standard operating procedures, and even strategic plans are now living in the wiki world.
In strategic planning, the power of multiple people editing all or portions of an organizational plan under full version and access control is obvious. Continuous evolution of the plan can be managed with little wasted time from any contributor. Like Wikipedia, a review team can ensure quality and provide recommendations for validation and evolution of any topics. The discipline of appropriate and proactive participation is the primary hurdle that must be overcome.
Blog…Blogs, a word derived from ‘web log’ are date stamped documents. You are reading a blog that is tagged with a topic that hopefully you find interesting. Blogs from all over the internet with the same tag can be accessed for incredibly powerful research, usually turning up the absolute latest ideas on any given topic. There should be concern on accuracy of information, of course, since the source might not be qualified, but ideas are ideas. Further, the date orientation of blogs allows easy evaluation of how ideas and concepts, or events, have taken place over time. Sequencing of information is built in.
In strategic planning, blogs can be a tremendous source of third party research on just about any topic. Further, used internally, blogs can provide a method of tracking progress against tactical implementation of strategic plans.
Podcast… audio or video messages called podcasts are much like blogs in that they are typically focused on a specific topic and are time dated. They have the advantage of being multimedia and yet are not difficult to produce. They exist as digital files that can be accessed and viewed or listened to by authorized users, often through an Apple IPod or similar device if a computer is not convenient.
In strategic planning, podcasts can be an effective way for the message of the plan to be disseminated throughout the organization without error in message.
Instant messaging / text messaging…American Online created instant messaging to allow members to send short notes to each other. The idea caught on with other internet services and bloomed when the cell phone evolved it to text messaging. These one-to-one short communications have become a primary method of fast communications by the youth, allowing them to carry on many simultaneous conversations over short period of time. They have even created a short-cut language, driven initially by the use of awkward phone keyboards, but continued popularity because of the speed and brevity that results.
In strategic planning, text messaging can allow the capture and evolution of strategic ideas and tactical planning on the fly, all contained in short bursts. It can facilitate teams on the road as well as teams all located in the same place but busy. However, Twitter will likely be a stronger but very similar vehicle used in the corporate world.
Twitter…Twitter is the newcomer to the toolset. Twitter is similar to text messaging in that it consists of up to 140 characters of information from the author, often using a cell phone. Interested people can follow these messages, called Tweets, either being alerted every time a message is sent or through the Twitter website allowing the tracking of all tweets by the author. Twitter also has a powerful search engine that reviews all tweets for keywords. By looking at the most current tweets, nearly real time tracking of events unfolding or collective thought on a particular subject can be researched.
In strategic planning, Twitter can be an effective tool to replace brainstorming alternative strategies, for instance, as well as for completing strong third part research. For tactical implementation tracking, Twitter can also be used to provide rapid and frequent updates, all searchable by topic.
Social sites (e.g. Facebook)…websites dedicated to friends communicating with friends have emerged with Facebook the current winner. These sights allow the owner to post messages, pictures, and links effectively depicting their lives. Most of the information is kept private to ‘friends’ but some can be opened to the general public. Friends can also post information to the owner on the site, much of which can be seen by other friends.
In strategic planning, sites tuned specifically for development and evolution of plans for the company can bring the entire team together and provide an open format that will help keep the plan evolving, everyone participating, and even connect to tactical plans to help manage the actual implementation of the strategies. While only a few of these focused sites exist, more will likely evolve as organizations realize the power of bringing together all these tools under one secure hood. AccomplishTS (www.processpath.com) is one of the few sites fully developed to provide this power.
So, are most of these new tools fads that will eventually go away, allowing us to return to the basic memo and meetings? I doubt it. According to Internet World Statistics, there are approximately 1.6 billion internet users today, which is nearly 24 percent of the world’s population. Facebook was founded in February 2004 and today have over 200 million active users, about half of whom log on at least once a day. Two thirds of Facebook users are outside of college and 70 percent are outside the United States. Twitter was founded in March 2006 and Forrester Research estimates the number of Twitter users at nearly 5 million in March 2009.
Senior management in corporations have not yet embraced many of these tools, but they will have to eventually. Their new employees will wonder why the company is so backward and apply pressure for change – and go to the competition if change does not come quickly enough. Further, new tools using the power of the internet are very likely to appear in a browser near you soon. They will redefine how we communicate and plan, interact, and track the evolution of ideas.
So, get ready for a new day in strategic planning!