— by Mike Sharrow

The Value of Disciplined Planning

Strategic planning is so deeply ingrained that most leaders set goals, but it is all too easy to neglect assessing the actual process of meeting them. Goals can drive strategy execution but only when they are aligned with the mission and present imperatives, account for all functional areas, and enable agile adaptation as circumstances change. How did Jesus spend his last hours before the cross? He ensured His “Executive Leadership Team” had vision, clarity, and line of sight on essentials and prayed for their cross-functional unity!

No amount of strategic planning could have predicted a global pandemic, workforce disruption, commodity shortages, supply chain disruption, suspension of public education, racial riots, Chinese tariffs, and economic recession—all amid an already volatile election year. Before even concluding Q1 of 2020 plans, many leaders were already pivoting priorities and building iterations of contingency plans. While some may throw up their hands and conclude a dynamic VUCA world negates the merit of strategic planning, environments like 2020 underscore the necessity of planning disciplines, agile frameworks, OODA loops, and PDCA cycles anchored in a resilient, vision-anchored scorecard!  The point of a rigorous planning discipline is to increase and institutionalize a team’s agility, not its rigidity or fragility.

Robert Kaplan and David Norton, the pioneers of the “Balanced Scorecard,” articulate that “Strategy-Focused Organizations” apply the following five key principles: 

1. Translate the strategy to operational terms

2. Align the organization to the strategy

3. Make strategy everyone’s everyday job

4. Make strategy a continual process

5. Mobilize change through strong, effective leadership

We are in a position to build, expand, and create gospel-demonstrating platforms at a pivotal time in history. Culture, adaptability, resilient innovation, and high-performance teams are critical defining factors as we navigate our prevailing state of affairs.  Where acute brokenness exists, “greater purpose”-minded stewards must build up businesses that are part of the solution!

We’ve modeled our entire CEO peer advisory group program around a Business-as-a-Ministry (#BaaM) Framework.  Using an eternally balanced scorecard paradigm (“5 Point Alignment Matrix”), here are some exercises you and your team could do right now to assess your strategic planning and execution.

1. Rate Your Plan. How’s it working for you? What’s changed? What needs to change? 

2. Cohesive Flourishing. Are the aspirational ideals of being faith-driven corresponding to each dimension of the business? 

3. A Plan vs Performance SWOT. What’s most important right now? What’s the low hanging fruit? Prioritize pursuits.

It’s easy to let a year of disrupted plans like 2020 induce a cynicism to planning.  Consider this case study of how a construction company with more than 1,000 employees found that a planning discipline is what enabled them to be resilient and flourish even in a global pandemic (Case Study). 

If you want a complete workbook to engaging in strategic assessment and planning, here’s a free ebook – LINK.

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