One challenge with standard strategic planning approaches is people quickly become too familiar with the standard strategic planning questions, i.e., What are our strengths and weaknesses? Who are our main competitors? What are the threats and opportunities in the next few years? Familiarity breeds less attention to probing every aspect of the questions.
This phenomenon is compounded by people who having been at one company or in one industry for any length of time. If people are entering strategic planning with that type of history, they likely know ALL the standard and expected answers to the standard strategic planning questions.
The result is you get a standard strategic plan that falls far short of creating strategic impact.
When you have new ideas versus the standard answers, you have a foundation for greater business success.
As you work on plans for next year, here are a few of the strategic thinking exercises we use as variations on the same old strategic planning to ensure we are creating strategic impact for our clients.
Give these a try and see what new strategic insights you generate! – Mike Brown