{"id":33186,"date":"2018-05-30T14:42:21","date_gmt":"2018-05-30T18:42:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/balancedscorecard.org\/staging\/?p=33186"},"modified":"2022-08-23T10:49:11","modified_gmt":"2022-08-23T14:49:11","slug":"why-strategic-planning-fails-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/balancedscorecard.org\/staging\/blog\/why-strategic-planning-fails-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Strategic Planning Fails – Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gaining Senior Leadership Support<\/span><\/h3>\n

\"\"My father gave me an important piece of advice once that I will always remember.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cAlways have the right tool for the job!\u201d\u00a0\u00a0Of course, I had to re-learn that lesson through the years a few times, but it really is good advice.\u00a0\u00a0Most things that I have been successful at in my life have been because I did it the right way and using the right tools.\u00a0\u00a0In the military they teach us to follow the process and meet the standards.\u00a0\u00a0Of course, there are exceptions to any rule, but generally there are proven approaches available that help guide us to effectively and efficiently accomplishing what we undertake.<\/p>\n

At the Balanced Scorecard Institute, we have the “Nine Step Process<\/a>”\u00a0to building a strategic management system.\u00a0\u00a0We believe in this approach and we have helped hundreds of clients develop comprehensive strategic plans with a management system that enables them to effectively execute strategy.\u00a0\u00a0I myself have worked with over 80 organizations and have seen very successful strategic planning efforts and also those that were less so!\u00a0\u00a0I wanted to share some observations as to where those that were not as successful went wrong along the way.\u00a0\u00a0Over a series of seven blogs I wanted to share with you a handful of observations that could hold back a successful strategy initiative.\u00a0\u00a0The seven that I will share are not meant to cover every potential pitfall, but they are definitely some of the most common fails I have seen in my experience.<\/p>\n

The first pitfall has to do with not gaining Senior Leadership support before you begin the effort.\u00a0\u00a0One of the first principles we stress in our Balanced Scorecard Professional Certification program is that if the leaders are not out in front of the strategic planning effort, it has zero chance of being successful.\u00a0\u00a0I once had an executive approach me during our first break at a strategic planning offsite and tell me \u201cI don\u2019t like where this is going!\u00a0\u00a0If I want them to have a strategy, then I will give them one!\u201d\u00a0\u00a0I was a bit taken aback and explained that if he was just to \u201cpontificate\u201d his strategy for his team to execute, then he would not be generating the needed buy-in to execute the plan later.\u00a0\u00a0It would be his plan and his alone.\u00a0\u00a0While he ended up eventually coming around, it could have been catastrophic if the key leader was not on board with the process and approach.\u00a0\u00a0Additionally, not only should leaders be \u201cokay\u201d with developing strategy, they must be the biggest cheerleaders and talk about it in meetings, town halls, board meetings and any other opportunity they have to share the organization\u2019s path forward.\u00a0\u00a0Everyone needs to understand that the leaders completely support the effort, and the strategy will be executed.\u00a0\u00a0Everyone involved must understand that there is \u201cno turning back\u201d and that its time to get on the bus!<\/p>\n

If this pitfall sounds familiar, then you might be interested in our\u00a0Balanced Scorecard Professional Certification<\/a>\u00a0course where leadership development, communications and change management action is discussed and becomes part of the strategy process or our\u00a0Strategy Execution\u2014Success Through Leadership<\/a>\u00a0workshop which addresses major obstacles and challenges faced in strategy efforts, and techniques on how to overcome them.<\/p>\n

Over the next few blogs we will explore six additional potential pitfalls I have seen that hold organizations back from realizing the many benefits to developing a strategy and a supporting strategic management system.<\/p>\n

You can read Part 2\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first pitfall has to do with not gaining Senior Leadership support before you begin the effort.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":33187,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","content-type":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[25,23],"class_list":["post-33186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-strategic-planning","tag-strategy"],"yoast_head":"\nWhy Strategic Planning Fails - Part 1 - Balanced Scorecard Institute<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/balancedscorecard.org\/staging\/blog\/why-strategic-planning-fails-part-1\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why Strategic Planning Fails - Part 1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The first pitfall has to do with not gaining Senior Leadership support before you begin the effort.\u00a0\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/balancedscorecard.org\/staging\/blog\/why-strategic-planning-fails-part-1\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Balanced Scorecard Institute\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/StrategyManagementGroup\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-05-30T18:42:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-08-23T14:49:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/balancedscorecard.org\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/Team-with-hands-in-circle_500x333.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"500\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"333\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Tim Johnson\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@BSCInstitute\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@BSCInstitute\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Tim Johnson\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/balancedscorecard.org\/staging\/blog\/why-strategic-planning-fails-part-1\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/balancedscorecard.org\/staging\/blog\/why-strategic-planning-fails-part-1\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Tim Johnson\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/balancedscorecard.org\/staging\/#\/schema\/person\/f9cf779ef00cb3fd114bd533ae8ca20d\"},\"headline\":\"Why Strategic Planning Fails – Part 1\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-05-30T18:42:21+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-08-23T14:49:11+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/balancedscorecard.org\/staging\/blog\/why-strategic-planning-fails-part-1\/\"},\"wordCount\":595,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/balancedscorecard.org\/staging\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/balancedscorecard.org\/staging\/blog\/why-strategic-planning-fails-part-1\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/balancedscorecard.org\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/Team-with-hands-in-circle_500x333.png\",\"keywords\":[\"strategic planning\",\"strategy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/balancedscorecard.org\/staging\/blog\/why-strategic-planning-fails-part-1\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/balancedscorecard.org\/staging\/blog\/why-strategic-planning-fails-part-1\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/balancedscorecard.org\/staging\/blog\/why-strategic-planning-fails-part-1\/\",\"name\":\"Why Strategic Planning Fails - 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