Listen now to learn how MyStrategicPlan:

• Brings all the elements of an effective strategic plan together in one place
• Allows for dynamic planning
• Helps organizations sustain a living strategic plan
• Creates alignment by cascading the plan throughout your organization
• Provides individuals with consistent reports they need to execute the plan
• Improves accountability by tracking performance numbers

Download PDF (slide deck)

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1. Steve Jobs

• Company: Apple
• Advice: Say no to focus groups and market research.

2. Bill Gates

• Company: Microsoft
• Advice: Find very smart people and create small teams.

3. Fred Smith

• Company: FedEx
• Advice: Rely on “first-level” managers.

4. Jeff Bezos

• Company: Amazon
• Advice: Take regular mini-retreats.

5. Larry Page and Sergey Brin

• Company: Google
• Advice: Spare no expense on innovation.

6. Howard Schultz

• Company: Starbucks
• Advice: Always challenge the old ways.

7. Mark Zuckerberg

• Company: Facebook
• Advice: Embrace paranoia.

8. John Mackey

• Company: Whole Foods
• Advice: Purpose inspires people.

9. Herb Kelleher

• Company: Southwest Airlines
• Advice: Make your customers No. 1.

10. Narayana Murthy

• Company: Infosys
• Advice: Sacrifice today, cash in tomorrow.

11. Sam Walton

• Company: Wal-Mart Stores
• Advice: Give the people what they want.

12. Muhammad Yunus

• Company: Grameen Bank
• Advice: Small gifts can equal big impacts.

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Companies committed to executing strategy are equipped with advantages over their competitors. Because managing strategically matters to the life of your business, our guide on the Benefits of Strategic Planning (on the right) will show you what you can gain from strategic planning and how it will improve your team’s results.

Strategic planning ranked highest in a 2011 study of the 25 most popular management tools, as shown in the figure below (Bain & Company, “Management Tools & Trends 2011”). While forward-thinking companies once used strategic planning to develop long-range goals and stable growth, they now need it to effectively short-term plan.

Strategic planning has become a vital tool in this business climate because it focuses an organization’s ability to respond successfully to changes and plan for sustainable viability. Additionally, companies that never thought of strategic planning—like small businesses and non-profits—are discovering they need to think about it in order to survive. Download our brief guide on the benefits of Strategic Planning featured on the left.

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1. Strategy Stat:
   1. Fewer Strategic Priorities Is Better
   2. After a recession, progressive companies outperform pragmatic companies
2. Topic: Open Line Q&A
   1. Question 1: I’m a big fan of strategic planning, but have never led the charge as the strategy leader.  I am new to our company and they have already been down this road too many times and it has never stuck.  Do you have any recommendations to purse to make it work more successfully this time?
   2. Question 2:
      1. i.     Part A: We do customer research all the time, what kind of research beyond this do we need in order to enter into a strategic plan with all the information needed?
      2. ii.     Part B: I find that many organizations that do strategic planning really don’t do a good job with the environmental scan, especially the external component. Do you have any suggestions or tools or templates that help to successfully facilitate this process.
   3. Question 3: What is the appropriate number of strategic objectives?  We have an internal struggle regarding strategic objectives and how many is too many.
   4. Question 4: We are an existing successful business with a long track record.  We are developing a Strategic Plan and a Business Plan to raise capital to help us expand.  I would love to hear you discuss how the Strategic Plan and Business Plan can work together in a situation like ours.
   5. Question 5: Our company has been checking out MyStrategicPlan and a few other options the past few months.  What are the benefits of MyStrategicPlan and a robust plan versus the One-Page Strategic Plan.  To me, I like the concept of a one page plan, but don’t know exactly what the trade-offs are.  Am I thinking through the difference right – robust vs simple?
   6. Question 6: Can you suggest 3-4 resources (video, book, speech, slideshow) to share with my CEO that will help me emphasize the value of Strategy Planning and to convince him that it is worth his time, and his staff’s time? I don’t have the buy in yet:-)

Additional Resource Shared during Webinar: 80-sample Strategic Plans

Download PDF (slide deck)

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Note: We will reference MyStrategicPlan throughout this post, but in doing so also acknowledge our great customers using MyNonprofitPlan and MyChurchPlan.

Before	After

Let’s dig into what this means.

Much thought and collaboration has been invested in each aspect of the new design. We are confident that MyStrategicPlan is now more efficient and intuitive than it was before, which is what you want from a business process tool. There are several new changes and based on initial response to our new design, we know that you will like it.

Throughout the redesign of MyStrategicPlan.com, we kept four criteria in mind; including:

1. Improving the look and feel of MyStrategicPlan with a new, fresh and very professional facelift.
2. Streamlining the user interface to reduce clutter and complexity.
3. Accessing high priority actions/tasks with fewer clicks thereby improving the efficiency of the system and our users.
4. Increasing our customers’ success rate through the strategic planning activities into the execution stage. The customer feedback from our annual survey helped us understand the need to simplify the strategic planning process. We want you to be successful!

You may experience a very short “re-familiarizing” period with the new design! We assure you that with a little “re-acquaintance” time, you will be more efficient and productive. We encourage you to give yourself some time to acquaint yourself with the new workflow and within a short time, you will also find benefit in the improved and efficient transition to operationalizing strategy.

Later in this post, I will highlight the changes in greater detail. As we move you through the design keep in mind the many resources that are available to you to improve your ease of use and application, provide you with guidance through the process and to keep each of you current with all system updates.

We are very happy to finally have MyStrategicPlan updated in response to requests. This redesign touches every single page. There is still more work to do over the coming months to improve the design and functionality of secondary pages so we aren’t completely done, but we are well on our way. We hope you will fully optimize the new design to fully engage your team and grow your company by converting strategy into action.

Thank you,

Erica Olsen

Learn more about the redesign in the short 5-minute video.

For a complete review of the changes, please read further.

Guided Home Page: The new home page redesign not only offers our users a new, fresh and professional feel, it offers a system by which to implement and execute your strategies. This new landing page does a better job of providing you with both information and next steps. The home page now implements a level of intelligence in two stages:

• Increased guidance through the process. The “tiles” will help guide users through the key “strategic process” steps (intelligence based). This provides more of a “system guide.” As the system monitors your activity, it will propose your next actions. It will also provide direct resources to the respective item.

• Assistance through the performance management phase offers our users constant updates to navigate through their plan. Quicker access to execution tools and reports improves the effectiveness of using a management tool. For example, using the scorecard approach provides quick access to the number of actions/goals you have that are on target vs. off target. This perspective offers the busy executive, as well as all managers and team members, a “60,000 ft.” level view of plan accomplishments. The home page also offers Tips box that provides general strategic planning tips, thought provoking questions, jokes, and more; a view of upcoming free trainings; and best practices from the M3 team.

Before	After

Navigation changes: Besides the design changes, you will find some of the most noticeable changes are in the navigation at the top of each page. These changes provide you with tools that will most noticeably increase efficiency and productivity. Take your time exploring during your “re-acquaintance” period! We have streamlined the process and removed a number of clicks to get to key pages. Please note: Some of the top navigation tabs will have drop down links. Once on a section the secondary navigation will be moved to “side” navigation. This workflow more closely follows a typical strategic planning process and meets the request that many users wanted to see incorporated.

Before
After

Site-wide Appearance: We have taken the new design and incorporated it throughout the rest of the website. The space is better positioned taking advantage of white space to make the system easier on the eyes. It also provides more room for data entry, as well as more information to help you on the specific topic. The changes speak for themselves. Here are a few additional changes applied to many of the “interior pages” that we want to highlight:

• Tips box: Process pages will include a new “Tips” box to provide specific and important information to the task on that page.
• More Info box: Process pages will include a new “More Info” link to dig deeper into information on the section including examples and videos. More details on this below.

Before	After

More Info Link: Many of you will notice the iFrame box is no longer there. We have given our users full control of assessing the information and tips they individually need! This change provides you with greater control of available resources and allows you to decide if you want more details. If you do want more information and assistance, we offer many more examples + direct link to Virtual Strategy Guide via one quick click! You decide. We are also implementing organizational specific resources. To start, the examples provided will be different depending upon whether you have a MyStrategicPlan, MyNonprofitPlan or MyChurchPlan account. We will continue to build this out over the next year, but this is a great start. These “More Info” tabs will also link you directly to the Virtual Strategy Guide if you want to dig deeper. We have built out this resource further so it is a full blown strategic planning process.

Before	After

Reports: We are breaking away from the “highly technical” look and feel! The new reports page allows you to quickly see the listing of available reports and access them more effectively. You have two more clicks but the total time savings should be well worth it. Quick Access drop down menus allow you to navigate through departments to individual team members much more rapidly.

Before	After

Accounts Page: The plan administrator will notice the layout of the account page is more streamlined. The new page offers a department listing in a drop down menu, while team members are also displayed in a drop-down at a level lower than the department listing. Click through this new feature, it helps expedite user management workflow.

Future Development: MyStrategicPlan is not just a web application (or point solution with planned output). It is an end-to-end business process application. We are dedicated to enhancing the system to meet your business needs. Customer feedback drove these changes and if you want to have a voice in the next round, we welcome your feedback. We have a list a mile long. With your continued support and recommendations to friends and colleagues we are committed to making your job easier. As recommendations are submitted, we evaluate them and commit resources to those most mission critical. Here are some items scheduled for the next 6 months:

• API: The first pass at an API has been developed and is ready in write form. We look to connect to an industry leading application for testing. If your organization needs to connect MyStrategicPlan to a 3rd party application, please let us know.
• Mobile application: We know you want a mobile app and we do too!
• Powerpoint Report: Accelerate your strategy reviews by automating the production of a PowerPoint presentation that will pull in the information from your Track Goals and Actions page.

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I often see this quote, as many of you probably do, when reading blogs/articles/research on strategic planning.  We use it ourselves and couldn’t agree with it more.  To be fair though, hard work is only going to get you so far with strategic planning.

I’m going to take this on a tangent, but stay with me.  There are frequently questions and discussions about the best tools/systems on Quora, LinkedIn and other sites.  Successful strategy leaders have a strategic planning methodology that works for them and leverage systems and strategy tools to build, implement and execute.  Having invested years into the development of a strategic management system in MyStrategicPlan, we also place great emphasis on the strategy tools and system used as these are necessary.  The right tools have the ability to assist in the strategy development, reporting, communication, and finally in executing strategy.

The caveat to all of this is both hard work and strategy tools are only as good as the model built, in this case the strategic plan.  The success in strategic planning, implementation, and execution depends upon the commitment during the process and ensuring the correct framework/structure of the plan.

One of the trouble spots in developing the framework/structure that we see is in cascading the goals appropriately and linking the long-term vision with the daily actions.  If this area is flawed, then there will be weaknesses to the plan that a system can’t overcome nor can hard work.  Often times these areas will be fixed in time, but not without facing challenges (some big and some small).

Be sure to bring hard work to the table and be sure to have a great system/tool to facilitate the process.  Do not overlook the importance of getting your plan set-up properly (the framework/structure).  Getting started on the right foot will pay great dividends.

You may also be interested in:

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About Alice Heiman – visiting strategy leader:  Alice is the founder and President of Alice Heiman Inc. and is a sales strategist, author, speaker and trainer.  Business websites: www.aliceheiman.com or www.smartsalestips.com

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I’m a bit late to the party, but I wanted to take the opportunity to add to the conversation.

Tim ended the post with his theory: “Strategic planning is simply an invention to justify the existence of middle management, and not a useful tool for those doing the actual leading or for the guys at the bottom doing the real work.”

In short, I would have to say that I agree and there is absolutely truth in the theory.  I think we could agree though, when strategic planning is done right (development process, implementation, and execution) then there is great potential.  Strategic planning is not easy and has challenges, but the hurdles are worth overcoming.

• At M3 Planning, we have measured the following; “Businesses reporting a commitment to strategic planning showed a 12% bottom line and 11% top line greater than other respondents. This is in addition to the ‘business as usual’.“
• A strong organizational focus benefits all companies in all industries. “Downturns are roller coasters for weak firms: 3x to 5x. During downturns, weaker businesses are the shock absorbers of their industries – their margin swings are often three to five times that of the leader. That gives companies with strong, focused cores the opportunity to invest and gain ground on their competitors during the downturn and the subsequent recovery.” - Bain & Company

Strategic planning is necessary, but only successful when linking the long-term strategic priorities to today’s actions.  The plan must be cascaded properly from top to bottom of the organization so that front line staff knows how their work impacts the organization’s goals. Assigning metrics and systematically measuring them fosters accountability.  Others in our company would also say that it holds a team “able” instead of just accountable.  At MyStrategicPlan.com we offer the strategic planning tools to assist with this undertaking.

Three additional points to consider (I love tracking these):

1)      Leadership challenge with strategic planning:  “Many people regard execution as detail work that’s beneath the dignity of a business leader. That’s wrong…it’s a leader’s most important job.”  – Larry Bossidy, former CEO, Honeywell, Inc.

2)      Without the focus that strategic planning can provide, we can all fall into the trap of unproductive busyness. “90% of managers are typically either distracted or disengaged from key organizational objectives. Confusing frenetic motion with constructive action,” they are noted for their “unproductive busyness.” - Harvard Business Review

3)      “Lack of alignment. Only 19% of workers say they can effectively translate the company’s top goals into the work they do.”- Franklin Covey

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A recent article from Inc. Magazine entitled, Why Women Are Great Strategic Planners, highlighted the differences in a woman’s versus a man’s approach to strategic planning.  The author, Jenn Houser, explains a conversation she had with a male entrepreneur who was so fired up about his product that he completely overlooked the concept of planning.  Houser comments, “Then I asked him if he had a business plan. He said no, he’d do that when he was getting ready to raise money.”  The man was so engulfed in his product concept that he had not even thought about how he was going to get to the point of raising money.

Planning strategically in your business is key to getting your feet off the ground.  Success isn’t a matter of chance but rather a matter of choice.  This concept really encapsulates why it’s important to have a clear strategic direction and strategic plan.  Business success isn’t going to happen by accident.  You must look into the future and create a plan for wherever it is you’re trying to go.  Forget about failure rates and all that garbage.  If you aren’t intentional about the direction of your business or department, you aren’t likely to get there.

Houser explained that, “he was planning his company using the stereotypical male approach to driving: Never stopping for directions or checking to see if he was going in the right direction. I told him he needed to plan like a woman.”  Below are her tips for strategic planning with a woman’s touch:

1. Make a game plan before you start out. If you are going into business you need to write a business plan.  Build a roadmap outlining where your business is going to go in the next 3 to 5 years.
2. Admit what you don’t know. Figure out what you do know, what you don’t know, and how to fill the gaps of what you don’t know.
3. Ask for help along the way. Ask for advice and feedback from others in your industry.
4. Be willing to change your mind. Having an open mind to feedback is essential.  You don’t have to say yes to everything, but it is important to be able to change and have the right plan that will give you the ability to make progress in your business.

To read Houser’s full article, click here.

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Sign up now to learn how MyStrategicPlan:

• Brings all the elements of an effective strategic plan together in one place
• Allows for dynamic planning
• Helps organizations sustain a living strategic plan
• Creates alignment by cascading the plan throughout your organization
• Provides individuals with consistent reports they need to execute the plan
• Improves accountability by tracking performance numbers

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• Performance Management and the Planning Process By the time company managers get to the action...
• Setting Strategic Objectives and Cascading Goals June 13 | 9 a.m. P.T. | Register Now ...