This past weekend, I had the joy of attending the wedding of a dear friend - someone I worked with over 30 years ago. It felt like a mini-reunion, reconnecting with colleagues, friends, and acquaintances I hadn't seen in decades. Most were now retired, but a few were still in the arena.
During one of these conversations, a former coworker - still at the same DoD agency where we once worked - pulled me aside to catch up. Naturally, talk turned to old times. But when he learned that I now work in strategy consulting, he shared a frustration: despite all the changes in leadership over the years, the agency still redoes its strategic plan every two years when a new Director comes in. Each time, they simply tweak the wording, update a few titles, and issue it as something "new." In reality, little ever changes. Instead of developing something inspiring, motivating, and actionable, they merely check the GPRAMA box.
Sadly, this is a familiar story in many organizations. It raises an important question:
Why do so many organizations treat strategy like a formality rather than the powerful leadership tool it can be?
Several reasons often emerge:
- Short-Term Focus: Leaders may prioritize immediate wins over long-term strategic impact.
- Leadership Turnover: New leaders often feel the need to put their personal stamp on a strategy, even if it simply means rebranding an old one.
- Compliance Mindset: Meeting legal or regulatory requirements (like GPRAMA) becomes the primary goal, rather than creating real value.
- Cultural Apathy: When employees see strategies come and go without meaningful change, skepticism and disengagement grow.
- Lack of Accountability: Without mechanisms to track execution and impact, strategies become empty promises.
Another layer to the problem is how these plans are often created. All too often, strategy is written in a vacuum - without thoughtful analysis of the organization's external environment. Why does this critical step get skipped?
Some common drivers include:
- Hubris: Leaders sometimes believe they already "know" what's happening and don’t seek diverse perspectives.
- Impatience: Environmental scanning can feel time-consuming, and there's often pressure to act quickly.
- Confirmation Bias: Leaders may selectively gather information that validates what they already believe.
- Resource Constraints: Environmental scanning is incorrectly seen as optional rather than foundational.
When we skip environmental scanning, we miss emerging risks, opportunities, and shifts that could make or break the strategy. So, what can we do to fix this cycle?
As strategists, we have a responsibility to help organizations do better. Here’s how:
- Prioritize Environmental Scanning: Regularly assess changes in your environment political, economic, social, technological, legal, environmental - and use those insights to inform strategy development.
- Make Strategy a Living System: Build in feedback loops, adapt as conditions change, and keep the strategy visible and relevant to everyone in the organization.
- Create Broad Ownership: Involve employees at all levels in the process, so the strategy is something people believe in, not something that happens to them.
- Connect Strategy to Daily Work: Clearly articulate how individual efforts contribute to larger goals, making strategy tangible and personal.
- Plan for Execution: Good strategy is inseparable from execution. Create clear, actionable plans, assign ownership, monitor progress, and celebrate achievements.
In the end, a meaningful strategy isn't a document you publish every two years - it's a compass that should guide decisions, inspire action, and evolve with the world around it.
As strategists, it’s on us to push for strategies that do more than just check a box. Let’s help organizations build plans rooted in thoughtful reflection on the past, honest assessment of the present, and informed anticipation of the future - plans that people can believe in and rally behind.
