In my last Insight, I explained what strategic planning is and how a company can create a strategic plan. As I mentioned in that Insight, effective strategic planning starts with developing a company mission and vision.
There are a few advantages and disadvantages to using a strategic planning model.
The advantages are:
- There’s a lot of research out there that shows companies with missions and visions—who actively work to stay aligned with their mission/vision—are more profitable than organizations that don’t.
- Having a mission and vision gives the company something to refer back to when making decisions.
- Having a mission and vision helps give the company a definition and enables everyone in the organization to truly align with it.
Disadvantages to strategic planning are:
- Creating a mission or vision and then doing nothing with it. Strategic planning is only successful if a company really works to model the mission/vision and values set forth throughout the organization. It starts with the examples set by senior management.
- If it’s just a statement on a wall or in an employee handbook, but there’s no action on the part of senior management to communicate the mission and vision to all employees and “walk the talk,” it’s not going to work.
Examples of Using Strategic Planning Models
I worked with a couple of non-profit companies to help them develop missions and visions. These companies really wanted to make a statement about what they were about—what made their organizations unique—and felt that it was a necessary first step to creating fundraising efforts or to receiving grants.
The companies felt they needed to define their missions and visions so they could have a foundation to use before going out and asking for money.
They also wanted to use their missions and visions as their focal point, so they could make sure the grants they applied for truly supported their vision.
These companies found that they had many things they wanted to do, so they really had to find what their true purposes were as organizations. And by having missions and visions, these companies were able to really focus their efforts on what they were truly trying to achieve.
Another company I worked with wanted to create a mission and vision to help define their company culture and get everyone within the organization aligned with all the departments moving in the same direction.
Once a company defines their mission and vision, often they go on to define the values of the organization. Values identify how the employees are going to work together in order to achieve the mission and vision. In effect, they define the “ground rules” and expectations for how they will work together. Common values often include teamwork, respect, professionalism, etc.
Since values tend to be very abstract, I usually take some time to really “drill down” on what those values mean to the particular organization. This is a perfect way to get employees involved, beyond the management team who most likely defined the mission, vision and values. I ask the employees to reflect on some everyday examples of behaviors that occur in their workplace to see if these behaviors are in alignment with the company’s values. By doing this, the company’s employees come up with concrete examples of every-day behaviors that reflect the company’s values.
Once everyone in the organization is aligned with the company’s mission, vision and values, then you have the foundation for a strong culture focused on achieving the goals of the organization.