Navigating Strategic Planning: Addressing Common Pitfalls and Enhancing Organizational Alignment

Picture this:?You’re in yet another corporate strategy meeting, surrounded by a mix of familiar and unfamiliar faces. The agenda? Identifying the technology and business opportunities to pursue over the next 5, 10, or 15 years. As the discussion unfolds, you can’t help but notice the growing confusion among most of the attendees. It’s not due to the complexity of the topics, but rather the realization that many of these “new” ideas are already in motion or fail to address the reality of what is truly needed. You find yourself questioning the purpose of this meeting and wondering how such redundancy has crept into the strategic planning process at this late stage in your company’s operations.

Many of you may have encountered this scenario at least once in your career, and hopefully not too often. From my experience, this tends to happen more frequently in multinational and large international companies. However, smaller organizations are not immune to this issue. So, where does this misalignment stem from? To uncover the root cause, let’s explore some common fundamental issues that can lead to such organizational failures.

First, let’s look into the basics. It doesn’t make sense to analyze the “roof” if the “foundation” is already crooked. Some of the basic issues that often arise include:

• Misalignment of Goals and Values:?Different goals, values, and cultures can lead to conflicts and misalignment in strategic direction. This is especially true in larger organizations with multiple teams in different locations and with different activities.
• Unclear Priorities:?Organizations with unclear priorities add to the misalignment of goals and values. This lack of clarity can lead teams to try to do too much at once or fail to identify the right activities that will help them achieve their strategic goals.

• Ineffective Communication:?Poor communication channels can result in misunderstandings and a lack of clarity about the new strategy.

Moving on to intermediate issues, we encounter insufficient or misallocated resources, which can hinder the implementation or initiation of a new strategy. Organizations may struggle to shift existing resources or acquire new ones for the new activity. We all know that betting on the “wrong horse” will not get you anywhere. Additionally, two key items stand out: coordination issues and vertical communication gaps. Poor coordination between different departments or teams can lead to inefficiencies and delays in executing the new strategy. Vertical communication gaps can prevent important information from reaching all levels of the organization, leading to misalignment and confusion.

Advancing to the advanced issues, it is clear that leadership challenges are the tip of the iceberg. Ineffective leadership or an ineffective senior team can impede the strategic planning process. Leaders may struggle to unify the team and drive the new strategy forward. A lack of leadership development can result in a shortage of capable leaders who can effectively manage the new activity in the long run.

So, how can addressing these pain points help organizations do better? Promoting a clear vision and mission statement is crucial. For example, the vision of “sustainable energy” as a core statement could be enhanced by displaying materials prominently in the office, during onboarding of new staff and through regular revisits and discussions of the vision and mission during team meetings. Further training and workshops will help employees and leaders shape the vision and goals. Workshops are great for including leadership and feedback mechanisms, giving the team a chance to provide different perspectives to leaders and helping to sharpen their strategic decisions.

To put such strategies and goals in motion and to clear the priorities, the use of Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) is a must-have tool for every organization. OKRs set goals that are specific, measurable, and time-bound, tailored for each individual team member and team. Regular updates and transparent communications will further support OKRs. Sometimes a simple newsletter can help update the team, rather than having long meetings. Finally, achieving these goals boils down to the resources and budget required. Many leaders fail to equip the team and organization with the necessary resources. This could be due to inexperience or reluctance to discuss with the teams at eye level to see what resources are required.

Nonetheless, the most important basic is to have in place are open communication channels. From platforms like Microsoft Teams for real-time communication to anonymous feedback questionnaires and email channels, where any employee can express their ideas and complaints. An open communication is crucial for the success of the company. Workshops and training sessions are also great ways to effectively communicate and discuss, including active listening and clear writing.

In the end, all the mitigation strategies mentioned earlier will not have a positive effect if the leadership remains ineffective. The challenge is to provide constructive feedback to the leader, if your leader is rather “old-school” and honest and open conversations are not possible. Therefore the company should have a mechanism that allows employees to address their views to an individual channel, which can also be addressed to the board and shareholders. The focus should be on solution-based feedback rather than finger-pointing. Often, it can help if leaders enroll in further training and development programs or workshops. Even a leader needs training, and there is no shame in that. Mentors can also help sharpen leaders, but if this is not available, engaging specific consultants can help as well.

At the end of the day, a company needs to foster a supportive environment and encourage a culture of collaboration, where all team members can share their ideas and feedback, not just a select few. This way, confusion in strategy workshops or any other activity can be avoided and there is a good chance of prospering.