What should a Strategic Plan address?

Boiled down to a line, I think it’s fair and accurate to say the most important job of pretty much any CEO, GM or MD is "develop, deliver on, and continually improve the strategic plan”.

So what should be in it? What should it address?? Universally?

Beneath the auspices of a clear Purpose to fulfill, a compelling Vision to drive towards, and an honest set of core Values to embrace and embody, we often break these longer-term roadmaps into a pillared Parthenon of distinct priorities, each with general directions, specific objectives, key result areas and big ticket action lists (that then get boiled down into the who, what, when detail). It’s a neat depiction, but it's necessarily overly reductive and a bit binary-feeling. The truth is there’s so much overlap, it’s more a Venn diagram, an organic mesh of things that are inter-related, complementary, co-operative and cross-functional.

But, bar the outlier, most will or should address five common aspects;

1. Money – get it out of the way straight away. How will we pay for what we’re committing to delivering? What are the most important levers of financial health (reflecting our definition of future prosperity) that we’ll need our hands upon? Which metrics, targets and indicators are most important for us to map for? For some it’ll be about realising growth ambitions. Others, holding the line in a tight period. Others still, stemming the bleed during a transition phase. Amplify, diversify, responsible approaches, security, smart investments, smarter belt tightening… no organisation ever ran for nothing, so no matter your view on where the cash comes from, goes or how much is needed, it’s the necessary oxygenated blood your endeavour needs to fuel the voyage to tomorrow.
2. People – who needs and gets our priority focus to help us be and do the things we said we want to?? There’s the internal people that we have to identify, attract, engage, recruit, retain, deploy, recognise, reward, develop, elevate, enhance and succeed. And there’s the external people we need to utilise us, buy from us, sell for us, supply to us, support us, protect us and improve us over time. Who are all these people, what binds and differentiates them, and what do they want, need and value from us? What will we do to catalyse and nurture a culture they'll want to be part of, contribute to and enhance? How are we reaching them, touching them, inspiring them and making it easy for them to do for us what we want from them? They are the recipients, the investors, the creators, the enablers and the beneficiaries of all we do… get clear on who, why and how we’ll continually have the right ones playing the right roles over the journey.
3. Deliverables – our stuff. The guts of our value proposition. The products we imagine, source, make, assemble, polish, sell, service and instruct on. The services we create, wrap around, deploy, coordinate, oversee and offer peace of mind through. What we actually have in our kit bag (or can fill it with soon) that someone else wants, needs, and that we can be paid for, profitably or at least sustainably. What’s core in that array that needs strengthening, safeguarding and sticking with for the longer term? Where are the market desires trending towards tomorrow, that we need to evolve towards or revolt against to best our position in the years ahead?? And how do we know? What are we doing to continually enhance our insights and ability to sustain and enhance the value we offer to those we seek to serve or be served by? ?
4. Enablement – systems, processes, infrastructure, technology, communication, connection. The stuff that binds the conceptual organisation together, enabling us to do our stuff for the folk we want to do the stuff for.? What’s “sufficient”? What’s “advancing”? What’s “beyond the pale”? What’s the choke point or spigot that work on might have the biggest positive impact or reduce our risks around more than any other approach? Where those first 3 common aspects of strategy might indeed find their way into the “just because it's important to us” overarching ambitions of many orgs, it's rarer that any of these enablement things are end games in themselves. We build the brand, marketing and communication plans for a reason. We implement the CRM or AI-assists to help us with another objective. ?We change the flow charts to gain an advantage or remove an obstacle sitting between us and a broader goal. But they bleed into creating “better” in all of the other things, and, London to a brick, there’s no way you can be or do what you want 5 years from now with no enhancement of, or focus in, any of these enablement elements.
5. Continual improvement – where and how we’ll work on getting better, faster, stronger, lighter, purpler, sharper or more sesame-seeded. The learning organisation. The changing enterprise. A commitment and methodology for adjusting over time, fast or progressively, to still be standing and striking come next decade turn. That includes leadership, succession, governance, adopting roles in the sector beyond just P&L deliverables, and admitting the fallibility and limitations of what you’re currently doing, what you’re planning to do and even what you can imagine years out. This, I think, is a secret sauce of prescient leaders and smartly iterative strategic plans - knowing that even this newly minted version, as it gets signed off by the elders, is already sort of broken and likely being bested elsewhere (and so work continues anew and ever, to stay in touch with the incessant wave).

Yours will prioritise and emphasise to different degrees in different combinations of these aspects. There’ll be in-house pencil sharpening things to do, outward facing sign shining things, and bring different bods to the table collaboration things needed. There’ll be human, widget, story and shape things. There’ll be the bold, the reality-checked, the austere and the exploratory. Some will be in train stuff, some will be sourcing new engine stuff, some will be lay new tracks stuff. And it’ll probably never feel fully, completely water-tight. ?Because it isn’t, and can’t be.

What it can be though, is the handful of likely MVPs – Most Valuable Priorities – that, with the smartest heads, the best insight sources and a diligent reading of the tea leaves, have the potential to move you over hill and dale to the things you said you want.

That’s the job.

Pick the mountain tops or beachfronts.

Plan the best routes.

And posse-up as you take your next steps to the places, positions and positives you’ve imagined.

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If you need a hand with that process, just ask. Helping map routes to the happy place of your choice is what we do best.

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