Is Zimbabwe Different From The Global Situation in Terms Theory and Practice of Strategy, Strategic Planning and Strategic Planning Facilitation?

I have worked in, and continue to work in, the realm of strategy in Zimbabwe. My work covers all the areas of strategy from advising top leaders and top entrepreneurs in the areas of strategy, trouble-shooting strategy and strategic problems in troubled businesses, companies and economies, designing, developing and facilitating strategic planning workshops, teaching and training in strategy, strategic thinking and strategic planning to business leaders, managers, entrepreneurs and strategy consultants. I am also involved in research and development that leads to improvement in the theory and practice in strategy, strategic thinking, strategic planning and use of strategy, learning and borrowing from some of the world's best part and present minds, academics, thinkers and philosophers in the field of strategy, strategic thinking and strategic planning. I am regarded as Zimbabwe's number one metastrategist and among the top five universal strategists and strategic thinkers in the country. I am probably in the top ten metastrategists and top twenty leading metastrategic thinkers in the whole world.

By now many leaders and decision-makers should be aware that we have a worsening duo of a global leadership and strategy crises. This is not an easy topic to tackle because strategy is a very sensitive issue to discuss because it is associated with big offices and top officials in companies, organisations, businesses and economies. Strategic planning is a ritual that is expected of any big organisation worth it's salt. Why strategy, real strategy, is extremely important to the success of companies, organisations, businesses, economies and the world, and indeed for the success of individuals, a growing number of metastrategists and world-leading authorities in the subject are raising the alarm that many companies, organisations, businesses and economies are off the mark in the theory and practice of strategy, strategic thinking, strategic planning and the use of strategy. Yet we cannot expect to achieve sustainable development and solve the myriad of national, regional, continental and global challenges without first addressing these two challenges because leadership and strategy are the cornerstones of successful solutions to global and local environmental, businesses, social and economic challenges and problems.

Two leading global experts tacking the strategy crisis argue that in many organisations, what the leaders and managers call strategy is not strategy and strategic planning efforts are not producing real strategic plans but some other kinds of plans. This, they argue, is the major reason why many companies, business and economies, despite religiously doing strategic planning at least once every year, and the more enlightened ones twice, three times or four times a year never experience major changes in their performance, results and velocity in between the strategic planning events. By calling strategy, something that is not strategy, these companies, businesses and economies remain locked in a systematic error than cannot be solved by more strategy work and more strategic planning, but through a different theory of strategy, strategic thinking, strategic planning and use of strategy. Here are some high lights on the crisis;

Strategy Knowledge and Theory

1.???? Why many Chief Executive Officers and top decision-makers talk a lot about strategy, many still "do not understand what we really mean by strategy" according to the world leading authority in corporate strategy. (Name and reference can be provided)

2.???? Chief executive officers and leaders of many companies, organisations, business and economies talk about strategy, but they commit very little time, if any, to thinking about strategy.

3.???? As much as 90% of the top executive teams use the terms strategy, strategic thinking and strategic planning almost on a daily basis, but few have the correct and accurate theory of strategy and rarely do you find a common definition of strategy amongst a top executive team and even worse, among board members. This renders any strategy work, including strategic planning, defective if not a useless exercise.

4.???? In many companies, organisations and businesses, executive and management teams do not get tailor-made training, education, equipment and development in strategy from the same source so that they develop a common understanding of strategy and its applications. This produces executive and management teams that are either poor or weak in strategy theory, strategic thinking, strategic planning and in thinking and acting strategically.

5.???? In many cases where top executive and top management teams get some training in strategy, the training is flawed or too short or the content too poor to have a serious change in the theory and practice of strategy in those companies.

6.???? Whereas many leaders and managers preach about continuous learning and continuous improvement, they do not invest in their continuous improvement in the theory and practice of strategy.

7.???? Many leaders and managers seriously resist any attempts to challenge them to consider review their current theory and practice of strategy, strategic thinking, strategic planning and use of strategy. They believe they already know it all and argue how come their companies, organisations, businesses and economies are successful if their theory of knowledge and practice of strategy is not so good. They are no aware that there are some winners even among losers and that they are successful simply either because their competition is worse than them in the areas of strategy, strategic thinking and use of strategy or because they are simply lucky. And luck is not a strategy.

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Strategic Planning (Retreats and Workshop)

Many boards, chief executive officers, government leaders and their companies, organisations, businesses and economies and their strategic planning facilitators still commit systematic errors in their preparation, planning and conduct of strategic planning and the compilation and documentation and implementation of the strategic planning outputs-which outputs are, in many cases, not strategic plans at all but either half-baked strategic plans or downright basic operational plans, implementation guidelines or strategy and policy frameworks.

Because most of these leaders and managers and their COBEs use strategic planning templates and frameworks from year to year, they remain each in a systematic strategic planning error. The impacts of this error cannot be solved in any other way but through a complete overhaul of the theory and practice of strategy and strategic planning as well as changing the whole approach to strategic planning. I have personally observed the following failure points in

1.?????? Their theory of strategy and strategic planning

2.?????? The importance they attach to strategic planning

3.?????? Their definition and model of strategic planning

4.?????? How they plan for their strategic planning sessions

5.?????? How they design their strategic planning sessions

6.?????? How they prepare for their strategic planning sessions

7.?????? Whom they choose to participate in the strategic planning sessions

8.?????? Their choice of a strategic planning facilitator

9.?????? How they facilitate their strategic planning sessions

10.?? How they engage during the strategic planning session

11.?? The time they allocate to strategic planning sessions

12.?? The resources they make available to their strategic planning sessions

13.?? How they record and compile their strategic planning outputs

14.?? The venue they choose for their strategic planning sessions

15.?? How often they conduct their main strategy planning sessions

16.?? How they use the strategic planning outputs that are documented in their strategic plans

17.?? How often they review their theory and practice of strategy, strategic planning and the use of strategy.

My personal opinion is that the theory and practice of strategy in Zimbabwe is not very different from the theory and practice elsewhere in most companies, organisations, businesses and economies around the world. The same opinion by one of the world’s leading authority in general strategy and corporate strategy, while there there is an increase in the teaching of strategy in business schools and universities, there is “still a lot of learning” about the subject in many companies and organisations around the world. This learning is important, according to the expert (name can be supplied), to reduce or remove the confusion around strategy and strategic planning and to improve the conduct of strategy work. Regarding strategic planning, another leading authority in strategy, with solid track record in battlefield strategy work in areas such as military, governments and corporate organsations, many people think they are producing strategic plans when they are not. He also argues that many government leaders, boards, chief executive officers, top executive and their companies, organisations, businesses and economies think they have a strategy, when they don’t. This leads to poor achievement or limited to no success.

The Easy Things to Do But Do Not Get Done

Leaders, Chief Executive Officers, Board Chairpersons and Top Executives who ignore strategy do a lot harm to their companies, organisations, businesses, economies and the environment. These key decision makers do not even need to be strategy czars to be more effective in strategy, they simply need to listen and pay head. All they need to is periodically review their theory and practice of strategy and to seek the best available theory on strategy, strategic thinking and strategic planning. A good review of their theory and practice of strategy does not take more than three days and even a half-day of reviewing and upgrading their theory and practice of strategy, guided by a competent metastrategist or real strategy expert, makes a huge difference. These are easy things to do. But even after being advised to do certain things in order to improve and change, we rarely do them. When we don’t change when we must change, our situations, performance and results remain the or get worse. This is worse if it is the areas of strategy and leadership performance and results improvement and transformation.

Feedback or need help in the area of strategy?

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?Simon Bere, 2024