Why so many people get it wrong in strategic planning
The statements above come from McKinsey in March 2017 writing about strategic planning. How come? People are overly confident and optimistic, and informed people are even more confident (1). No one was ever promoted for putting forward a plan whose growth forecasts didn’t sail upwards? (2). Executives constantly tell themselves that they need an ambitious vision to inspire great performance (3). But when the strategy outcome is not realized after the first year, attribution bias usually kicks in: one simply blames the circumstances or others, but never oneself.