STRATEGIC PLANNING – Rodenberg Tillman & Associates

Why so many people get it wrong in strategic planning

May 1, 2017

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.

Too many companies like the comfort zone when working on strategy

Choosing a strategy entails making decisions that explicitly cut off possibilities and options. It is a natural reaction to make the challenge less daunting by turning it into a problem that can be solved with tried and tested tools. The strategic plan is supported with detailed spreadsheets that project costs and revenues quite far into the future. At the end of this strategy process everyone feels much less scared; so this is about coping with fear of the unknown.