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Leadership and Strategic Planning

I was recently reading an article entitled Judgment: Making Great Calls.  This article pointed out that what differentiated effective leaders from less effective ones was their ability to make better calls in key situations.  They not only made better calls, but they were able to identify the vital decisions that needed to be made and made the right calls in those cases.  It went on to say that there are three judgment domains in which effective leaders excelled: People, Strategy and Crisis.

As I reflected on this article, it occurred to me that the foundation for exercising good judgment in these domains is having a strategic plan for the business that is alive and actively guiding the business.  The process of reviewing and deciding on the vision, values and mission of a business in itself conditions the leadership to be ready to make the right decisions at the right time – even in times of crisis.

The need to involve key personnel in the strategic planning process is to promote buy-in and alignment with the future direction of the organization, equity in the way decisions are made consistent with the plan, and to effectively communicate the plan throughout the organization.

The creation of the strategy involves the key leaders in evaluating the market and competitive forces which drive the business.  Will there be surprises down the road that weren’t anticipated?  You bet, but having a baseline plan allows the leadership team to quickly react to inevitable changes and be prepared to use better judgment in the decisions that need to be made.

Lastly, during a crisis, leadership needs to be guided by the values that were decided upon by the team during the relative calm of the planning process.  They need to be guided by the ultimate goals for the business contained within the plan.  One of the best examples of this principle was the Tylenol tampering situation faced by Johnson and Johnson 25 years ago.  The leadership of J&J at the time were clearly guided by the longer term view of the company – their goals and values, when they made the decision to have a total recall of the product and to very quickly redesign the packaging to better prevent tampering. 

Excellerate Solutions works with clients to develop and implement a strategic plan which carefully reviews key factors and devises plans that guide the company from both an external and internal perspective.

Dave Vogelpohl is the owner of Excellerate Solutions, Inc., a strategy and leadership development company. If you'd like more information about this article or would like to schedule an appointment, contact Dave at 919.544.3787.