Keynote presentation, given to the Executives Capital Club in Bahrain on 2012. Covering the challenges of developing a good company strategy in difficult times.

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2. Strategy Planning: obvious!
When we say “we need to plan our strategy”, we
are stating the obvious.
But, as the poet Khalil Gibran said wisely:
“The obvious is that which is never seen until
someone expresses it simply”.

3. Strategy Planning: obvious!

4. Introduction on Strategy Planning
What method and process to choose?
How to use them?

5. Strategy planning in good times
Strategy Planning is about the Method, the Process and the
Capabilities of planning.
Many book and articles
have been published on
the methods and
processes of strategic
planning, and these are
available for relatively
little money.

6. Strategy planning in good times
The challenge of strategy planning is not in acquiring the
knowledge, but lays in:
1. The understanding of the
plan, by them who will need
to execute it
2. The acceptance of the plan by
your stakeholders and
shareholders
3. The capability to plan for your
organization, department or
team

7. Strategy planning in good times
In booming times, we have money and time to spend on
consultants who have:
1. The capability to plan ourselves
2. The Change models to help the
organization to accept
eventual changes
3. The programs to train people
in understanding the business
and it’s dynamics

8. Strategy Planning in bad times
In bad times we can still acquire books and articles on
Strategy Planning, but we notice that we have also to make
our company more lean, more cost effective and more
competitive.
And we have
to start using
our own
internal
resources to
plan and
execute our
strategy.

9. Strategy Planning in bad times
In difficult times we have to
work with what we have, even
more customer focused and
start thinking of developing
ourselves. We develop our own
capability to:
1. Plan customer centric strategies in organization,
department and team objectives
2.To ensure that the organization and the individuals
accepts the plan and eventual changes
3.Help the staff to understand the business dynamics and
it’s planning, and coach the implementation of the plan

10. Good versus Bad planning
Most organizations start un-organized
from the beginning. Many studies have
shown that in the first cycle of an
company’s life, we plan and structure
little. The organization is the sum of the
people who make it grow.
But After some time we enter a second
cycle of our corporate life and we need
to structure. The first thing we do is…
develop and organization Chart.

11. Good versus Bad planning
When making a strategy plan, we have two options:
3.We start from the Vision and Mission
4.We start from the Organization Chart
The logic and theory tell us that we should start from the:
Vision & Mission
Reality is… 85% of the organizations start planning from the
Organization Chart.
But why?

12. Good versus Bad planning
Why do 85% of the organizations
start planning from the
Organization Chart, and not the
Vision/Mission?
Most frequent reasons:
- The vision and mission are not reflecting the strategy of the
company. It is merely a branding and marketing tool
- Strategy planning is time consuming. Therefore management
asks the departments and mid-management to start planning
first, but that never happens
- The Organization Chart is in many cases a visual map of
current organization capacity. Building a strategy based on
current capacities does not require any change.

13. Good versus Bad planning
So, strategy planning can be based on the:
•Vision and Mission, is a risky game. The end result might
lead to organization change!
•Organization Chart, is a safe game. The end result is that
we adapt our strategy to the current capacities.
RISK: planning your strategy
based on the Organization
capacities might result in not
being compliant with the
market and business
requirements!

14. Bad planning, who we trust…
In who you trust, when you plan your strategy?
In these guys…

15. What we learn from bad planners?
Each field of business has it’s own cowboys.
Organization planners who plan as per their organization
structure, are called…
BOXOLOGISTS

16. What we learn from bad planners?
What Boxologists do:
-The plan per department, as per the department
needs and capacities.
-The department and its staff has limited
understanding of the strategy and no capability to set
objectives/goals for themselves
- The plans are not deviating from the expectations of
mid management, and therefore there is low
resistance and limited impact on the “way we do
things here”.
-The Planner ensures that the Organization Chart stays
intact and the processes do not need to be changed.
- The sum of all departmental plans will be the basis
for the strategy plan

17. What we learn from bad planners?
The problem with boxology is that, when we are
cascading up the department plans to the corporate
level, we find a strategy plan that is not aligned with the
Vision and Mission of the organization.

18. What we learn from bad planners?
What do we do when a Strategy is not aligned with our
Vision? In that case we have to 2 options again:
1. Change the Identity of the
organization, it’s Vision and
Mission, to match it with the
Strategy Plan. Not advised!
2. Change the Strategy Plan to
the Vision and Mission, and
cascade again down.

19. What we learn from bad planners?
Option 2, to adapt the Strategy Plan to
the Vision and Mission, and cascade this
down to the organization, is the best
option of course.
But boxologist do more harm than
we think…

20. What we learn from bad planners?
What Boxologist do wrong, and we should stop doing:
First of all, they cascade up the plans of the departments.
We notice a waste of time of our staff and management,
and therefore money from the company.
Additionally they manage the expectations wrongly from
the beginning. Once we cascaded up the plans, we will
have to cascade down again the changes. This leads to
resistance for change, loss of time and finally money.

21. What we learn from bad planners?
Our lessons learned:
• If we want a strategy plan, aligned with the Vision and Mission of our
organization, we need to adopt a top-down approach
• We need to develop the inhouse capacity of our mid and senior
management, to understand and help plan the strategy, and not use
boxologists.
•Our mid and senior management needs to coach it’s staff in
understanding, accepting and taking ownership. Each individual will
contribute by his objective settings to the planned strategy
Especially in bad times we have no time and sure no
money to waste our time with boxologists! We better
develop management capacity to plan and execute
ourselves.

22. Less spending, better plans
Sure, we all need methodologies, theory and processes.
And we sure can benefit from strategy consultants and
wise guys in the field of planning.
But how many times did we buy tools we don’t use?

23. Better plans, less time, less spending
PEOPLE - Better plans
In difficult times we need to ensure that our strategy
plan is aligned with our Vision and Mission.
A good strategy plan might lead us to define small
organization change requirement, to ensure a more
effective execution of the plan.
By cascading top-down the strategy planning process,
we will built a better understanding for the plan and it’s
eventual changes. Better understanding, leads to higher
acceptance!

24. Better plans, less time, less spending
PEOPLE - Better plans

25. Better plans, less time, less spending
LEAD - Less time means top-down
In difficult times we need to ensure that we do not
spend not more valuable time on strategy plan, than is
needed. A top-down approach is the best approach.
Additionally, we better invest time to develop
management capabilities in strategy planning, objective
setting and performance coaching, to safe time later.
A top-down approach will increase acceptance. We will
not loose time in mitigating change resistance.

26. Better plans, less time, less spending
LEAD - Less time means top-down

27. Better plans, less time, less spending
LEARN - Less spending
Good Strategy planning and development of inhouse
capabilities will make us safe money.
Less spending in:
- Strategy Consultants or boxologists
- Overhead costs, due to a less lean
organization
- Non-productive staff, spending time in non-
effective plan review meetings.

28. Better plans, less time, less spending
LEARN - Less spending

29. Better plans, less time, less spending
And the most important… in difficult times!
Keep smiling

30. SteppingStone Recommendations
Steppingstone Global recommends to focus in developing
inhouse capabilities to:
-Plan strategy and objectives,
on senior and mid management
- Planning of Change and
mitigation of resistance by staff
- Coaching, evaluation and
reporting of performance
Lead – People - Learn