Why Strategic Thinking and Planning?
Strategy is about creating and delivering the future. It is about leading your team or your organization to a future in which you are able to compete more effectively and to achieve prosperity and sustainability. The skills of strategic thinking and planning are applicable to those leading a team or planning the direction of any size of organization in all sectors – private, public, and non-profit.
Typical Strategy Errors:
- Ignoring what customers/clients value
- ‘Shotgun’ approach: Blast away and hope to hit the target
- Not walking the talk: You tell the customers/clients you value x, y, and z above all else, but then spend your time, effort, and money on a, b, and c
- Blinders: So blinded by current strategy, culture, systems, and practices that you become unable to identify new opportunities, unable to see the world in new ways, unable to listen to your stakeholders
- Unwillingness to learn, experiment, or take risks and an unwillingness to encourage others to do the same
Our Four-Phase Strategy Model:
Our Four-Phase Strategy Modelprovides a framework for strategic initiatives. Each phase constitutes a piece of the whole in a linear progression. This approach results in a creative, out-of-the-box thinking and focused operational decision making.
Phase I: Looking to the Future
Strategy is about making sure that your business arrives where you want it to at a given time. As a result, one of the most important aspects of strategic thinking and planning is predicting the things that will impact you and your organization in the future. This phase is to help you as a manager to know what good strategy looks like and to understand how it can be used to create the future for your team or organization.
Phase II: Looking at Major Forces
Strategy has two dimensions: what is happening inside your organization and what is happening outside, in the market. The macroeconomic forces that affect your organization, and your competitors, your markets, and even whole contries and the global economy, can have significant implications and are beyond your control. Given the scale of these forces, it is vital to be able to identify, understand and analyze these internal and external forces if you are to devise a successful strategy.
Phase III: Looking at Your Options
Strategy is simple: just work out what the world will be like in five years and organize your resources and competencies to achieve a match. However, this raises the vital question – how do you know what the world will look like in five years? Even when you know your options, no-one can see what is to come, but there are techniques that will help you visualize and plan for the future. This phase will show you how to evaluate those options and create a vision, a plan to achieve it, and a clear understanding of how to make that plan work.
Phase IV: Leading Into a New Future
You have been through the process: you’ve analyzed yourself, the environment, and the market; you’ve assessed your options and planned your approach; and you’ve started to implement your strategic plan. You will not know the final outcome for three to five years – are you going to wait that long to see if you are on the right track? It is crucial, therefore, that you monitor your progress, by setting targets to be acheived and milestones that must be passed, if you are to ensure that your strategy remains on course to deliver the desitred outcome. This is precisely what this phase is about – connecting the dots that not only lead to the future, but ensuring that your organization stays on top.
Expected Outcomes:
Our Strategic Thinking & Planningmodule will give participants the skills to:
- Think ahead and thinking big picture.
- Become more proactive.
- Understand the lifecycle of planning.
- Focus on outputs/results.
- Undertake long term planning and contingency planning.
- Use experience to guide future action.
- Identify characteristics of profitable and successful organizations.
- Determine ‘best practice’ that can be incorporated into daily operations.
- Implement risk management strategies throughout your organization.
Who Should Attend
STPis for those taking, or wanting to take, further steps in developing and implementing strategic changes. The practical and realistic approach ensures participants become well equipped managers with the ability to apply important business concepts.The modules give you the tools you need to analyze your organization and the world it operates in, plan your strategic approach, make effective strategic decisions and implement the changes. It also provides insight into how to gain a competitive advantage, which is at the heart of good strategy:
- Employees
- Supervisors
- Team Leaders
- Senior Managers
- CEOs