Strategy, Values and Mission Statements Many organizations attempt too much with their mission statement. They try to incorporate everything they can because they believe that if people reading the mission don’t walk away understanding what they are about, then they may have missed their opportunity. …
Thinking Out Loud: Handcrafted Strategy Handcrafted Strategy…I am preparing for a strategy session on Monday. Each of them is different. A process isn’t a process isn’t a process. If you approach strategy as a way to drive strategic thinking rather than check-off boxes in a …
Strategy and What Not To Do: The US National Debt as an Example Strategy and What Not To Do:…Strategy is as much about what not to do as it is about what to do. The US Government as a whole (vs. the slices the parties …
The Right Time to Write a Mission Statement…When is the right time to write a mission statement? My answer has always been at the beginning of a strategic planning process. At least initially. Don’t get married to that one. Strategic planning the mission. Strategic planning …
Washington DC Needs Strategic Play As I listen to the partisan bickering in Washington D.C., I mourn the loss of ideas that could be fueled by real engagement. Rather than lob old ideas and quick fixes across the aisle like rhetoric bombs, they should be …
Rethinking Action Plans A common mistake in strategic planning comes when the “strategic planning” team communicates the strategic plan to functions and individuals and asks them to “incorporate the strategy” into their operations. The last part of the last sentence is OK, but the rest …
Strategy and Education: Differentiate or Continue to Struggle Budget cuts for schools. Record profits on Wall Street. What is the differentiator? I will make it simple and tie it to the President’s “Race to the Top” initiative: Performance measures. We don’t know how to measure the performance …
How to Define Goals and Objectives It is always interesting when I enter a conversation about strategy, because before long, the conversation turns to terminology. People spend hours discussing: What is a mission? What is a vision? What is a goal? What is an objective? …
Strategic Planning: The Environmental Scan It is important that strategic planning not be linear. Strategic planning has moments of parallelism, most notably at the beginning and the end (there is really no end, but we’ll get to that later) of the project. So as you …