For many organizations, the introduction of strategic planning often raises all sorts of barriers that inhibit the ability to move forward. The purpose of this article is to outline a few of the common barriers organizations face in moving forward with strategic planning and a few ideas on how to overcome them.
Reasons for not planning
There are many reasons for not planning, some overt, some less obvious, and they can come from a Board and/or staff member. In fact, the barriers to undertaking planning can come from many different places within your organization. Individuals have provided many reasons for their reluctance to plan:
- “I’ve been through these processes before, they are just a waste of time and money.”
- “My staff are already working at capacity just trying to keep up with day-to-day work, how can we ever find time to plan?”
- “I don’t have time to do my current work. If we plan there will just be more things for me to do – and I won’t have time to do them either!”
- “Our organization is doing fine, we’ve hit all our objectives so what’s the point of planning?”
- “We can’t even forecast our budget accurately over the next 12 months so how can we possibly have any meaningful impact thinking about five years from now?”
- “We just can’t gather the information we need to undertake doing a strategic plan at this time.”
- “Our organization is just too unpredictable – we can’t plan for the future.”
- “We’ve been fine – we manage our organization through our annual organization plan.”
And so the objections to planning go. Many of the individuals making these comments truly believe them. However, these objections are often superficial objections of a larger underlying issue. If you are to overcome these objections you need to address the underlying issue first.
Underlying Issues
The single largest underlying issue to strategic planning is the issue of change. Strategy is ultimately about the allocation of resources to those areas that will have the greatest positive impact on allowing the organization to fulfill its mission and move toward its vision. Consequently, strategy has the potential to have a significant impact on the way the organization does business. These potential changes can potentially be highly disruptive to the status quo and are also generally unknown at the time the commitment is made to undertake strategic planning. In other words, what we find is that most of the barriers to planning are a result of potential or perceived changes within the organization as the result of implementing a strategy. The following provides a high-level framework for the implementation of strategy and how these operational issues can be underlying causes for anti strategic planning sentiment.
People
Specific individuals can find that their role has changed or even been eliminated. For example, a hospital foundation develops its strategic plan and makes a significant move from special events to planned giving. Consequently, a number of people in special events, knowing that this area will no longer be a major focus of the organization, are worried about what their role will be in the organization – or even if they’ll have one at all.
Systems
Systems relates primarily to the technological systems of the organization. An organization’s systems are built to improve the efficiency of what is currently being done. These systems accept data in specific formats at specific times and translate that data into certain types of information in predetermined formats. Therefore, our existing systems infrastructure is generally focused on sustaining the current state of affairs. The possibility of change that could upset this apple cart can have a preponderance of implications. For example, it could impact the function of an individual’s job or result in a significant financial investment to upgrade the systems, which could draw funds away from another “pet” project.
Processes
Processes are those ways in which we leverage the organization’s systems, people, and structure to undertake the delivery of tasks. Process is the inherent glue that ties the current systems, people, and structure together. Consequently, any change in strategy could potentially have a significant impact on the processes. To continue with the hospital foundation example, an administrative officer in the foundation currently enters the names and contact information of everyone that registers to attend the many special events they operate annually. With a move to reduce special events and invest efforts in planned giving it raises concern that the process of entering contact data from special events will become a part-time role.
Structure
Structure represents the organizational structure through staff roles and reporting relationships and also the governance structure of the Board. We have often seen and facilitated changes to an organization’s governance structure to better align it with the new direction developed as part of its strategic plan.
A Few Soft Issues
The previous framework outlines the functional implications associated with changes as a result of strategic planning. While these can provide some insight into the barriers to strategic planning, it does not tell the whole story. There are also a variety of soft issues. Soft issues are those areas of concern that we all have from time to time but rarely speak of, especially to our boss. If we are going to be successful in overcoming the barriers to strategic planning, we need to also be aware of these soft issues.
History
Of all the impediments to change, our experiences are probably the most influential. Those who had a negative experience with strategic planning are naturally biased against planning.
Power & Influence
The current organization and the way it does business provide some people with greater power (formal or informal) and, in turn, influence over the organization. Significant levels of power and influence provide us with a sense of control over our own destiny. Any strategies that could result in organizational changes that might diminish or disrupt that power and influence are generally opposed. Conversely, those that see potential changes that would increase their power and influence are generally overly supportive.
Organizational Problems
Undertaking strategic planning can highlight existing organizational problems. In organizations that have a budgeting process that allocates resources among several units, any issues between these units can become amplified as the strategic planning process seeks to set priorities for the allocation of resources. In addition, individuals may feel responsible if organizational issues are raised in the planning process and consequently want to put off the planning until the issue is resolved.
Operational vs. Strategic Focus
The staff and executive director of the organization have been rewarded for “getting things done”. They have learned that keeping the day-to-day organization working effectively and delivering upon their operational objectives leads to reward (qualitative and/or quantitative) and opportunities. It can, in turn, then be difficult for some staff to appreciate the benefit of longer-term thinking and delayed results and rewards associated with longer-term planning horizons.
Personal Receptivity to Change
We all have our own personal comfort level with change. For some people, their resistance to change is nothing more than it is outside of their personal comfort zone. Understanding an individual’s personal receptivity to change allows you to manage the process accordingly.
Decision-making
The ability to collect timely and accurate information and make decisions is a powerful attribute in an organization. This type of ability to retain control over decision-making is consistent with the concepts of “power and influence” outlined above. There is, however, also the issue that strategic planning can generate new ways of doing things that can allow and support reevaluation of previous decisions. Some individuals have difficulty having previous decisions re-evaluated and believe that this is really just a criticism of their previous performance.
Overcoming Barriers To Strategic Planning
The better you understand your organization and the barriers that exist to strategic planning the better off you’ll be to address them. Although the barriers and the methods of addressing them are numerous, following are a few ideas that might help.
Provide Leadership
The drive to conduct strategic planning must be supported by the organization’s leadership. This sends a strong signal of the level of importance of the process, which often improves the level of acceptance.
Communicate
If there is uncertainty in the organization over strategic planning, communicate what you are going to do, why you are doing it, how people will be involved in the process, and the expected timelines. As well, it is important to commit to provide updates on a regular basis of how the process is going and what has been achieved. In the absence of information, people will make it up themselves. This communication process can take a variety of forms including meetings, newsletters, town hall forums, etc.
Manage The Change Process
Development of the strategy is only the first step in the whole process. It is equally important to manage the change process for the implementation of your strategy. Effective change management will not eliminate all the concerns, but it will help keep them to a tolerable level and allow the organization to continue without significant loss of productivity.
Reward Supportive Behaviour
It’s not enough to focus on the barriers to strategic planning. You should also reward behaviours that support strategic planning. For example, in hearing about the start of a strategic planning process, a unit head meets with her staff to discuss ideas on how they can backfill positions so as to allow as many staff as possible to participate in the planning process.
No Time is Ever Perfect
No matter when you undertake strategic planning, there will always be other initiatives going on or information that isn’t available. Although strategic planning is often positioned as though you are starting with a blank canvas, the reality is that you are not. As long as you can devote the time to strategy without the wheels falling off – get on with it. In the long term, your organization will be far better off getting on with the planning and associated changes that come of it than constantly putting it off for that elusive perfect time.
Organizational Size
The size of the organization can have a significant impact upon the number and depth of barriers to strategic planning. Generally, the larger the organization and longer it has existed without strategic planning the greater the challenges to implementing a strategic planning process.
Ron Robinson is the president of ABARIS Consulting Inc. He can be reached at (519) 472-9788 or rrobinson@abarisconsulting.com. This article is provided free of charge, for information purposes only and is not intended, represented or to be inferred as providing advice. ABARIS Consulting Inc. makes no warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability for accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information provided in whole or in part within this article.
ABARIS Consulting Inc. is credited as the source on all copies, reproductions and distributions, and CharityVillage.com is credited as the original publisher.
