Strategic Planning For Business Success

by Karen Stern



Whether brainstorming a new initiative or designing the path forward in a changing market, many organizations have engaged in some form of strategic planning. Organizations types can approach strategic planning with a new perspective by adopting these general guidelines:

Transition, transformation and transparency. Transitions bring in fresh thinking, new skill sets and different approaches to leadership. Once a transition is complete and a plan is in place, each person in the organization needs to identify his or her role. Since performance management is an important accountability tool for monitoring the strategic plan, it is critical to share the plan with those in the organization who are affected to allow them to effectively understand their role in the strategy. Job descriptions and performance reviews in line with the organization’s strategy will lead to successful work and outcomes.

As above, so below. Many times, strategic plans remain at the top of an organization with, preventing people throughout the organization from contributing. Cutting out other levels can potentially cause organizations to miss out on additional creative thinking. One of the values of Lean Six Sigma methodology is to get the people who are in the process to design the new process because they know what is wrong with the old one.

Survey says. Encourage engagement by developing a strategic survey for key individuals throughout the organization to complete. This is a great way for management to reach people at all levels in order to receive insightful feedback and critical buy-in. Taking it a step further, an organization can choose some of its high-performing players for a focus group to discuss a couple of the issues they’ve been exploring in their strategic planning. This could be a market or financial analysis, demographics of customers, discussions of competition, or what they want in their pipeline of R&D.

Karen Stern, CPA, (kstern@bswllc.com), partner in charge, Brown Smith Wallace Entrepreneurial Services Group, provides tax and accounting services for companies ranging from start-ups to $20 million in revenue.