Supercharging Your Strategic Direction
Let me first clarify the world "Supercharge." When I speak of supercharging your strategic direction, I will show how to speed up the process of developing a strategy for the future. When your organization is at a point where they can integrate those elements into daily planning, then the supercharger comes off.
In my experience as a strategic planning analyst for a military organization, the most common objective of strategic planning has always been (and will probably remain) to look into the future. I believe in order for an organization to make a successful journey to the future, they must analyze their entire operation and build a superstructure to the future.
For a moment can you see how your company will look in five, ten, even fifteen years from now? In my opinion, a CEO or business owner doesn't usually have a great deal of time on their hands and would be lucky to see ahead for the next six months or even a year. That is why you must first ask the question, "Is it really worth it; can we really benefit from formulating a strategic plan right now?" If the answer is "yes" (which I believe is a wise decision), then the road is long and full of curves, hills and roadblocks. A smart CEO would use a team of qualified strategic planners to help them in their journey.
A Strategic Planning Team (SPT) comes in many formulas and sizes and they use varying techniques. They would conduct the research needed on the company to help them construct an analysis for a baseline that would then be used to guide the senior leadership down the right path.
To effectively create a usable roadmap for strategic direction, your organization will need to invest at least six months to a year to have a good honest view of itself. This view will not only be a windowpane into the future but also have a rear view mirror to see where you have been. A top to bottom review of your past, an audit or recent (within 2 years) assessment, must show you without a shadow of a doubt where your organization has been in the last two to five years.
When attempting to look ahead, senior leaders should be ever mindful that their efforts are shaping the structure of the organization for the future and the needs of the organization must far outweigh the wants. You don't want to suddenly figure out one day that your organization is going to construct a strategic plan.
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