Look-out to the Best Practices of Organizations

towards Barriers to Strategic Planning

by Mara A. Gabriel

Overview

Brian Tracy once said, "A clear vision, backed by definite plans, gives you a tremendous feeling
of confidence and personal power". This statement is associated with the leaders and/or
managers engaged in strategic planning processes. But, strategic planning skills among them
aren't apprehended and innate but are solely learned.

Organizations put a lot of effort to sustain stability and focus towards fulfilling their goals and
mission, also reaching its vision. They further seek for ways in which they may have establish
continuous growth and improvement in terms of human resources, market plans, tracks or
directions and arrays of mission-oriented activities. These drive the top and middle managers to
undergo strategic planning. Along with it is the might of those authorities mentioned and
manpower to develop ways that shall carry the organization towards its vision. However, there
are some instances in which planning is held. It is because "barriers" are arising. These lead top
managers to look for interventions or better ways to make strategic planning a lighter process—
the birth of the best practices.

Oxford dictionary defined 'Best Practices' as working methods or set of working methods that
are officially accepted as being the best to use in a particular business or industry, usually
described formally and in detail. Techopedia further stressed in their site that best practices are
industry-wide agreement that standardize the most efficient and effective way to accomplish a
desired outcome. It generally consists of a technique, method, or process. These also make the
organization follow best practices; a delivered outcome with minimal problems or complications
will be ensured.

This paper further discusses some of the observed best practices of organizations towards
barriers of strategic planning.

Best Practices

Strategic Planning as a Communicative Process

Language is a tool for communicating thoughts and opinions. Also, communication is
vital among top managers to initiate strategic planning. But, sometimes, they neglect the
participation of the first-line managers or the individuals who manage the work of non-
managerial employees. In reality, the former are the representatives who may contribute also of
what is about to put stress in strategic planning. If there is no a strong communication between
and among top, middle and first line managers, then, a wall is created to make the process
successful.

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Look-out to the Best Practices of Organizations towards Barriers to Strategic Planning
 Robert W. Bradford on his article entitled 'Communicating Your Strategic Plan with
Employees' emphasizes the utmost importance of communication in strategic planning. He said
that it is critically important that employees understand one's strategy. Employees who
understand the organization's strategy will be able to make better day-to-day decisions that will
support its vision. Thus, the participation of some, if not all, makes a great factor for the success
of the process.
In addition, the American Quality and Productivity Center’s International Benchmarking
Clearinghouse proved the same thing. They analyzed the strategic planning processes of 45 top
companies, including Alcoa, Deere & Company, Frito-Lay, Shell International Petroleum
Company, Whirlpool and Xerox Corporation and one of the best practices employed by these
highly successful corporations, as revealed in the Clearinghouse’s 1996 strategy study is
communication. This revealed that communication of the strategic plan is a formal and
significant element of the process and it is viewed as a measure of quality planning.
Ron Robinson, the president of ABARIS Consulting Inc., said in his article under
'Overcoming barriers to strategic planning' that if there is uncertainty in the organization over
strategic planning, communication must tighten. He further emphasized that communication
provides 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. Solely, this can take a variety of
forms including meetings, newsletters, town hall forums, etc. Short conferences, then, could
sustain the goals and mission of the organization.
No one is a monopoly of knowledge. Thus, top-bottom communication is highly
recommended as proven effective by various organizations.

Strategic Planning as a Delegation Process

"Two heads are better than one", this is one of the famous one-liners in terms of planning.
Basically, the latter entails group of individuals for a common goal. In this regard, organizations
consider the usefulness of diversity among employees. This is supported by an article posted by
strategic planners in their website in which they reiterated the relevance of diverse first-line
managers. They said that diversity leads to a better strategy. Bringing together in a small core
team—between six and ten people—of leaders and managers who represent every area of the
company could ease the process. Forming committees for each core team is integral. Proper
delegation and designation of work or task among employees to handle at assures quality
planning too. In forming such, some may be part of the planning team, others may be part of the
project team depending on the organization's need.
Furthermore, Taylorism speaks a lot on delegation. Taylor stated four principles of
Scientific Management and these are as follow:
a. replace working by "rule of thumb," or simple habit and common sense, and instead
use the scientific method to study work and determine the most efficient way to
perform specific tasks rather than simply assign workers to just any job, match
workers to their jobs based on capability and motivation, and train them to work at
maximum efficiency;
b. scientifically select, train, and develop each worker rather than passively leaving
them to train themselves;
c. monitor worker performance, and provide instructions and supervision to ensure that
they're using the most efficient ways of working; and

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 d. allocate the work between managers and workers so that the managers spend their
time planning and training, allowing the workers to perform their tasks efficiently.
Also, Henry Fayol's principles on management under Division of Work supports this
best practice in strategic planning. He clearly stated that when employees are specialized, output
can increase because they become increasingly skilled and efficient.
Strategic planning is also tapping keypersons to work.

Strategic Planning using a Balanced Scorecard and Roadmaps

The Balanced Scorecard is a strategic planning and management system that is used
extensively in business and industry, government, and nonprofit organizations worldwide to
align business activities to the vision and strategy of the organization, improve internal and
external communications, and monitor organization performance against strategic goals. This
new approach to strategic management was first detailed in a series of articles and books by Drs.
Kaplan and Norton which later on used by various business organizations.
Organizations use this in a matrix form. To some extent, the Key Result Areas (KRAs),
objectives or targets, strategies and/or activities, performance targets, persons involved, the time
frame and success indicators are described in the matrix. This serves as the guide of the
organization to pursue such goals and mission. Consequently, updating and monitoring could be
vital among the top and middle managers towards the balanced scorecard.
Another tool in strategic planning which is still part of the best practice of organizations
nowadays is the roadmap. David Smith of Technology Futures, Inc. in his article entitled
'Strategic Roadmaps' described roadmap as the popular approach applied to a long-range of
planning showing the path of the future. He detailed also that to achieve success, roadmaps must
target the right approach, involve the appropriate group intelligence, and provide a specific level
of detail. This is linked in the first two enumerated best practices of this article.
Since roadmaps are destinations at a moment in time (the goals and timelines), as well as
intermediate stops along the way, Smith reiterated that these shall connect those paths with the
following pathways:
a. Actionable steps necessary to get to destinations.
b. Interdependencies among steps.
c. Alternate routes need to pick paths that optimizes resources or risk.

Strategic Planning with Recreational Activity and Team Building

It is an undeniable thing that all strategic plannings are stressful especially if the
organization needs a full strengthening of operations to meet priority goals within a period of
time. Stress causes poor outcomes, thus, roster of recreational activities are initiated by certain
organizations to make the flame among employees still burning. The trend nowadays is that
companies do strategic planning out from their workplace. This ensures more focused goal-
setting activities and empowers the team to work. Organizations can go farther miles from their
workplace and some share treats to core teams in luxurious trip to sustain relaxation and
motivation to work. Indeed, team buildings and alignment are parts of strategic planning.

In an article written by Samantha McDuffee published on February 3, 2016 at

www.teambonding.com, she stated some of top reasons of having team buildings when engaged
in strategic planning. She said that team bonding brings people together by encouraging

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collaboration and teamwork. Fun activities that help people see each other in a different light
allow them to connect in a different setting.

She also added that one of the most powerful reasons for team building is to get results.
Through a series of planned team bonding events that are fun and motivational, teams build skills
like communication, planning, problem-solving and conflict resolution. Team bonding ideas that
work help facilitate long term team building through fostering genuine connections, deeper
discussions and processing. Thus, strategic planning could mean systematic planning yet taking
meaningful breaks to fulfill purposeful mission that is still part of the organization's vision.

Conclusion

Strategic planning is like the game in chess, think wisely—scrutinize and analyze the
needs—before executing a move. In between thinking process, you shall initiate techniques. You
may find it difficult at first, but, if you are used with the techniques already, you can win the
game. Success in planning is the product of failures, and failures are drives to success.

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 Bibliography

A. Published Journals
Kaplan, Robert S. and David P. Norton. (January-February 1996). “Using the Balanced
Scorecard as a Strategic Management System.” Harvard Business Review, Vol. 76.
Barriers to Strategic Planning. Burlington, ON: Tim Maloney Newport Group Inc.
Problems and barriers to strategic planning by Oliver Recklies
Strategic Roadmaps by Technology Features, Inc. Texas, USA Copyright 2005

Brief Notes: A Summary of Best Practice Planning Processes by Center for Applied Research
TRU Group

B. Websites

http://www.corporatechallenge.com.au/blog/12-benefits-team-building-2016 retrieved on March

3, 2017

https://www.teambonding.com/reasons-for-team-building/ retrieved on March 3, 2017

https://www.techopedia.com/definition/14269/best-practice retrieved on March 5, 2017

https://metropolitan.fiu.edu/training-institute/employee-development-programs/strategic-
planning-and-team-building-retreat/ retrieved on March 5, 2017

http://yourbusiness.azcentral.com/strategic-roadmap-14662.html retrieved on March 7, 2017

https://charityvillage.com/Content.aspx?topic=overcoming_barriers_to_strategic_planning#.WL
zhzH3wzhA retrieved on March 8, 2017

http://www.innovativeteambuilding.co.uk/benefits-of-teambuilding/ retrieved on March 8, 2017

C. Others

Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Oxford Dictionary

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