The first time I got directly involved in strategic planning was at Adobe in 1998.
My first years with the company had been a breeze. We were in high-growth mode, and all my energy was into ensuring we could respond to the sea of opportunities.
Then, the unthinkable happened. Our results didn’t meet the street’s expectations for a couple of quarters, the stock tanked, and our sudden position of weakness enabled one of our tiny competitors to attempt a hostile takeover.
We had to do a much better job of managing the company.
During these days, at a famous company hall town meeting, Hal Covert, our then-CFO, hammered down on the fact that those who didn’t have a plan were screwed.
It resonated so much with me that I became obsessed with building the right strategic plan moving forward.
On paper, the framework for strategic-goal setting looked straightforward:
- Understand and align with the company’s vision.
- Assess how our competencies could help us address opportunities and threats.
- Set and cascade SMART goals and KPIs, prioritizing in light of vision and mission.
- Communicate, review, and adapt your plan if need be.
But as I started digging into setting a strategic plan with my team, we soon realized how insurmountable the task was.
The vision and our competencies weren’t so clear. Dynamic market trends, rapid technological advancements, shifting economic conditions, and changing customer preferences created high uncertainty. It multiplied the potential scenarios and made it challenging to foresee what would lie ahead.
Fast forward twenty-five years later, Adobe was no exception. Every company I’ve helped with their strategic planning faces the same complexities and uncertainties. And in most cases, the outcome was different from the strategic goals that we established in the first place.
Yet, setting these strategic goals was essential. It played a central role in guiding and aligning all our efforts toward a common purpose:
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- By enabling a clear vision of where the company wanted to go and what it aimed to achieve in the long term. They acted as a compass, guiding decision-making and resource allocation to move the company in the desired direction.
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- By helping us prioritize initiatives and activities. With always-limited resources, time, and staffing, it allowed us to focus our efforts on the most important objectives with the most significant impact on success.
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- By inspiring team members and everyone else involved. It gave us a sense of purpose and a shared mission to work toward. This, in turn, boosted motivation and alignment, fostering a sense of belonging and commitment within the organization.
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- By providing us with a framework for adapting to new challenges and opportunities. We could adjust our strategies while maintaining core objectives, enabling us to remain resilient and competitive.
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- By serving as measurable targets that allowed us to track progress and performance. They provided a basis for evaluating success and holding individuals and teams accountable for their contributions to achieving those goals.
Don’t get me wrong: working on these strategic plans has never been easy. It’s work!
We’ve had to challenge the status quo more than once and address fundamental questions about the nature of the business and what success would look like.
But in the end, it always made the difference when we carefully used strategic goals as an agreed direction, a motivator, and a basis for every decision.
Nothing more, nothing less.
So, think of strategic goals as your company’s journey to success. They foster focus and alignment and enable efficient resource utilization. They are vital to effective management and decision-making, helping you thrive in a complex and dynamic world.
And if you’re struggling with how to get started, which questions to ask yourself, and how to run that whole framework. I’ll be happy to help, just reach out.