Francis Wade | Got a comprehensive strategy? Toss it!

Your company has a comprehensive strategic plan. Its creators feel proud of its breadth. But should you narrow its focus? See why this idea may save it from failure.

Somewhere in your email inbox there’s a very long strategic plan. You haven’t found the time to read it. No one has. It looks as if it would take several hours to digest and you have other pressing priorities.

By the same token, you are a bit concerned that a year will pass before you even find a free moment to glance at it.

However, you don’t question the intent of those who wrote it. You may even have offered early input. But you weren’t the author of the final document, so you haven’t got all the details.

That job fell to a task force of colleagues who relished the idea of being ‘comprehensive’. This is where you could have a problem.

Consider the notion that they have unwittingly produced a wish list instead of a plan. Like a kid’s letter to Santa, most things on it just aren’t going to happen.

But it’s not as if the individual items are unrealistic. In fact, you support each one.

The error lies in a ‘the more the merrier’ fallacy. In other words, it assumes that, if one strategic idea or project is good, then a lot more would be better. In the C-suite, it’s easy to fall into this trap: merely saying ‘yes’ to each new proposal.

Before long, you end up with an impossible dream instead of a strategic plan. Inherent in your refusal to say ‘no’ are the seeds of your own destruction. Perhaps you have seen this happen before. It may explain your procrastination.

Conclusion: a ton of good strategic ideas, when rolled together into one, is equivalent to a very bad strategy.

Case in point: When Steve Jobs rejoined Apple in 1997, he killed most of their then product line. A few years later, the company committed to creating a single ecosystem for users. It powered their rise to become the most valuable corporation in the world.

Fresh framework

Given this approach, how should you react?

Announce that the process isn’t finished.

Say ‘no’ to the current plan/wish list and continue the planning process. In your next step, bring in a fresh framework – the Strategy Triad by Peter Compo. It’s made up of three legs: an aspiration, a bottleneck and then tasks/policies.

In your subsequent team meeting, use this tool to narrow your focus. What does this mean?

1. Restart the process by selecting your most important objective;

2. Narrow your focus on the few critical bottlenecks to achieving it;

3. Pick the next objective. Repeat the prior step;

4. Toss out the items from your wishlist that don’t expand bottlenecks;

5. Among the remaining candidates, find the few items which will have the greatest leverage; and

6. Ensure the plan fits your budget.

Possible pushback

As obvious as this approach may seem, prepare for some pushback.

Objection 1: This could be too hard.

The fact is, this method does ruffle feathers. By forcing critical choices, colleagues with opposing points of view are asked to work out their differences in open discussion.

This could make things worse.

The key is to use a neutral facilitator. Someone who is not invested in a particular opinion would be the ideal person to broker heated disagreements. They can balance the need to be rigorous with the desire to bring the team together on the same page.

Objection 2: This will take too long.

While it’s hopeful that these negotiations could be conducted in a single, casual meeting over lunch, that’s not realistic.

Instead, plan a day offsite for the top 20 people in your organisation. Use the time away from the office to drive to consensus around the few activities which will expand or ‘bust’ the bottlenecks the most.

At the same time, try to reduce the number of projects and initiatives down to the necessary few – the essentials.

But, at the start, if needed, show how many hours would have been consumed pursuing the original wish list. The intervention to reduce the plan to its bottlenecks should be a massive time saver.

Plus, it will improve the odds of implementation. Why?

Chances are, many of your colleagues are also procrastinating. They don’t want to read the wish-list strategy either – it’s depressing to those who have been around the block a few times.

They are more likely to agree on a set of narrow commitments, a minimum, viable strategy of sorts.

You should find that a limited focus will speed implementation as you concentrate your energy. You’ll see success.

Francis Wade is a management consultant and author of Perfect Time-Based Productivity. To search past columns on productivity, strategy and business processes, or give feedback, email: columns@fwconsulting.com