Five Signs Your Strategic Plan Isn't Working

With so many changes happening in your organization in the past year, there’s a very good chance that your strategic plan no longer fits your organization.  Even without a year of a global pandemic, too many plans never really take hold.  What are the signs that your strategic plan is no longer working, and what questions should you be asking yourself?

Sign #1: The strategic plan is forgotten as soon as everyone goes back to “real work”. It gets dusted off when it’s time for a board meeting or for the next retreat, but in-between no one really remembers what the plan says. 
The underlying cause. There’s a good chance that your team never really owned or believed in this plan. 
Questions to ask yourself: 

1. Did our team really own the creation of the plan?  Or was it more the work of the consultant who led our retreats?
2. Did we spend enough time deeply debating and resolving the hard questions? Or did we just agree with each other in order to keep the peace and to get the plan written and checked off our list?
3. Did the process of planning help our team to get out of their silos and actually work together in new ways? 
4. Is our plan really a plan? Did we go beyond articulating our mission and audience (important underlying work, but not really a plan), and create ambitious strategic initiatives? 

Sign #2: Only the executive team really talks about the plan.
 The underlying cause. It’s likely that your plan isn’t really embraced by anyone else in the organization.  The team had a great time planning during your retreats and thought they saw lots of enthusiasm when they announced the plan at the town hall meeting, but now you are having a very tough time moving things forward.

Questions to ask yourself.

1. Who got involved in creating the plan?  Did we engage the whole organization at key stages of the plan development?
2. Did we have a strong communication plan in place around strategic planning?
3. Did we think about key influencers in the organization and what role they might play?

Sign #3:  You just aren’t getting enough traction with the new initiatives that the plan outlines. A couple of initiatives are moving ahead, but others haven’t even gotten started. 
The underlying cause.  Like many plans, yours may have been too ambitious, unfocused, and maybe not grounded in the reality of your organization.
Questions to ask yourself: 

1. Did we take on too much? 
2. Did we thoughtfully analyze what it would take to accomplish the plan?  Did we fully integrate financial and human resources planning?
3. Did we create metrics that would help us see the steps we needed to take for each initiative?  
4. Did we establish who will lead each initiative, and are we holding them accountable for the work? 

Sign #4:  Your competitors are outpacing you.  You aren’t gaining market share or increasing your impact.
The underlying cause.  You may have created a plan that was too “status quo”, and you may not have looked deeply at what your customers want and need now. 
Questions to ask yourself:

1. Did our plan begin with a deep assessment of the market and your customers?
2. Did we underestimate the strengths of our competitors?
3. Did we involve customers and stakeholders, asking them what they needed?
4. Were we too cautious, and not ambitious enough in challenging ourselves?
5. Did we have the courage to imagine a future that looks different?

Sign #5.  The plan has no relationship with the current reality.  You planned that revenue and impact would be on track to increase 25% or more but the world changed a lot in the past year.  You don't believe that you can hold your team accountable for a plan that no longer works in this new world.
The underlying cause.  The world DID change!  
Questions to ask yourself:

1. Have we moved to just survival mode, recovering from lower revenue and layoffs?
2. Are we stuck?  If so, what do I and my team need to do to move forward?
3. Today, given these current conditions, where can we have the greatest impact?
4. How can we develop the right new plan for the future?

If you are seeing even one of these warning signs, you should be rethinking your strategy. Sure, it’s challenging to find the time to do this work, and right now, it might be hard to imagine what the future will look like. But especially now, it’s important to find the time, the focus and the energy to plan your strategy. You’ll be glad that you did. 

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