During the last 60 days, many leaders have been talking with me about strategic planning. They are recognizing that their current plans need to be significantly overhauled given recent events and future possibilities. Having worked so hard to create their current plans, they are now feeling overwhelmed about how to recreate them. To assist them in this process, I have had to review some key concepts.
First, to plan for the future in the middle of a complex environment like COVID-19 and a total economic free fall, one needs to go back to the beginning and understand what is strategy. In its most simplest form, strategy is three things. For starts, strategy is an extensively premeditated, carefully built, long term plan designed to achieve a particular goal. However, at the exact same time, this long term plan needs to be adaptable by nature due to unforeseen variables rather than presenting a rigid set of instructions or tactics which has the potential to create organizational vulnerability. Finally, strategy needs to serve as an important function in promoting ongoing evolutionary success.
What most leaders forget in the middle of complexity is that strategy needs to be planned, adaptable and evolutionary. And that is hard combination to create within a plan.
Therefore, I have been encouraging more and more leaders right now to not create a new 2-3 year strategic plan because there are just too many unforeseen variables and unpredictable outcomes that are surfacing and will surface over the coming 9-12 months. Instead, I have strongly encouraged them to build a shorter, bridge plan which focuses on the next 6-9 months.
The goal of a bridge plan is to create maximum adaptability and to continue moving forward strategically where possible. In times like these, the organization needs to survive, and on the other side of this global pandemic, the organization needs to be well positioned to thrive in the aftermath. Thus, a leader needs to focus on the core business, protect cash flow, and understand what your employees and your customers are going through at this time period, because on the other side of this global pandemic you want to have the capacity to execute efficiently and effectively in the new environment.
For many people in leadership positions, the hard part about building and executing a bridge plan is that it seems simplistic. There will be goals and objectives, metrics and dates with names for who is responsible for what but the overall bridge plan might not have too many goals or too many objectives.
At times like this, I have to point out that the simplicity of a bridge plan is the source of its strength. Recognizing that during times of high complexity, we need to remember that most people are just trying to figure out how to survive and get a couple of things done on a day to day basis. Their bandwidth is low and their stress is high. Therefore, a highly adaptable bridge plan gives them focus without overwhelming intensity and employee burnout. In short, it helps them feel like they are making progress and gives them the capacity to prioritize when all things before them are feeling like they are both urgent and important.
The other thing a bridge plan does is that it gives people in senior leadership positions the opportunity to zoom out and understand how the big picture is changing. And once they have zoomed out, then they can better assess the risk profile before the company, and determine if new conditions or unforeseen variables have surfaced which would call into question the current bridge plan.
With such a high degree of complexity and numerous adaptive challenges continuing to surface on a regular basis, maximum flexibility, which is what a bridge plan gives senior leaders, allows them the ability to adapt the plan, better mobilize key people and resources, and then focus on the execution of the plan so that it delivers results at the operational and, when possible, strategic levels.
With the above mind, I encourage you start thinking about how to build a bridge plan and who needs to be involved in the process. I also encourage you to build a bridge plan that is short, adaptable and gives you and the company maximum flexibility. Then, as the next 90-120 days unfold before us all, you will be able to make sure your team is getting the right things done at the right time in midst of these difficult times.
For those of you who want to be better prepared for the future, I encourage you to read the following two books:
- Charan, Ram. Leadership in the Era of Economic Uncertainty: The New Rules for Getting the Right Things Done in Difficult Times, McGraw Hill, 2009.
- Weick, Karl E., and Kathleen M. Sutcliffe. Managing The Unexpected: Resilient Performance in an Age of Uncertainty. John Wiley & Sons, Inc, 2007.
They will give you the language, perspective and frame work for doing this level of work.
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