Episode 1: Is Your Strategic Plan Just Tactics Wearing a PowerPoint?
Don Schmincke
5 views
What if your strategic plan isn’t actually a strategy?
In this episode, Don Schmincke challenges the way organizations approach strategic planning—and argues that many “strategic plans” are really just collections of tactics, initiatives, and departmental priorities packaged in a polished PowerPoint presentation.
Drawing from his research into why strategic planning fails, Don introduces the distinction between mega strategy and tactical strategy. True strategy starts by defining what winning means, understanding the threats and realities facing the organization, and determining how to outmaneuver them. The tactics, projects, budgets, and KPIs come afterward.
Don also explains why consensus can be dangerous, why real strategy requires sacrifice, and how organizations can end up executing yesterday’s assumptions with increasing efficiency.
Finally, he offers three practical tests you can use to evaluate your current strategic plan—and determine whether you actually have a strategy or simply a task list with executive sponsorship.
Timestamps:
00:00 – Is your strategic plan really a strategy?
Why strategic planning sessions can produce consensus without producing meaningful change.
01:00 – The problem with template-driven strategy
Why filling in strategic planning templates and creating PowerPoint decks doesn’t create strategy.
02:00 – Challenging reality
The questions leaders need to ask about changing markets, customer value, and the assumptions behind past success.
03:00 – Mega strategy vs. tactical strategy
The difference between defining what winning means and creating the initiatives, projects, budgets, and goals needed to execute.
04:00 – When consensus becomes the enemy
How strategic plans can become negotiated collections of departmental ambitions where everyone’s priorities survive.
05:00 – Why real strategy requires sacrifice
Why choosing a direction means deciding what to stop doing, and why organizations often retreat toward safer planning instead.
06:00 – Executing a future that no longer exists
What Blockbuster, Kodak, and department stores can teach us about executing yesterday’s assumptions.
07:00 – Three tests for your strategic plan
Delete the tactics, identify the sacrifice, and find the displacement to discover whether your plan contains real strategic choices.
08:00 – Strategy is about subtraction
Why transformation requires resources, authority, status, or priorities to actually shift.
09:00 – Are you planning for nothing?
The final question every executive team should ask: If we execute everything in this plan, what will be fundamentally different about how the company operates?
Episode 1: Is Your Strategic Plan Just Tactics Wearing a PowerPoint?
Don Schmincke
5 views
What if your strategic plan isn’t actually a strategy?
In this episode, Don Schmincke challenges the way organizations approach strategic planning—and argues that many “strategic plans” are really just collections of tactics, initiatives, and departmental priorities packaged in a polished PowerPoint presentation.
Drawing from his research into why strategic planning fails, Don introduces the distinction between mega strategy and tactical strategy. True strategy starts by defining what winning means, understanding the threats and realities facing the organization, and determining how to outmaneuver them. The tactics, projects, budgets, and KPIs come afterward.
Don also explains why consensus can be dangerous, why real strategy requires sacrifice, and how organizations can end up executing yesterday’s assumptions with increasing efficiency.
Finally, he offers three practical tests you can use to evaluate your current strategic plan—and determine whether you actually have a strategy or simply a task list with executive sponsorship.
Timestamps:
00:00 – Is your strategic plan really a strategy?
Why strategic planning sessions can produce consensus without producing meaningful change.
01:00 – The problem with template-driven strategy
Why filling in strategic planning templates and creating PowerPoint decks doesn’t create strategy.
02:00 – Challenging reality
The questions leaders need to ask about changing markets, customer value, and the assumptions behind past success.
03:00 – Mega strategy vs. tactical strategy
The difference between defining what winning means and creating the initiatives, projects, budgets, and goals needed to execute.
04:00 – When consensus becomes the enemy
How strategic plans can become negotiated collections of departmental ambitions where everyone’s priorities survive.
05:00 – Why real strategy requires sacrifice
Why choosing a direction means deciding what to stop doing, and why organizations often retreat toward safer planning instead.
06:00 – Executing a future that no longer exists
What Blockbuster, Kodak, and department stores can teach us about executing yesterday’s assumptions.
07:00 – Three tests for your strategic plan
Delete the tactics, identify the sacrifice, and find the displacement to discover whether your plan contains real strategic choices.
08:00 – Strategy is about subtraction
Why transformation requires resources, authority, status, or priorities to actually shift.
09:00 – Are you planning for nothing?
The final question every executive team should ask: If we execute everything in this plan, what will be fundamentally different about how the company operates?