August 2008 Deep Insights

Waking up to view a Strategic Plan Execution should not arouse panic. However, in most cases the view of reality is unpleasant. The crisis is there and only a miracle will resolve the lack of performance. Fortunately, wake up surprises can be avoided by structuring a culture of forestalling, not solving crisis.

Forestalling begins in the initial stages of Strategic Planning, when an organization diagnosis its environment and the factors that will effect its success or failure. At this stage your organization should ask: What elements will determine positive or negative influences? Who is best suited to closely watch? Who has the respect of the organization to call attention to their observations? This last question is important.
As observations will be the guide for forestalling crisis while allowing the organization to take advantage of an unsuspected opportunity.

Observations alone are not actionable. They must be coupled with a Strategic Plan that includes critical paths leading to indicators that will navigate the organization toward success. Without a plan for execution everyone interprets observations with their own ramifications, but with a plan, dialogue has boundaries. Dialogue leads analysis to determination of the effects of observations and the possible consequences on the whole of the organization’s Strategic Plan.

Knowing how the Strategic Plan, as a whole, will react to potential surprises allows everyone to participate in forestalling prior to solving random symptoms. The process of forestalling saves energy for root cause resolution, rather than draining energy through blaming others, pointing fingers or trying to prioritize symptom resolutions. These energy drains are eliminated in a culture of forestalling because people are thinking about the future, not dragging themselves into the past for causes that may not matter today.

Discipline is the final element. Surprises can come from within or outside of an organization’s environment. Therefore, forestalling requires a perceptive eye. What is thought not to matter may prove to matter. When this occurs, critical path execution landscapes must be redrawn to meet the new and improved Strategic Plan. A culture that forestalls will only survive when everyone is committed to making observations, spotting potential surprises, and taking action to prevent the derailment of the Strategic Plan.