Strategic Planning - Not Just "a thing", but 2 Things.

Are you looking for a Third Growth Option ℠ ?

We unpack why strategic planning fails, when leaders confuse the destination with the plan — and how a bold North Star fuels execution.

Key Takeaways:

• AVOID thinking too small (seeing goals as “Finish Lines”)
• INSTEAD, think bigger: set goals as your “North Star”. 
  • SUMMIT VISION – from 3 lenses (marketing, ops, finance)
  • TRANSFORMATIVE PERSPECTIVE from the peak
• “Attainable” goals provide short-term reward, but don’t inspire much
•  BHAG thinking (combined with well-sequenced quick wins) creates real momentum
•  Commit to one system of executing the plan: EOS, OKRs, OGSM, our 1-2-3 Growth Process, etc. 
•  THE ULTIMATE TRAP: the crime of low aim

Always growing.

Benno Duenkelsbuehler

CEO & Chief Sherpa of (re)ALIGN

reALIGNforResults.com

[e-mail]

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Strategic planning.
Oh my god, it is so difficultfor so many, so challenging for
so many people.
And we just got it back, we justgot back a survey that we had
sent to a few hundred um owners,executives of mid-sized
manufacturers, distributors,sales agencies, uh selling to
retailers.

(00:21):
And the overarching theme wasplanning is difficult, executing
on the plan is difficult, comingup with the plan is difficult.
Um, so I wanted to follow up onuh season three, episode four on
strategic planning, and justreally drive down drive on the
point around strategic planningis not a thing.

(00:44):
It is two things there'sstrategy, and then there's the
planning and the executing partof it, right?
And I think a lot of uhstrategies fail um because
people confuse the goal ofstrategic planning, the goal,
the strategy goal as a finishline rather than a North Star,

(01:08):
right?
Uh they come up with a strategicgoal that is too small.
They come up, people come upwith strategic goals that um are
achievable next month or nextquarter as opposed to achievable
in three to five years.

(01:29):
Um, and there's a lot of reasonswhy people do that, right?
The old, you know, there's theum smart goals have to be
specific and measurable andattainable, and let's just stop
there, right?
Uh the attainable, oh my god, wehave to be able to attain it,
you know, next week or nextquarter.
So when you do strategicplanning, um think of the

(01:52):
overarching goal uh as the northstar, not the finish line,
right?
And Jim Collins, good to great,he talks about the B HAG.
Um, you do have to make thatNorth Star come alive, right?
And so that it doesn't just say,you know, uh pretty words and a

(02:16):
vision's vision statement in thelobby in a gold frame.
That's not you know gonna work.
But make sure that your NorthStar is, you know, um, as
Americans, we're really good atyou know big golds, big, you
know, man on the moonstatements, JFK, right?

(02:38):
Alexis de Tocqueville talkedabout uh do not go for paltry
aims, right?
So uh make sure, yeah, you know,in EOS terminology you have
rocks, but sometimes alsoboulders, right?
Sometimes, you know, a MountEverest mountain you want to
climb.

(02:58):
So make sure that your strategyhas a a well painted
three-dimensional image andvision uh from all three
perspectives, right?
The CMO, the C O O the CFO'sperspective.

(03:19):
Um make sure you have uh a NorthStar that people can really
understand, smell, feel, touch,right?
And then the second part ofplanning and strategic planning
is the planning part, and hereyou get into the acronym soup of
processes, and I just say pickyour pick your poison, pick your

(03:41):
process.
There's EOS, great system.
Uh uh OKRs, right?
Makes a lot of sense.
OGSM's uh objectives and goalsuh strategy and measurement
makes a lot of sense.
KPIs, KIs for key initiatives.

(04:03):
All of that is part of, youknow, you have to gant chart
that out, timeline it out, youhave to create milestones to for
there to be accountability andownership, um, and also to
sequence things out, right?
Um back to the yeah, it's greatto have a quarterly rock in EOS
terminology, but you're notgoing to land on the moon next

(04:29):
month or by the end of thequarter, right?
So you have to uh sequence out,you know, if you have a
five-year Mount Everest goal toclimb, uh, yeah, you have to
have 30, 60 day, and 90-dayrocks and things to get to base
camp, prepare base camp, have aroadmap.

(04:50):
Um so everything has to besequenced out.
Um so none of that planningprocess is gonna stick.
If you have paltry aims, myfavorite quote is not failure,
but low aim is crime.

(05:11):
Don't commit that crime ofaiming too low.