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Leadership
Leadership - The Link Between Planning & Doing
YOU will have a sense that strategic planning involves more It needn’t be this way.
than getting together for one day a year to develop a strategic
planning document. Strategic planning is both a logical, ra- Reconceptualizing Strategic Planning
tional process, and a process that involves people. It takes Planning should be considered as a blueprint for change. The
more than developing a plan for that plan to be implemented. plan should be the basis for introducing controlled change
In this article, we consider that the critical link between plan- into an organization so it can adapt to changing times. By an-
ning and doing is leadership. ticipating shifting demands, the plan serves the purpose of al-
lowing the organization to control its own direction, rather
Traditional Planning Methods than waiting until political forces demand change (and de-
The traditional way for government organizations to plan is mand change NOW). In addition, the plan allows for consis-
for a group of people, usually executives/management, but tent monitoring of success, and re-examination of the degree
sometimes including employees, to get together for some pe- to which organizational resources should be structured and
riod of time each year. Generally, inadequate time is allocated allocated to achieve future goals.
to the exercise, but if it is completed, it results in a document But, if we look at strategic planning in this light, as a blueprint
that contains a mission statement, broad organizational goals, for change, we also need to consider that any organization has
and other elements as is deemed appropriate. Then, the plan built-in inertia.. the tendency to keep on doing what one has
is usually hidden away somewhere, never to be seen again. been doing. On its own, the strategic planning process, as tra-
Traditional methods yield traditional results. As a wise man ditionally undertaken, is insufficient to overcome this inertia.
once said “If you keep doing what you have been doing, you Other forces need to come into play if the plan, and proposed
will get what you have always got”. changes get implemented.
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