Plan or Strategy? (Hint: You Need Both!)

We’ve had a lot of inquiries of late from school and NFP leaders who want to launch a strategic planning process.  We always start by talking with them about their why: Why now? Why a plan? What do they hope will happen as a result?

Once we have a sense of what brings them to us, we talk a bit about what we feel is important to communicate about our approach. Simply stated, that a plan is not a strategy. Perhaps strategic planning can be reimagined as an umbrella term to describe the creation of strategy and the act of planning to execute.

I’ve written a lot on this topic, but think it’s helpful sometimes to refresh these ideas in new ways. Here are a few key differences between a plan and your strategy - what did I miss? Let me know in the comments!

Scope and Timeframe:

• A strategy is wide in scope and conveys a few key choices or decisions that move you towards your vision over the next few years. 

• A plan is narrowly targeted, short term and lays out tactics and actions as you move forward. It’s incremental.

Orientation or External vs Internal Focus:

• A strategy orients your school externally and defines your unique value proposition  - as Roger Martin describes “where to play and how to win” - as you achieve a vision for impact. 

• A plan orients you internally - what systems and capabilities are we building and what steps are we taking to fulfill our strategy? They are related, but different. 

Commitment and Flexibility:

• A strategy is about making commitments - a few key decisions that focus resources and in turn, clarify what you won’t do. It can endure over several years as you move towards your vision for impact- even as your short term tactics adapt.

• A plan is prescriptive in the short term, but flexible as you learn, gather new data, and iterate. You prototype and pilot, refine, and redirect. If you are strictly crafting and then adhering to a plan over say, two or three years you’ll likely find much of it gets trashed as you reconfigure to navigate conditions you could not or did not predict. 

Imagination and Objective Certainty:

• A strategy requires creativity - making bets and forming a hypothesis about how to succeed that cannot be grounded in data or a look in the rear view mirror. In other words: “what got you here won’t get you there”. Strategy demands new thinking, innovation, and a testing of underlying assumptions 

• A plan considers what you do know, based on data, your SWOT analysis, and how you take action in the present tense. You may need to close some gaps, align to values, and respond to immediate threats. But with a strategy, you can design tactics that attend to the present as they evolve you towards the vision you have for success.

Visuals can help. We like Amy Webb’s framework to convey how a plans (tactics) are related to, but different from, strategy.

Why Do You Want a Strategic Plan?

Everyday, we hear from prospective clients who want support in building a strategic plan, many of whom offer a detailed RFP. We don’t fulfill RFPs. Instead, we ask: Why do you want a strategic plan? We ask this question because we’ve learned there are many reasons organizations decide they want a strategic plan. We also know that designing strategy and strategic planning are different activities. Sometimes, our quest to understand what the organization really wants means we don’t win the business. And that’s a good thing. Because the why matters.

To simplify, we generally see three overarching reasons driving the requests for strategic plans: 

BETTER MARKETING: For some organizations, strategic plans are often desired to combat declining enrollment or revenue growth: the plan is envisioned as the “silver bullet” to drive better marketing, branding, and advancement. We see this most often with  organizations who want to better articulate and promote what makes them valuable, special and distinctive. We hear things like “we need a strategic plan so we can do a better job of describing and communicating who we are — and we need to push that message out successfully”.  Often these organizations also want a feel good process that involves stakeholders to “bring everyone along”. When we hear this “why” we challenge clients to examine their assumptions. Have they defined the problem correctly? Is there a root cause or an issue of quality  they may have overlooked? If not, we steer potential clients to marketing, branding, and communications strategists.  

A NORTH STAR: For other organizations, the desire for a strategic plan is grounded in an optimistic sense of opportunity, and the need to orient everyone towards a  “North Star”.  In schools, there may be an accreditation cycle that gives the extra push -- and a recommendation that the school develop a clear purpose. It’s also not unusual for this “why” to correspond with an upcoming leadership transition or with the entry of new leadership. The organization feels like it’s on solid ground, and is eager to develop a vision for the future as it leans into its assets and strengths-- clarifying its own purpose and imagining a bold new future.  These kinds of strategic plans are also often inclusive exercises — but they  are a heavier lift — actively engaging people in affirming what matters most, and designing and testing new ideas to support effective execution.  

A WINNING TRANSFORMATION: Then, there  is the plan driven by a deep sense of importance and urgency: a sense that the current operating model may not be viable for the future --- that the conditions for success are changing — and a sense that the needs and interests of stakeholders are changing.  In these cases, organizations want to consider the changing landscape and scenario plan; they want an honest diagnosis of current operations, and a reasonable and compelling treatment recommendation. Sometimes the value of the program and the product is under serious examination, and the relevance of mission needs to be tested. Most often, questions regarding the capacity of leadership and talent surface, as do elements of culture: can the people and the culture we have now take us where we want to go? Transformation and change are the core of this planning endeavor, it’s a deep, long partnership, and the design of strategy happens within the execution of strategy -- and the plan is an iterative working approach to execution. It drives the organization towards new success. 

You may see parts of your why in one or more of these buckets: often, we find clients begin with one why and discover another why as we set out on the journey together. Our work focuses on the NORTH STAR and the TRANSFORMATION projects because that’s what strategy is all about. Goals, tactics, and laundry lists of to do’s that drive effective execution follow the creation of a winning strategy. What is your why?