About You (the Reader)
You find yourself in a strategy retreat wanting more than the usual limited thinking and short-term plans.
In fact, your mind is racing with ideas about ways things could be done differently. Game-changing aspirations. BHAGs. Longer time-horizons.
Case studies of Apple, Netflix, Amazon and other industry-leaders fly through your head as you recall stories of moments when they made tough decisions.
But you aren’t sure whether these ideas or examples apply to your organization. So, you stay quiet at critical moments…and suddenly, the workshop is over.
However, you drive home asking... What could you have done differently to transform the meeting so that it included a long-term perspective? Maybe even some Innovations? Breakthroughs? Inspirations? New Categories? Unprecedented disruptions to your industry?
Reasons for people to use some of that discretionary effort being spent on Tik Tok, Instagram and Disney Plus.
But where do you start?
Welcome to Jump-Leap Long-Term Strategic Planning- a different category of thinking that defines conventional wisdom.
A Quick Story
Alberto was fuming, but only inside. A consummate board member, he couldn’t share all the turmoil he felt in this, his first prep meeting for the upcoming strategic planning retreat. He was limited. As the new kid on the block, he was given the chore to represent the board in this routine, annual corporate activity.
But it was clear to him that his new colleagues were simply going through the motions. The end-product, an updated strategic plan, would endorse the path the company had taken for three decades…an amazing unbroken run of success.
Now, he realized, they had been lucky. No real competition had ever shown up. That is, until six months ago when a South Korean company (TTwida) popped up out of nowhere. Boasting new technology, they were scaring the CEO and his board, but few others seemed to care. The planning team certainly didn’t.
He struggled to get some words together that wouldn’t alarm or distress the team.
“But if we only plan for the next three to five years, how will we ever incorporate the latest technologies - like the ones TTwida is using?”
“It’s not our job to plan for the future. Just put together the strategic plan” the team leader explained.
His pained expression and reddened face must have registered. Now, all eyes were on him. An awkward silence hung in the air as he searched his mind for the right words. He had experienced great retreats and ineffective ones. Game-changers and check-boxers. But he had never been asked to explain the difference.
What could he say?
What is interwoven short/long-term strategic planning?
Alberto isn’t alone. And if you’re a bit like him, you may also struggle to enlist others in the kind of planning which changes everything. But where can it be developed?
Enter interwoven short/long-term strategic planning.
It’s the kind of planning which has everything to do with creating plans which accomplish great things. As the name implies, teams which use it end up with both short and long-term strategic plans which are inseparable.
But this is just the means. Why are they defying conventional wisdom, and replacing 3-5-year plans with 15-30-year strategic plans? Why are they engaging in such radical thinking?
If you have read this far, you probably have your own reasons.
And if you belong to an organization that already has long-term goals, you may be concerned about achieving them. Why? Too many leadership groups are following the “set it and forget it” model of strategic planning. They commit to some BHAGs but do little more than exhort others to follow them.
Case in point: the 17 Sustainable Development Goals due for completion in 2030 which are way off-track due to poor strategic planning.
Whatever brings you here, my thesis is the same: there are principles of interwoven short/long-term strategic planning which cannot be violated. Or else bad things happen, such as:
For-Profit
strategic plans end up falling far short of game-changing quality.
the Past Forward mindset is continued even in planning retreats.
competitors with longer timeframes, and better plans, dominate.
short-termism does nothing to inspire staff, mangers, executives and board.
companies end up greenwashing - pretending to be seriously committed to sustainable goals but having no real long-term plans for doing so.
Non-Profits
SMART BHAGs are set which have no strategic plans and lack feasibility.
Leaders work hard to exhort staff or their audience to double-down on goals which aren’t credible.
Global, long-term problems like Climate Change make unsatisfactory progress.
Frustration by stakeholders who believe in outcomes their organizations aren’t equipped to achieve.
All the above problems ensue because some beliefs have crept into the popular wisdom which aren’t true. Here at JumpLeap, we reject the following:
the world is too VUCA for long-term thinking.
long-term strategic planning takes too long and is far too expensive to undertake.
long-term strategic plans are too rigid.
the average leadership team isn’t up to the challenge of long-term strategic planning The job is too difficult.
BHAGs can be squeezed into 3-5-year plans.
While there’s no credible research to back up these claims, there’s plenty that says otherwise. For example, here’s an excerpt from a Collins/Porras Harvard Business Review article from 1996.
Just check out our library for more information.
In it you will find support for the idea that interwoven short/long-term strategic planning is not the customary approach. It’s not taught in MBA schools. There are few books which offer details.
Fortunately, the JumpLeap Newsletter is built on an ongoing study of more than 50 strategic plans of a long-term nature. Along with various partners over 20+ years, I (Francis) participated in all of them using the EndPoint approach invented by Framework Consulting.
They have produced stellar results, and helped leadership teams make challenging GET decisions: Game-changing, Extraordinary and Transformational. But it’s what you would expect from teams who work together, in concert, to confront the short and long-term destinations of their organizations.
So can you, once you overcome whatever obstacles your company faces to interwoven short/long-term strategic planning.
If any of this has raised your curiosity, don’t leave without claiming a subscription. Or a Free Trial.
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What Your Monthly Subscription Includes
Monthly mini-books of 2,000-5,000 words in length. These are in-depth guides that will really make you think about the underlying intent of long-term strategic planning and the ways to make it practical.
Prior articles published for the past decade, published in the Caribbean’s premier English newspaper - The Jamaica Gleaner.
Video content from the 2022 Strategy Conference hosted by JumpLeap folks.
A periodic Short Insights post each month filled with breaking ideas and links to conversations related to strategic planning from around the Internet.
Audio recordings of each article so you can listen to each one like a podcast episode.
Podcast interviews with experts in long-term strategic planning.
These are unique ways to receive high-quality insights that could be hard to find elsewhere.
