Plan to Fail

It started in February. A sense of unease that, despite our brand’s healthy, glowing performance and positioning, we were overlooking something. Maybe my unease came from industry disruptors or perhaps a more general concern that the prolonged period of economic recovery and growth would soon stagnate. It wasn’t that we lacked a planning framework. Each year in the fourth quarter we dutifully completed a SWOT analysis and then outlined our goals and objectives based on the overall enterprise plans from leadership.

In any case, I did what any good MBA student would. I ordered a number of strategy and scenario planning books on Amazon, spent a day in a coffee shop reading and annotating them, and then overnighted my notes to my managing director with a Post-It Note saying we needed to revisit our planning framework. Then COVID-19 happened. Before we had time revisit our planning process, our industry was ravaged, our team was furloughed, and our SWOT analysis looked like a fantasy.

Now, the fourth quarter is drawing near again. I have a new job and a new brand to serve, but the question remains. As we look to 2021, how do we better plan for the unexpected?

There’s no doubt my team will honor the grand tradition of completing an annual SWOT exercise, but if there’s ever been a time to embrace an emergent approach to strategic planning, it’s now. In contrast to a deliberate strategy, an emergent approach reacts to a changing reality, embraces experimentation, and encompasses front-line experiences. Rather than setting concrete goals and timelines, an emergent strategy focuses on learning and allowing organic patterns (best practices) to appear and then be adopted.

If you’re seeking an alternate way of thinking about 2021 and beyond, here are three initial steps to pivoting to a more flexible, reactive approach.

• Go to the front – Sourcing ideas and feedback from front-line managers and employees has never been more important, especially if you find yourself in a work from home situation, removed from daily interaction with customers or other employees. Whether it’s cost-cutting efforts, revenue growth, or improving customer experience, your front-line teams should be your first stop in assessing opportunities and challenges.
• Go broad – As you identify potential paths to growth and improvements and as new challenges develop in the environment, take a broad approach to testing and piloting multiple solutions based on regular input from the teams involved in daily operations. Rather than perfectionists, seek out managers who act with urgency and have a deep understanding and appreciation for how other teams and departments operate. These collaborators are your best bet for quickly scaling and formalizing improvements or new initiatives.
• Goals – Goal-setting is engrained in the fiber of corporate America. We’re used to putting pen to paper (or marker to dry-erase board). There may be no getting out of this exercise no matter how volatile the economy or operating environment is. Instead, consider thinking of your goals and your team’s goals through a different lens. Can you commit to testing a certain number of initiatives? Or providing a framework to measure success? Or to shortening your time to market?

We don’t know what 2021 will look like, but we can prepare our teams to continue to be resilient and resourceful in an ever-changing environment.