What actually makes a strategic plan strategic? — The Uncommon decalogue
Ten rules behind the plans that actually get done. Most plans get a standing ovation in a packed room. Then they collect dust within weeks: more than 50% of companies never deliver on their own strategic priorities (MIT Sloan · Donald Sull).
The decalogue
01. Start with the diagnosis. Get honest about where you stand.
Before you dream, write down exactly where you are. What works, what only survives because one person keeps carrying it, where you're bleeding. It stings to read. That's the point.
02. Back the diagnosis with data. Every number gets a source and a date.
Every claim needs a number. Every number needs a source and a date. Build a diagnosis on opinions and you'll get a plan built on opinions.
03. Your aspiration fits in one sentence. And everyone says it the same way.
One, three, five, ten years out. If your team has to open the file to remember it, you're not there yet. Easy test: at your next meeting, ask everyone to say it out loud.
04. Assets define what is possible. Take inventory before you reach.
Relationships no one can copy, years of data, capacity that is already built, reputation. There is almost always an asset you're only half using. With that inventory in hand, the aspiration writes itself. Without it, you're just guessing.
05. Set the criteria before the priorities. Yardstick first, list second.
Decide how every initiative gets scored, then look at the list. Flip that order and the winner is whoever pitches loudest in the room.
06. Three to five priorities. Full stop.
Sull ran the numbers on the S&P 500: the strategies that get done carry three to five objectives across three to five years. Capping it at five forces the hardest conversation there is: what gets cut.
07. Each horizon gets its own yardstick. Measure them separately.
Measure the near term by speed. The strategic by whether you can sustain it. The transformational by what you learn even when it flops. One yardstick for everything always rewards whatever is on fire, and that's exactly where your big bets go to die.
08. Every priority gets a number, an owner and a date.
Across the S&P 500, only 6 percent of stated priorities came with a quantitative target. A priority with no number is just a wish. One with two owners belongs to nobody.
09. Name what you stop doing. With a hard deadline.
The stop list is the most valuable part of any plan, and the part everyone dodges. Put a date on it and killing something goes from awkward to routine.
10. Cadence keeps it alive. Monthly review, locked on the calendar.
Every month, revisit your assumptions, your checkpoints and your stop list. The ground will shift. A steady cadence is how you shift with it.
Sources
- Donald Sull et al., MIT Sloan Management Review: between half and two-thirds of companies fall short on their strategic priorities. Strategic Agility Project series, 2017–2018.
- Donald Sull, Stefano Turconi, Charles Sull and James Yoder, MIT SMR, 2017: analysis of 494 S&P 500 companies; just 6 percent of strategic priorities came with quantitative targets.
- Donald Sull, MIT Sloan: survey of 302 organizations, 2012–2017; even with five tries, only 29 percent of executives could name three of their own company's strategic priorities.
- Clayton Christensen, Harvard Business School: how you allocate resources is your organization's real strategy.
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