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Organizational Strategic Capacity: Go, Stop

All leaders are called upon to develop Strategic Plans that will be the organization's prime track for achieving its current Mission and Vision. Often we even do an off-site meeting to involve our people, tap into their insights (and, lest we forget, THEY do have excellent insights—after all, they do the detailed work day after day), and help them to own the final strategies.

The product of the planning session is usually first an affirmation—or fine tuning—of the Mission and Vision. Next is a recitation of the Strategic Plans and Steps that the organization will begin to focus on very soon. Too often those Plans and Steps have one significant oversight, usually fostered in the midst of the enthusiasm of the group thinking and identifying "Fresh Starts."

The oversight is that too many Strategic Plans focus entirely on "What We Must Now Start/Keep Doing." Very few include a significant section on "What We Must Stop Doing." It is not logical to presume that new Strategies are always and only add-ons to current Strategies: that seems to imply we can become 'all things to all people' (Customers). That is not realistic. First of all, no one can be all things to all people. Second, ask yourself whether your product offering and/or customer base has shifted: if so, your Strategy ought to shift also.