Strategic Planning Kit For Dummies®, 2nd Edition

Keeping Your Plan Working for You

A strategic plan needs to adapt to survive changing or unanticipated conditions. A business that develops and executes a strategic plan gains significantly from the experience, and starting with a working model and achieving a tangible plan can be more successful for your business than having no plan at all.

In the following sections, I walk you through how and when to adapt your plan in an ever-changing and fluxing environment.

Accepting change — the only constant

Two caterpillars are conversing, and a beautiful butterfly floats by.

One caterpillar turns and says to the other,

“You'll never get me up on one of those butterfly things.”

What a powerful and fun parable about change. Change, even though we often resist it, is inevitable. In fact, your strategic planning process may trigger changes in your own organization, either in terms of the work done or in the internal structuring of the work. No matter how you present it, people struggle with change. They may need help accepting and adapting positively to the changes. That's where you come in.

Determining which changes require action and which require monitoring is the responsibility of you and your management team. When change is needed, take the following steps:

1. Make sure that everyone understands the change and why it's necessary.

   Even if people have been part of the strategic planning process, they may need you to explain the implications of decisions to them afterward.

2. Respond to people's ...