The Essential in Strategic Planning
Strategic Planning is really two different things: Strategic Thinking and Execution Planning. Strategic Thinking should be happening all year long. Execution Planning happens annually and quarterly. Strategic Thinking is working through several key areas that define who you are as a business and result in a strategy, hopefully a very simple one-phrase strategy. For example, the Southwest Airlines strategy is Wheels Up. Planes in the air make money and planes on the ground don't. If you examine everything they do and you'll see it all aligns with this one phrase. To turn their airplanes around quicker than anyone else they don't use assigned seating, so their customers are pushing each other down the aisle to get the plane loaded. They also manage their labor relations such that their pilots are willing to help the baggage handlers and their flight attendants are willing to help those that clean the planes, all to get those plans in the air. They also only use one airplane...