Why “Strategic Planning” Is Broken (And What You Should Do Instead)

I hate the term strategic planning because those are two different things. They're as different as marketing and sales. So we don't say marketing sales, we say marketing and sales. The problem with a five year strategic plan is by the time that you spend all the time putting that plan in place, 12 months out, the plan is all changed. Most companies don't do the strategy, they just don't talk. Strategy is about thinking. It's about what if scenarios, it's about coming up with these kind of crazy potential and thinking about those potentials. It's thinking about your SWOT analysis. And then planning is different. Planning is how we're going to make it come true. There's different parts of the leadership meeting rhythms. One is to have time in your calendar to be strategic, to talk about your swat, to look out 12 to 24 months to think about staffing plans, 12 to 24 months to look at your virtual bench, to consider and ask yourself, are we really sticking to our hedgehog concept? Like it's all around the thing, it's thinking. I hate the term strategic planning because those are two different things. They're as different as marketing and sales. So we don't say marketing sales, we say marketing and sales. We don't say strategic planning, we say strategy and planning. The planning side I believe should only be 12 months out. There's way too many things that can happen to a company that can take your plan off track when you go outside of 12 months. So I do believe that in kind of October is when you need to start having your strategy sessions for 2026 and October, November is when you need to start putting your plans in place to make the strateg and those goals come true for 2026. But you don't put any plans in place for anything past that next 12 month period. And I really like coming up with the goals to make the strategy happen, to make the vivid vision happen for that 12 months. Coming up with the core projects to drive profitability, to drive revenue, to drive employee engagement, to drive customer engagement. And then taking a look at your SWOT and thinking, what are the things, what are weaknesses that we have to buffer and threats that we have to consider and how do we make sure that those things are all happening as part of the plan. And then I put the financial plan in place and I put. Sorry, before the financial plan, I put the staffing plan in place for that 12 months as well. So it's kind of leaning out over that 12 month period and thinking, what are the core roles that we need to hire, what month do we need to hire them in? And then thinking about when do we need to start the recruiting for each of those roles. Right. If you need to have somebody starting July 1st, you need to actually do the offer, have them quit their prior job, probably takes two weeks vacation, do the reference checks, do the second interviews, do the first interviews, get the video submissions, and start the recruiting process to get all the resumes. That's like a four month process. So if you need to have them starting July 1st, that means the recruiting has to start March 1st. So planning is critical, but you only lean out 12 months. If you haven't read my newest book, the Second in Command, go grab a copy right now on Amazon and you'll learn how to unleash the power of a coo. And if you already are a coo, you'll learn how to really build an incredible partnership with your CEO. So the goal of the Vivid Vision is to have everyone aligned with where we're going. The strategy is how we're going to get there. Thinking about the SWOT analysis is just kind of taking a look at the lay of the land, considering that the people needs, you know, the virtual bench you've got and then figuring out the plans to make it come true. Your first year plan is really strong, really tight, really measured. Who's doing what exactly, who's responsible when it's happening. It's like virtually right down to the fact that it's plan, brief, execute, debrief. You come out in November, early December, you've got the plan in place for the entire 12 months. You brief all the management team and the frontline staff so everybody knows what's happening for the year and then you can execute and you can kind of press reset on the plan every month or every quarter. Your two year out is going to be a little bit more of a little bit more a broad brush, a little bit more of a lighter plan. So as an example, when we were thinking about scaling, 1-800-got junk. We knew what our revenue goal would be three years out, what it would be two years out, what it would be one year out. We knew what our profit goal would be for each of those three years. We knew our rough headcount. We had a broad idea, but it was more strategic, it was more directional, it was more just to be thinking about stuff. But it wasn't anything that was like absolutely tight, absolutely measured, absolutely committed to. It's your annual planning meeting, your annual strategy meeting, your quarterly. It's sitting down and thinking about what are all the sentences in that vivid vision? How do we make them all come true and in what order do we want to do them all? Almost like building a home. You know, if I showed you a picture of a home and I said, this is what we're going to build, we would do the plan, the blueprints to build that home, and then we would start with the foundational parts first, then we'd put in the walls, then we do the electrical and the plumbing. It was kind of like an order of operations. So the planning around your vivid vision is figuring out what sentences do we make come true first. For me, it usually starts around core values, core purpose, your bhag, all the people systems, getting rid of the wrong people, aligning the right people. It's around strategy and knowing where you're going and then putting plans in place to get there, having the meeting rhythms in place to support everyone on the team and making sure that you know your team has the leadership skills. Those are all very foundational parts to make everything happen. The problem with a five year strategic plan is by the time that you spend all the time putting that plan in place, 12 months out, the plan is all changed. So I really like the one year plan to be very tight and then if you want to lean out, five and three, very, very broad. Brush, brush. Most companies don't do the strategy, they just don't talk.