Making Strategic Planning Inclusive.

• Author: Sternad, Michael

Top-performing companies are using technology to link top-down and bottom-up views, building plans that clearly communicate specific and realistic goals.

Just a few short years ago, strategic planning was the sole domain of the CEO and a few top executives. Leading consultants like Michael Porter were declaring that senior executives "must provide the discipline to decide which industry changes and customer needs the company will respond to" and that "managers at lower levels lack the perspective and the confidence to maintain a strategy...".

There are many indications that business today is far too fluid and fast-paced for such a deliberate and hierarchical approach to strategy. Business-to-business exchanges are one example of how organizations will depend on a complex and ever-shifting network of alliances partnerships and customer relationships to succeed. The increasingly networked nature of markets is one of the biggest factors driving constant change in the workplace today, making even quarterly strategies potentially vulnerable.

"Leaders are in a state of vertigo," says Warren Bennis, the noted professor of business administration at the University of Southern California. Almost counter-intuitively, leaders must loosen the reins to regain their strategic balance. Hierarchical organizational structures and employee roles must give way to more fluid forms.

Even today, employees from middle management down to staff levels make decisions guided not by current strategy, but reflecting the direct experience they have gained conducting transactions with customers, suppliers and partners. The question is not whether to allow the experience that guided those decisions to influence strategy, but how. Many organizations have been frustrated by their inability to foster that type of immediate and direct input.

Recent technology developments are beginning to change that. Leading companies such as Electronic Data Systems and Federal Express are using strategic planning systems that facilitate employee input across the organization and provide immediate feedback on detailed results. They are linking top-down and bottom-up views, building plans that clearly communicate specific and realistic goals, ensuring that work efforts and resources are being coordinated.

As organizations search for ways to improve returns and build more productive and happier workforces, many are finding that technology can deliver these benefits by facilitating more...