Strategic Counsel
"STRATEGY IS NOT THE CONSEQUENCE OF PLANNING, BUT THE OPPOSITE: ITS STARTING POINT."
- Author Henry Mintzberg
Strategic planning is a disciplined and structured method that translates a future vision into broadly defined objectives and actionable steps to achieve them. More than just an intentional approach, successful strategic planning should be fun and engaging for a team. It's a chance to think of the future and not-yet-realized success. The best strategic plans should create a vision so dynamic, that allowing it to languish on a shelf would seem professionally negligent. The best strategic plan will both elevate a mission and unite a team.
Edge Peak Strategies delivers this type of plan and planning experience for organizations, exercising the following components:
Mission and Vision Statements: Create, audit, or redefine an organization's purpose, core values, and long-term aspirations.
Environmental Scanning: Assessing internal and external factors that impact the organization's ability to achieve its goals.
Goal Setting: Establishing specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) objectives.
Strategy Formulation: Developing the main strategies or action plans to achieve set goals.
Testing Strategies: Testing ensures your plan will work, relative to the needs of your mission, the expectations of stakeholders, or against various conditions your organization may face in the future. Edge Peak Strategies will test before your organization invests time and resources and before completing a strategic plan.
Implementation: There is no replacement for a thorough and sound implementation strategy. This requires a structured timeline, a developed synchronization matrix, identified and measurable milestones, as well as clearly defined lines of responsibility to execute the strategies. Edge Peak Strategies generates implementation plans to take your strategies from concept to reality.
Monitoring and Evaluation: Continuously assessing progress toward strategic goals and initiatives is critical. This informs needed adjustments to strategic approaches or timelines to ensure your team doesn't lose momentum executing initiatives. Edge Peak Strategy designs products with your team to ensure customized evaluations help you monitor progress.
Risk Assessments: All organizations face challenges as they deliver their mission and advance strategic initiatives. Edge Peak Strategies will identify risks, generate mitigations, and produce plans that help you navigate the unexpected.
Strategic planning helps organizations align their activities with their mission, make informed decisions, and effectively allocate resources to ensure long-term success and sustainability.
WHY DOES SOME STRATEGIC PLANNING FALL FLAT?
Far too many of us have been in poor strategic planning sessions that suffer from the following:
Long, rudderless, and boring sessions that do not engage your team.
Plans becoming too unrealistic or too timid to elicit any passion.
Only a few voices dominate the dialogue.
The team lacks a shared understanding of organizational realities.
A plan is being “rubber-stamped.”
No one wants to be decisive.
Trying to be “everything to everyone.”
The plan is drafted and never touched again.
Leaders admire the plan but ignore the organizational capabilities required to achieve future results.
CURATING STRATEGIC SUCCESS
Edge Peak Strategies' proven framework features:
Common operational performance metrics to ensure all leaders are informed and empowered
Stakeholder surveys to gain the perspectives of your primary partners, clients, or customers
Organization infrastructure assessments: before and after plan development examinations. What gaps exist today and which do we need to cover to move forward?
Time-to-task and phase-driven implementation plans. A plan is useless until implemented. A milestone-driven timeline is critical!
Leadership roles for plan execution. This is more than assigning tasks. Rather, it's about growing leaders for your organization's future.
Strategic communications plan with stakeholders and clients