Strategic planning often focuses on what needs to be fixed in the current plan. The Organic method works because it focuses on building the future on current successes.
Organic Strategic Planning is a unique approach to company growth. It changes the traditional strategic planning paradigms by focusing on identifying the best practices, processes, and methodologies in an organization. Organic Strategic Planning retains and expands on what is already working by employing a filter created from the organization’s values, mission, and vision.
The traditional approach to strategic planning often focuses on identifying and fixing problems. Being aware of where organizational changes are needed and courageously working on them can be quite effective. The unfortunate downside to focusing on problems is that, after a while, the organization forgets what it does best and focuses only what it does worst!
Transform the Find and Fix Mindset
Organic Strategic Planning transforms a “Find and Fix” mindset into a focus on the organization’s desired end results. It creates a foundation for achieving new goals and ideas by leveraging past successes. The organic strategy uses the essence of what has already been proved to work well and what has previously brought vitality and prosperity to the organization.
Build on Past Successes
Organic Strategic Planning is based on the premise that past and present corporate and individual successes contain the "seeds" needed for the next level of successful growth and expansion. Capturing the essence of the “best of what is” is the firmest platform upon which to define an organization’s next successful target. It uses probing questions to uncover the seeds of success that can and will fuel future business growth. The “Appreciative Inquiry Handbook”, by Cooperrider, Stavros and Whitney, speaks eloquently to the power of discovering the core strengths of an organization and the essence of its past successes. Their technique for using powerful questions whose answers point to the core values of an organization has proved itself, even in large major corporations, to be transformative in aligning employees, customer contact, and corporate strategy and strong business growth.
With Organic Strategic Planning, participants use prepared questions designed to discover their organization’s success “stories”. These stories are shared with the Strategic Planning stakeholders. The underlying strengths, themes, glories, and “what works for us” are uncovered, acknowledged, and recorded.
Engage the Entire Team
This success-based experience engages the entire team in recognizing and appreciating the best characteristics and patterns modeled by the organization. An added benefit is that these characteristics are already integrated into the organization so no retraining time or additional new skills are needed.
Add the Essence of Passion
The organic method also uses additional probing questions that facilitate participants in discussions to uncover the essence of what brings satisfaction and passion to their work. When satisfaction and passion are connected to success stories, the result is an extremely powerful filter for choosing, validating, and implementing goals.
Create a Destiny Driven Future
Armed with this intimate knowledge about the organization, the planning team is prepared to envision and create a destiny-driven future. This is a future defined by past success. By sharing each others’ dreams for the future of their organization, the strategic planning stakeholders are empowered to co-create a meaningful set of high-level goals. Strategic goals created in this type of positive focused environment produce inspiring objectives and solutions that integrate easily into the day-to-day task of implementation. As everyone begins to truly understand the strategic plan, decisions and actions combine and complement each other naturally. New products, solutions, and ideas flow easily. This is natural propulsion for the organization. What was formerly done with resistance and struggle begins to seem effortless. In reality, all effort is now just tightly focused in a compelling and effective manner. Success follows naturally.
The Organic Method for Strategic Planning brings together the essence of the best of the current organization, adds its dreams for the future, provides for a team-centered, co-creation of goals and objectives, and provides a framework for sustaining the growth of the organization.
Discover the power of Organic Strategic Planning and capitalize on its many benefits.
