Many managers who haven’t had access to the top layers of an organization imagine that strategic planning is either the product of a superior intellect and insight or, at the other extreme, some random musings and voodoo-assisted “visioning”. It’s true that a very small number of leaders have far more finely attuned antennae than the rest of us and are able to pick up on vibrations if not in the cosmos then at least in their industry that are not apparent to others until much later. Their success may look like magic at the time, although it can and will be explained long after the fact by dozens of consultants and academics. The vast majority of organizations are able to craft effective strategies with a structured process that applies known practices to the environmental signals that its leaders are able to identify.

This book provides the guide map to the generally-accepted practices that make up a useful strategic planning capability, and brings in several tools that aren’t seen as often. It would serve as a useful handbook for any executive or member of a planning team, and for the consultants seeking to advise them.

It’s not for every organization; many of the concepts require a relatively free rein in terms of markets and products, whereas many businesses, particularly the smaller ones (under, say, $20M annual revenue) wouldn’t be credible trying to reinvent their industry. Others, particularly in the public sector, may see themselves as too constrained by law and habit to make such shifts, but there is room to adopt the ideas behind the practices and find ways to make changes and improvements even within their sandboxes.  In addition, it’s not really an “Operating System”; it stops at the point that most organizational strategies fail: the designation of strategic initiatives and allocation of specific responsibilities, resources and milestones to make sure that what shows up on paper in the strategic plan will eventually occur in real life.

Link to this book on Amazon