Strategic Flypaper
I’d like to introduce one more benefit related to the centralized environmental monitoring system concept. At a practical level, this becomes what I call (for lack of a better term) “strategic flypaper.” It’s the system that captures all of the strategic issues that pop up during conversations in the organization. For all of the wonderful insights that happen at all levels of the organization, do you have a method of capturing these environmental factors and trends that have the potential to support or resist your ability to be successful, identify the most important ones, and then follow it through to an implementable strategy? There’s something to this idea of the wisdom of crowds.
I’d like to assert that pushing people into a room for 2 days and expecting them to remember every insight they had during the previous 12 months, while not being uncommon, isn’t an entirely effective method of ensuring the highest quality plan possible. Reaching back to the concept of balancing opportunity based planning with risk based planning, this also supports the goal of capitalizing on opportunities and not just using your business plan to side step emerging risks.