| Date Published | January 22, 2015 |
| Company | Resource Management Innovaitons |
| Article Author | Richard Kneeshaw |
| Article Type | PULSE Interactive Newsletter Jan. 2015 |
| Category | PULSE Interactive |
| Tags | Resource Management Innovations, S&S, Strategic Business Planning |
| HUB SEARCH | RMI |
“Only 10% of business strategy effectively formulated is effectively implemented.â€
(Source: Fortune Magazine)
Translation: There is a 90% chance your competitor’s business plan is not linked to execution.
“The difference between a vibrant and thriving business and one that has plateaued or is in decline is simply that growing and effective businesses have a clearly defined purpose and a strategy to achieve it.†(Regardless of economy, industry or sector).
(Source: Conference Board of Canada)
In Harvard Business Review, Michael Porter underlines the importance of strategic planning for business owners when he writes, “If you want to make a difference as a leader, you’ve got to make time for strategic planning.†In my experience, we have come to realize (in order to be effective) strategic planning involves both strategic thinking and strategic acting.
More than at any other time in history, North America, along with much of the world, is exploding with change. Fast, frightening change. We refer to it as mega change. It has affected every institution – business, government, school, the family, and our community of faith. It is occurring at a number of levels: national and corporate as well as individual. The result is a revolution taking place all around us that is likely to be as 
profound as any in history.
Some wrongly advise us to just be patient and in time ‘this too’ shall pass. What is the explanation for this mega change? What is happening? I believe Peter Drucker sums it up best:
“Every few hundred years throughout Western history, a sharp transformation has occurred. In a matter of decades, society altogether rearranges itself – its world views, its basic values, its social and political structures, its arts, its key institutions. Fifty years later, a new world exists.
And the people born into that world cannot even imagine the world in which grandparents lived and into which their own parents were born.â€
My own family would be no exception.
Drucker’s point is we are living in one of those rare points in time when an old world view (modernism) and many of its trappings are dying and another (postmodernism) has been born. The consequence is a massive shift in our culture, science, society, and institutions. This change is enormously greater than the (geo-political) world has ever experienced, and we (the business community) are caught in the middle of it.
We are living (Drucker reminds us) at a frightening point of absolute, chaotic discontinuity while watching the old die off and the new rush in to fill the vacuum. Â Where does business fit in all of this? Â How are we doing? Â Will you realize your business planning as a result of effective leadership and efficient management or just good fortune? Â Which would your bank manager or retirement fund manager prefer?
Investors would remind us, “The risk is not in the planning.  The risk is in the execution.†That in itself is a significant competitive advantage.
As research indicates, there is a 90% chance your competition does not have a strategic plan let alone have it linked directly to operational execution.
There is opportunity within adversity.
