THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS OF STRATEGIC PLANNING

1. The staff took over the process. This situation arose partly because
CEOs created new staff components to deal with a new function,
partly because the staff moved in to fill a vacuum created by middle
management's indifference to a new responsibility, and partly because
of arrogance and empire building. As a result, planning staffs all too
often cut executives out of the strategy development process, turning
them into little more than rubber stamps

2. The process dominated the staff. The process's methodologies became
increasingly elaborate. Staff placed too much emphasis on analysis, too
little on true strategic insights... . Strategic thinking became equated
with strategic planning.... Jack Welch, the chairman and CEO of GE,
described the outcome graphically: "The books got thicker, the printing
got more sophisticated, the covers got harder, and the drawings
got better."...

3. Planning systems were virtually designed to produce no results The main
design failure lay in denying, or diminishing, the planning role of the very
executives whose mandate was to execute the strategy.... The attitude
of many was typified by the angry retort of one executive. "The matrix
picked the strategy—let the matrix implement it!" The other design fault
was the failure to integrate the strategic planning system with the operations
system, resulting in a strategy that did not drive action.

4. Planning focused on the more exciting game of mergers, acquisitions, and
divestitures at the expense of core business development. This problem
stemmed in part from the temper of the times. But it also resulted
from the inappropriate use of planning tools....

5. Planning processes failed to develop true strategic choices. . . . Planners
and executives rushed to adopt the first strategy that "satisfied" (i.e.
met certain basic conditions in an acceptable manner). They made no
real effort to search for, or analyze, an array of strategy alternatives
before making a decision. As a result, companies all too often adopted
strategies by default rather than by choice.

6. Planning neglected the organizational and cultural requirements of strategy.
... The process focused, rightly, on the external environment, but
it did so at the expense of the internal environment that is critical in the
implementation stage.

7. Single-point forecasting was an inappropriate basis for planning in an era of
restructuring and uncertainty.... Companies still tended to rely on single-
point forecasting. Scenario-based planning was the exception
rather than the rule... . Plans that relied on [single-point forecasting]
suffered increased vulnerability to surprises. . . . [Moreover] because
planning assumptions spelled out a single future, one that was almost
always some slight variation of an extrapolation of past trends, there
was an inherent bias in favor of continuing a "momentum strategy."