We are thinking about the process of consulting for a new College strategic plan, and I have been looking at the history and examples of such things. It’s quite fascinating! It seems that for some organisations, the development of the Strategic Plan (perhaps all capitals and in bold) is a rare event that then drives every organisational aspect for the foreseeable future. It seems that this is sometimes taken to ridiculous extremes. The problem, of course, is that we plan in the present, but planning is really about the future, which is unknown. But what else can we do?
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| Lessons about strategic planning from Monkey and Cameras |
We have to make informed guesses about the future – that’s true of life in general. As long as we remember that they are guesses, that’s fine; but we can sometimes get carried away here. One influential writer, Igor Ansoff wrote We shall refer to the period for which [we can] construct forecasts with an accuracy of, say, plus or minus 20 percent as the ‘planning horizon’. Organisational theorist Henry Mintzberg correctly responded with What an extraordinary statement! How in the world can [anyone] know the period for which [we] can forecast with a given accuracy?
The overall point is clear – we need to recognise the limits of planning, while also recognising that the only alternative to planning is, well, not planning – which is surely ridiculous. So in planning we need to build in flexibility, and also remember that we, as planners, are limited. Two powerful stories illustrate the point well.
The first story is about the Polaroid camera. Mintzberg writes one day in 1943, Edwin Land’s three-year-old daughter asked why she could not immediately see the picture he had just taken of her. Within an hour, this scientist conceived the camera that would transform his company. The serendipitous question, combined with Land’s vast technical knowledge lead to results which were utterly unpredictable. Following any existing strategic plan would have been foolish, and so the lesson here is that we need to avoid locking too much down, and to leave room for chance.
The second story comes from one of the most famous cases of animal culture. The sociologist Hirata and his colleagues observed Japanese macaque monkeys learning to dip sweet potatoes in the ocean. That might sound rather mundane, but it’s interesting because it the spread of this practice showed that monkeys could learn from each other, and establish cultural practices. The first inventor of this practice was a young female, and it seems the salt water cleaned away the dirt and added flavour. The practice quickly spread to other young animals, and then to some but not all of the older females. No older male was able to learn the habit. Now perhaps it’s a stretch to extend from Japanese monkeys to organisational dynamics; but perhaps not. The point about old-timers being locked into habits and unable to see new possibilities is hardly a novel idea. So the lesson here, I think, is that we need to consult widely, so that we can get new ideas and perspectives.
With these two principles (at least) in mind, we will set up a process that gives everyone a chance to input; and that forms a plan that is “more like a river than a rock” in that it can bend and adapt to circumstance. It may not be totally future-proof, but it will certainly shape our thinking as we aspire to be the best school we can be.
References
Ansoff I. H (1965), Corporate Strategy: An Analytic Approach to Business Policy for Growth and Expansion. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965, p. 44.
Hirata, S et al (2001) ”Sweet potato washing” Revisited. Japanese Monkey Centre
Mintzberg, H. (1994) The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning Harvard Business Review
