The essence of strategic planning

Business leaders know well that in a strategy meeting, the goal is to simply approve or reject a proposal put forward without questioning the plan or floating alternative options that can cause distress.

It shouldn't be this way. The key to strategy development is to weigh strategic alternatives.

• The goal of the strategy is to make difficult-to reverse decisions on how to win.
• Planning is how to make those choices happen.

In strategic planning discussions, we often skip over the first step and simply move to the second. However, using certain shifts can help to improve your strategy.