From the Strategic Planning Society magazine, Strategy, September 2000

Many heads are better than a few

Rachel Bodle reviews the pay-off from wide participation in the planning process.

As our world changes more quickly, becoming less certain and more complicated, we also become more demanding of our plans, the planning process and those of us who support it. We want plans and strategies that lend confidence to our actions in the face of complex change and uncertainty. We want a planning process that looks to both short and long term activity, that is based on sound analysis as well as being creative and intuitive, that establishes a unifying strategic vision and also encourages flexibility of tactical response.

However, we're not expected to face the challenge alone. We're encouraged to include a wide range of colleagues and external stakeholder representatives in our process. A participative approach to planning is now accepted as good practice that brings multiple benefits. Here are a few of the claims made for a participative approach.

You get enhanced decision quality, robustness of strategies and plans. Diverse input aids understanding and helps chart a better course in fast-changing situations where defining and solving problems go together. Where problems are complex, solutions can always be improved. With diverse critiques, decision quality is enhanced at the same time as building commitment to implement these decisions and strategies.

Amongst diverse perspectives there will be some that anticipate future hazards or threats that others would miss. A process that has engaged with diverse perspectives is more likely to generate a robust sustainable strategy that harnesses 'opposite forces' within the business ecosystem. (Such opposites include long versus short term perspectives; rational analysis versus intuitive hunches; leading versus following the market; holding to a strategic vision versus flexibility in tactical action.)

You get more innovation. Multiple perspectives help significant factors to surface, uncovering root causes of complex problems and providing a wider portfolio of solution ideas leading to more innovation. And where an issue is unique and unprecedented, it won't be clear who will have relevant insight but diverse views can illuminate the issue.

You get organisation development, flexibility of response, coherence. Stakeholder values and priorities will differ. Participation in a joint process will encourage understanding and commitment and contribute to greater coherence in autonomous actions taken subsequently. This becomes increasingly important in more uncertain and fast moving operating environments (eg new technology driven firms) where an ability to be flexible and responsive brings competitive advantage.

A participative process of thinking and dialogue builds strategic capability into the organisation and can be more creative and important than analytically derived plans. Collaboration in the planning process establishes a common framework for communication and decision-making and has wider team-building effects. Participation encourages initiative and responsibility. And in an environment of participation, the planning process becomes a channel for communication through the organisation. It reinforces and disseminates messages from the top of the organisation - and also serves to draw attention to any activities or practices that are not congruent with the desired direction.

We might deduce that encouraging participation in the planning process is a Good Thing. But this approach raises a further challenge. We need to balance our established analytical skills with new interpersonal skills.

We want to adopt a facilitative approach that encourages our colleagues to collaborate in an inclusive planning process. We need to extend our interpersonal skills so that we can more effectively leverage the scarce time others may be willing to bring to the process. We want to be able to design and facilitate a group process that encourages strategic thinking, that elicits distinctive individual contributions, that helps people to share their understanding and builds appropriate consensus.

Thus the emphasis on a participative approach to planning might highlight a clear development need for those who must support it.