SOAR (not swot):A New Framework for Strategic Planning

Jacqueline Stavros, David Cooperrider & D. Lynn Kelley
jstavros@comcast.net, dlc6@po.cwru.edu, lkelley@tfs.textron.com

Overview: The Field of Strategic Planning
The corporate mantra over the last ten years has been change, change, and change. Many of the principles that corporations held as stable and immutable have been turned upside down. Books such as Reengineering the Corporation, The Strategy Focused Organization, The Balance Scorecard, Strategic Thinking: An Executive Approach, Strategy From the Top and Leading Strategic Change have become bestsellers in the corporate world. Corporations that were traditionally considered dominant within industries have shrunk or disappeared, and the march towards globalization has accelerated. For example, in 1976, the majority of the world’s fifty largest companies were U.S. based; by 1995 the number was just 17 (Pattison, 1996).

At the heart of the change one often finds competition. When two similar entities compete for the same scarce resources, often one will win and the other will lose. Competition is not a new phenomenon. The very essence of Darwin’s “survival of the fittest” is competition. The difference is that when similar species compete for the same scarce resources, the outcome is based not on a strategic plan that results in a win–but simply that the species that was naturally the “most fit” to its environment wins. Look how far we have evolved! We now have the ability to plan for survival. Now, it is not the company that unwittingly finds itself the “fittest” that survives–but the company that is best able to strategically think, plan, manage its resources, lead its people, and sustain its future that becomes “fit” enough to survive and indeed thrive.

Given the acceleration of change in recent years, how are companies proactively responding? Obviously, some companies are ignoring the change and are being left in the dust. However, the majority of companies that are responding to the change are limiting their responses to operational and tactical areas. Companies are answering the “call of the changing world” with such approaches as new processes, new procedures, downsizing, rightsizing, lean manufacturing, Six Sigma, virtual integration, core versus context exercises, value chain analysis, e-business models and other new ways of running their business. These methods have shown the ability to produce dramatic results. However, the common theme that runs through all of these responses is their focus on new ways of performing the daily operations of the organization. There has been a great void in new methods to be used in the one area specifically designed to prepare for the changing future-an appreciative based approach to strategic planning! We need to change the way we plan!

Think about this. Change requires action. Action requires a plan. A plan requires a strategy. A strategy requires goals and enabling objectives. Goals and objectives require a mission. A mission is defined by a vision. A vision is set by one’s values. And, the Appreciative Inquiry (AI) approach to strategic planning starts by focusing on the strengths of an organization and its stakeholders’ values.

In spite of the tumultuousness of our competitive environment, with few exceptions, the core of the strategic planning approach used by U.S. corporations has been virtually unchanged over the last fifty years. For instance, almost all strategic planning processes contain the “old standby” of completing a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis, or its counterpart TOWS (threats, opportunities, weaknesses, and strengths) Analysis. The question this raises, is if companies are using the traditional strategic planning approach–and are failing in spite of it, perhaps we need to change or challenge the approach. We want to offer an alternative to the SWOT analysis. Our alternative is to SOAR (strengths, opportunities, aspirations, results). But first let’s take a brief look at history of strategic planning.

Lengkapnya klik disini 2003-soar-article.pdf