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Strategic Planning Whitepaper Introduction – Analysis
StrategyDriven contributors are pleased to introduce the strategic planning whitepaper: Analysis. This whitepaper outlines and describes the major steps taken to assess the organization’s internal performance and external environment in support of long range activity planning.
Strategic analysis is a critical component of the strategic planning process. An integral part of a company’s evaluation and control program, it provides executives and managers with a comprehensive assessment of the organization’s capabilities and market factors; revealing growth opportunities and vulnerabilities. Armed with this information, managers can more effectively chose from among today’s strategic alternatives to create the greatest future reward potential.
Simply put, people tend to behave in the manner for which they receive reinforcement. There often exists both documented and undocumented performance drivers that exert unintended pressure on individuals to act in ways counter to achieving the organization’s mission goals. As a continuation of 
An individual’s perception of circumstances and events is largely shaped by his/her knowledge and experience, beliefs, values, and biases. In the organizational setting, this perception is influenced by the organization’s shared history, its culture, and the individual’s relationships with seniors, peers, and subordinates. Additionally, event perception is often limited by the individual’s finite, relevant knowledge and experience, as well as his/her employment impact concerns and desire for self-promotion. To be effective, a strategic analysis must be free of the impairments and limitations individuals within the organization have when assessing internal events and impactful external circumstances.
Organizational alignment to common goals suggests executive, manager, and employee motivation is largely driven by the company’s strategic plan. However, there are likely some additional, hidden performance drivers unintentionally created by the organization’s processes or embedded as an integral component of the organizations’ history and culture.
Shared experience, organizational pride, and/or conflict avoidance can diminish the criticality of data and conclusion assessment; leading to exaggerated optimism and resulting in an organizational pursuit of unrealistic goals. Inflated expectations may drive investment in projects well outside of the organization’s risk tolerance. In today’s aggressive marketplace and under intense shareholder scrutiny, missteps like these can be disastrous for a company and its executive team.
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