Beyond Flip Charts and Colored Dots:
Making Strategy Work
By Paul R. Brown
Principal, BROWNSTONE Capital Advisors
Strategic Dots and Flip Charts
When working for a large accounting and consulting organization, I was invited to join the firm-wide team of strategic planning
practitioners. Because our approach was licensed from another company, we were required to attend an initial training session
in order to become familiar with the entire process. This was followed by a trip to Chicago where I watched as the leaders of a
large financial management firm were led through a strategic planning session.
For two long days we guided our client through a series of eye-opening exercises. Using flip-charts, colored dots and sticky pads
we helped them identify their vision, articulate their mission and commit themselves to the first steps of the long march to their
preferred future. It was magic.
A few weeks later I was in Boise, Idaho where I would use the same process in a strategic planning engagement. While flying
there we (there were two of us) decided to follow the script in the hope of producing the same results I had seen in Chicago. We
weren’t disappointed. After two days of flip charts, colored dots and sticky pads this company experienced the same results. It
too, was magic.
The leaders of this company now knew what to do, why they should do it and how they should proceed. The alarm had gone off.
And someone hit the snooze button.
In their long march to a preferred future those leading were sidetracked by unexpected challenges, personnel changes and old
habits. They continue to be a good company. I continue to hope they will become a great one.
Why Dots and Flip Charts Don’t Work
I thought about this when managing the search for the executive director of the Spokane International Airport. In order to gain a
comprehensive understanding of the airport’s needs I had performed a number of interviews with most of its internal and external
stakeholders. While talking with a member of the board of directors the need for a planning retreat was brought up.
He was for it, “As long as you don’t bring those colored dots and flip-charts.”
I told him that I agreed. Sort of. Colored dots and flip-charts won’t get the job done.
In fact, having worked with dozens of organizations in several different industries I’m now convinced that most strategic planning
efforts are a waste of time and money. I don’t say this because I’ve lost confidence in planning. I say this because even the most
effective approaches to strategic planning cannot overcome the bad habits formed and sustained by an organization’s inherent
culture.
Though I believe this, I still recommend strategic planning; whether the goal of the business is to strengthen its position in the
market or transition to new or successor owners. In politics this is known as “flip-flopping.” In leadership it is known as “thinking
grey,” whereby two conflicting ideas are embraced until a decision needs to be made.
My recommendations, however, are qualified. For strategy to work, the organization must answer three essential questions.
Doing so will protect them from investing in an effort that could prove to be both costly and futile.
Question One: “Do they or do they not have the appetite to go somewhere, and to accomplish it with the highest standards?”
David Maister, the author of True Professionalism, Managing the Professional Service Firm and other must read books, talks
about meeting three kinds of partners in a professional service firm. A dynamo is somebody who is constantly doing something
to bring about their personal future by asking, “Where do I want to go next, and what do I do today to make that happen?” The
cruisers work hard, produce great sausages year after year, but have no particular desire to advance his or her professional
career. Losers have been derailed by life – divorce, alcoholism, drugs, fraud – and may or may not recover.
Over the years, firms from around the world have told Maister the percentage of partners in those three categories is about 15
percent dynamos, 75 percent cruisers, and 10 percent losers. In other words, in a typical professional service firm only 15
percent of the partners are trying to get somewhere while the large majority coast along, content in making sausages day after
day.
Having worked with several professional firms, there are times when I found myself believing Maister was an optimist.
Organizations like this should not waste their time doing strategic planning. Because strategic planning in that environment is
like trying to figure out which way to point the thundering herd when the herd isn’t interested in thundering. The issue has nothing
to do with direction or strategy. The issue is whether or not there is enough hunger in the organization – or with those leading the
organization – to pursue a preferred future.
Question Two: “Do they have the willingness and the courage to try new things?”
If anything has been proven to be true in recent business history, it is that what worked yesterday may not work tomorrow.
Although most of us acknowledge this, we simultaneously do whatever we can to minimize or eliminate risk.
During the strategic planning process, participants usually uncover a number of opportunities that can dramatically and positively
change their business or practice. New markets. New systems. New products or services. These are just a few of the more
obvious insights gleaned from the typical strategy sessions.
In one engagement the participants identified and prioritized several key initiatives, any one of which would make a lasting impact
on the organization. After selecting three or four “big ideas” the discussion stalled. Caution crowded out confidence until Jim
Collins’ “BHAGs” (Big Hairy Audacious Goals) were reduced to “WILIs” (WhImpy Little Ideas).
The more the conversation turned from risk to safety, the less the owner participated. Finally, we all watched as he walked to the
white board and drew two parallel lines. Turning to the room he said, “We cannot leap a twenty-foot chasm in two ten-foot jumps.”
He was ready to try something new. As a result, his company just completed its most successful year ever.
Question Three: “Are they already doing what they should be doing?”
Not long ago I was with a client in California. At the end of our meeting I noticed a book sitting on the coffee table in his office. The
title caught my eye: Younger Next Year: A Guide to Living Like 50 Until You’re 80 and Beyond by Chris Cowley and Henry Lodge.
Since I have a lot of clients who are older than 50, I thought I should read it.
…
No. I’m not going to tell you.
That night I walked to the bookstore near my hotel and picked up a copy and started reading. A few pages into the book I
discovered the key to staying younger. Are you ready to be amazed?
“You should exercise hard almost every day of your life – say six days a week … You should eat the way you know you should eat
but probably don’t … You have to be involved with other people (and) you have to care about something.”
I doubt if anyone is surprised by the author’s conclusions. To stay healthy we need to exercise more, eat better and build
relationships. As my teenage friends would say, “No Duh!”
Keep this in mind when I tell you about a strategy session I had with a large company doing business across three state lines. At
the end of our second day, participants broke into groups where they created a list of action steps they should take in order to
reach their newly defined goals. Using our flip-charts and colored dots, we prioritized the findings. I then asked a few obvious
questions:
“Why aren’t you already committed to providing outstanding customer service?”
“Why haven’t you already started to improve your profit margin by 5%?”
“Why haven’t you already insisted on having a coordinated marketing effort?”
“Why haven’t you made a commitment to develop and train your employees?”
“Why should anyone in this room believe that things will change when the steps you will take to produce this change are
obvious?”
In business, strategic plans are frequently stuffed with familiar goals: build client relationships, act like team players, improve
customer service. We want the benefit of these things. We know what to do, we know why we should do it and we know how to do
it. Yet most of us don’t change, as individuals or as business.
Until an organization is committed to doing the obvious, it will not enjoy the full benefits of strategic planning.
Making Strategy Work
When reading this, I hope you don’t think that I’ve given up on strategic planning. I haven’t. In fact whenever I find a company or
firm working hard to create a better future, taking risks to leap across the unknown, and renewing their commitments to
consistently do what they know to do, something comes over me.
And before I realize what is happening, I catch myself grabbing my colored dots and flip-charts in the hope of being a part of
another process that will bring yet another organization to its new and exciting future.
Author’s Bio:
Paul R. Brown, M.A.
Paul Brown is a business succession/transition advisor, writer, speaker and executive coach who specializes in helping owners
of closely-held and family-owned businesses finish well. As a recognized authority on business succession planning he speaks
regularly to local, regional and national conferences, professional organizations and private seminars. He lives in Spokane,
Washington and can be reached at paul.brown@brownstonecap.com
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