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6 I The Best Online Education System in the world
STRATEGIC PLANNING - SUSTAINS THE ENTIRE ORGANIZATION
Marian Baltazar
Class of 1980, University of the Philippines College of Manila
AB Political Science
If you ever wonder how an organization gets through and lasts the whole time, it is because strategic planning
sustains the entire organization. Believe it or not, it is what determines where the organization is going over
the next and ...succeeding years of its existence. It gives you the idea and know-how if it’s going to get to that
long-range planning that it came up with and if it’s going to get there or not. I know that you will also wonder
as to how then will a strategic plan be developed or created. There is also that dilemma of whether it will
survive and be sustained too.
How then can you develop a strategic plan? The way that a strategic plan is developed largely depends on the
nature of the organization’s leadership and the culture of its organization. It also depends on the complexity of
the complexity of the organization’s environment, the size of the organization and most especially the expertise
of the planners itself. The focus of a strategic plan is usually on the entire organization. Apparently, it is not only
just getting enough money that one should really consider and assimilate in developing a strategic plan alone.
One of the most salient important reasons as to why organizations do strategic planning is to ensure that the
entire organization will remain sustainable. That is, it does not only survive but that it will also thrive well in the
future. More often than not, many organizations experienced to be a fiasco and short-lived all because they did
not really prepare and develop a strategic plan. Many organizations merely create action plans only for the first
year of a multi-year strategic plan and they simply refer to that action plan as an “operational plan.” That
should not be the case for without careful action planning and without diligently ensuring that actions should
be carried out and implemented, the plan just ends up collecting dust on a shelf.
Actually, managers spend most of their time realizing and reacting to problems that an organization or a
business is faced with. For some of these managers and for many of us, it can sometimes be very difficult to
stand back and take a real good luck at what we want to accomplish. There can be also times when we are too
busy looking at what we think is making progress instead of how we could accomplish and get over that
problem. To address the problem, we need not just a new manager but we need experienced managers to
solve whatever it is that the business or organization is faced with. However, one of the major differences
between new and experienced managers is the skill to see the broad perspective, to take the long view on
what we want to do and how we’re actually going to do it.
To wrap things up, one of the best ways to develop this skill is through ongoing experience in strategic planning
which can sustain the entire organization. So start dealing with creating the right strategic plan for your
business or organization to ensure its sustainability.
Questions for discussion:
1.
1. Do you have a strategic plan in your business or organization that you are a part of right now? How do
you deal with it?
2.
Have you experienced making and developing a strategic plan or just simply making an operational plan?
Explain your answer.
3.
Given the choice, would you opt for an Operational Plan or a Strategic Plan? Justify your answer.
4.
Do you believe that a Strategic Plan is essential for an organization or a business to be successful? Why or
why not?
5.
How could you develop a sound strategy? Elaborate on your answer.