Does Strategic Planning still make sense?

We’ve been talking about networks and net-centric leadership; we’ve been talking about emergence, about the “leaderless organization,” about intuiting the future, about new technology and the shape of things to come. We’ve been talking about a massive paradigm shift, the implications of which we can’t yet begin to grasp. It is all incredibly exciting and incredibly scary at times. And as we look at all of this it becomes increasingly important to look at core aspects of our work in order to find out how or if these will fit in our new world.

We are not the first ones to wonder about the impact of traditional strategic planning in the work of social change but I find it incredibly important that we take a look at it from this angle of “emergence.” If what we are trying to do is to create space – to make room for the future that is trying to emerge – then what does it mean to “strategically plan” for this? I certainly hope we have all moved beyond the Stalinist dream of mechanical five years plans – the fact is these never worked! But we do plan, we do formulate our vision of the world we are trying to build, we do look at the steps we need to take to get where we want to go – so what is it that we are trying to do?

I’ve been thinking of it in terms of a “strategic sketch,” a set of parameters to be placed in a field of infinite potential, a series of temporary sign posts that allow us to name our place and act from there. I see the “strategic sketch” as a set of goals and steps that become ever more imaginative as we make it everything contingent on following the call of our highest aspirations and all the amazing signs that emerge along the way.