Strategic Planning in Thirteen Days

(July 7 - 22, 2007)
by Felipe “Pey” Canlas III

Felipe Canlas III

The seminar I attended at the famed International Academy for Leadership of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation was about strategic planning. The course is a first time offering and an offshoot of the foundation’s experiment with online executive education.

Hence, when it came to the implementation of the course from the online-phase in April to June and the face-to-face phase from July 7 to 22, 2007 in Germany, one can speak of a program that was both a work — and a plan in progress. Having just finished the course on planning, it is but appropriate that I reflect on what happened those 13 days of formal training in Gummersbach using the lenses of strategy and planning.

Adhering to the dictum that all good programs must start with a plan, everything started with a plan. The plan was to expand the successful “Political Strategies” seminar series that made the Academy famous for championing liberal ideas and training. Consequently, the plan called for the inclusion of strategies and planning lessons for those coming from political and non-political organizations.

Towards this goal, a gathering of participants from politics, NGOs, business and the academe was called to introduce them to the general principles of strategic planning. In fulfilling the promise of the plan, participants involved themselves in the learning process. They cultivated a sense of ownership for the program and used their own individual experiences to provide relevant insights into strategic planning applications in politics, business management and civil society.

One of the foremost and earliest lessons we learned while studying strategic planning is the binary concept of anticipation and solution. By doing an environmental scan, one can identify factors that can have an impact on the plan and thus be able to create and explore alternatives and strategies. On another level, effective planning requires anticipation through simulation of all possible problems and scenarios that may arise when one course of action is taken and subsequently making substitute maps, “re-routes” and solutions that can serve as alternatives to the original strategy. Indeed, a good plan anticipates and considers everything and leaves nothing to chance.

Anticipation (or visualization) as the cornerstone of effective planning was further reinforced by watching Thirteen Days, a movie about how crucial decisions were made at the John F. Kennedy (JFK) White House during the Cuban missile crisis. Employing various strategies and anticipating the consequences of their decisions, the movie emphasizes one conclusion: if goals are to be realized, strategizing and planning must always go together.

Many pundits credit the JFK White House’s handling of the Cuban missile crisis as giving birth to the modern concept of strategic planning. True enough; the lasting legacy left by those who made the critical decisions during that historical juncture reminds us that the geo-political setup has changed since the inception of strategic planning by Clausewitz. Whereas the previous era required strategic planning to win wars, modern strategic thinking now dictates prevention of wars as the ultimate strategic goal.

Participants of the 2007 summer “Strategic Planning” seminar were literally given the same amount of time and (almost) the same amount of demands to come up with critical decisions and a consensus on how to determine the strategic paths of three soon-to-be established organizations in three continents. As if living the experiences detailed in the movie, the participants labored night and day, even skipped meals (but not appointments at the mini-bar) and coffee breaks just to accomplish the comprehensive strategic plans required by the program moderators.

And so on the 13th and last day of the seminar, groups from the business sector, NGOs and political parties presented their work — methodically explaining during the plenary how their respective teams can effectively carry-out the plan they agreed upon. Despite all the labor and hardship put into these works, not many involved in the seminar considered the creation of these plans as the true and actual barometer of the training’s accomplishments. Indeed, we were taught to always evaluate the success of every program by always returning to the goals set forth at the beginning of the planning process.

For this particular purpose, the plan called for the education of 24 individuals on strategic planning. Nothing can be a better indicator of the plan achieving this than the participants coming up with their own strategic plans. To say that this was achieved and anticipated as part of the plan is just appropriate.

Reading the results of the evaluation by the participants and organizers, the “Strategic Planning” course stands out as one of the successful, if not the most successful, pioneering plans ever implemented at the celebrated leadership training grounds of Theodor-Heuss-Akademie. One can say, and I assert this as a participant, this is not an empty declaration. Let me enumerate the reasons why.

First, the equal mix of theory and practical learning complemented the diverse and varying backgrounds and experiences of the 24 participants from 15 countries and five continents. The site visits and audience with strategy experts from three different industries following strategic planning principles also paved the way for complementary understanding of the various approaches of the Strategic Planning discipline.

Not discounting course content and structure, the overall output delivery of the modules also exceeded expectations. In a workshop characterized by divergence of culture and polarities in professional backgrounds and experiences, it is to the credit of the two experienced moderators that they were able to find commonalities, foster shared aims and formulate a floating, yet anchored strategic planning paradigm that was cooperatively owned and used by the participants.

The processes and procedures devised by the moderators in managing the day-to-day affairs for the participants for 13 days created an open environment of structured chaos characterized by results-oriented, free wheeling discussions and unimpeded planning. More specifically, their valuable inputs and opportune intercessions during the plenary debates and group work helped level-off discussions paving the way for more vigorous engagements of participants. This in turn helped them produce strategic plans for the constructive future of three political, non-governmental and business organizations based in South Africa, the Philippines and Brazil, respectively.

Completing the vital ingredient of a successful plan were participants who had so much to share and were eager to learn about strategic planning. While positions taken were sometimes unyielding, the enthusiasm to learn and to help was just plain infectious; the camaraderie was truly heartfelt. The connections created, cemented by a bond of friendship, served not only as professional help lines for those seeking liberal solutions to development problems in their respective countries, but most importantly as permanent bridges of support for the realization of the collective plans and aspirations weaved in 13 days spent at the Akademie.

The relationships we had built were not momentary. The successful completion of the course did not imply the conclusion of the lessons learned nor a forgetting about the aspirations we had built together and the dreams we had collectively shared.

It is thus my belief that the most important achievement of the seminar was not the formal training acquired by participants on strategic planning. Rather, it was the web of relationships defined by familial affinity to liberal ideals and adherence to liberal solutions.

This achievement was never part of the plan. Yet, it was a development and an achievement we all shared and embraced. Humanity owes it to brilliant people like JFK who helped avert a nuclear holocaust during the 13 days of the Cuban missile crisis. Our achievements may not have been as grand as theirs, but all of us who belonged to Strategic Planning class of 2007 are forever grateful to the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for giving us those 13 days in Germany.