How to tell which decisions are strategic

Following the completion of this week’s reading/lessons assignments, complete each of the following:

• Write a one-two sentence personal definition of strategic planning. Base your definition on what you have encountered in the reading/materials this week, as well as on what you have already learned about the topic.

• Discuss this statement by Roger L. Martin: “. . . good strategy is not the product of hours of careful research and modeling that lead to an inevitable and almost perfect conclusion. Instead, it’s the result of a simple and quite rough-and-ready process of thinking through what it would take to achieve what you want and then assessing whether it’s realistic to try. If executives adopt this definition, then maybe, just maybe, they can keep strategy where it should be: outside the comfort zone.”

• Finally, describe the differences between strategic planning and business planning.

Journal Articles:

Choonhaklai, S., & Wangkanond, R. (2014). The linkage between elements in the strategic planning process: A qualitative study. International Employment Relations Review, 20(1), 27-43.

Martin, R.L. (2014). The big lie of strategic planning. Harvard Business Review, 92(1/2), 78-84.

Sa, Y. (2013). Elements of strategic management process and Performance Management systems in U.S. federal agencies: Do employee managerial levels matter? International Journal of Business and Management, 8(9) doi:10.5539/ijbm.v8n9p1

Sezerel, H., & Tonus, H. Z. (2014). The soft element of strategic human resource management: The employee’s perception of diversity climate. Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, 150, 354-359. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.09.026

Shivakumar, R. (2014). How to tell which decisions are strategic. California Management Review, 56(3), 78- 97.

Weber, Y., & Tarba, S. Y. (2014). Strategic agility: A state of the art. California Management Review, 56(3), 5-12.