Strategy expert Roger Martin gives insights on steering clear of the "planning trap" and the importance of prioritizing strategy over excessive planning.

business, strategy, planning, growth, competition, market, analysis, innovation, decision-making, leadership, tactics, implementation, success, challenges, opportunities

If you're trying to escape this planning trap, this comfort trap of doing something that's comfortable but not good for you, how do you start? The most important thing to recognize is that strategy will have angst associated with it. It'll make you feel somewhat nervous because as a manager, chances are you've been taught you should do things that you can prove in advance. You can't prove in advance that your strategy will succeed. You can look at a plan and say, well, all these things are doable, let's just do those because they're within our control, but they won't add up to much. In strategy, you have to say, if our theory is right about what we can do and how the market will react, this will position us in an excellent way. Just accept the fact that you can't be perfect on that and you can't know for sure. That is not being a bad manager. That is being a great leader because you're giving your organization the chance to do something great. The second thing I do is say, lay out the logic of your strategy clearly. What would have to be true about ourselves, about the industry, about competition, about customers for this strategy to work. Why do you do that? It's because you can then watch the world unfold. If something that you say is in the logic that would have to be true for this to work is not working out quite the way you hoped, it'll allow you to tweak your strategy. Strategy is a journey. What you want to have is a mechanism for tweaking it, toning it, and refining it so it gets better and better as you go along. Another thing that helps with strategy is not letting it get overcomplicated. It's great if you can write your strategy on a single page. Here's where we're choosing to play. Here's how we're choosing to win. Here are the capabilities we need to have in place. Here are the management systems. That's why it's going to achieve this goal, this aspiration that we have. Then you lay out the logic. What must be true for that all to work out the way we hope? Go do it and watch and tweak as you go along. That may feel somewhat more worry-making, angst-making than planning, but I would tell you that if you plan, that's a way to guarantee losing. If you do strategy, it gives you the best possible chance of winning.