Strategic Planning Process Improves Decisions

Challenge

The new CEO of a leading worldwide manufacturer of residential and commercial turf and irrigation equipment saw the need to improve the organization’s strategy, develop leaders, and strengthen the strategic planning process. Previously, strategic planning had been a closely held process, but the new CEO wanted to include leaders from the various business units to create a common process and language that would assure consistency in strategic planning and improve decisions across the enterprise.

Solution

The company turned to PDI to help them design and implement a new strategic planning process. The work began with a launch event where leaders participated in an action learning exercise involving their cross-functional teams.
After this session, PDI worked with the client to:

  • Introduce new strategy frameworks, tools, and language for analyzing and reporting strategy
  • Identify leadership roles and requirements at different strategy levels, including functional, business unit, and enterprise
  • Facilitate individual strategy working sessions with functional teams, business unit teams, and the executive team
  • Provide strategy coaching to business unit general managers and strategy process leaders
  • Design and facilitate sessions where leaders presented their strategies and received useful feedback

It was critical that the right mix of “learning” and “doing” be built into the process to ensure that leaders had the opportunity to practice strategic thinking and planning in their own environment.

Result

With PDI’s help, the organization implemented a rigorous and disciplined strategic planning process that meets the needs of the business units and the entire enterprise. Through real-world practice, leaders developed strategy acumen and learned a common strategy language used across the organization. Leaders also had the opportunity to observe the strategic capability of their team members and identify their developmental needs. The enterprise is now well positioned for future planning with common frameworks, language, and tools.