A Plan Is Not a Strategy

A comprehensive plan—with goals, initiatives, and budgets–is comforting. But starting with a plan is a terrible way to make strategy. Roger Martin, former dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto and one of the world’s leading thinkers on strategy, says developing strategy means going outside an organization’s comfort zone and escaping the common traps of strategic planning.

00:00 Most strategic planning has nothing to do with strategy.
01:00 So what is a strategy?
02:08 Why do leaders so often focus on planning?
04:05 Let's see a real-world example of strategy beating planning.
06:33 How do I avoid the "planning trap"?

For more from Roger Martin on this topic…