In today’s rapidly evolving world, there’s an increasing need for a more intuitive approach to strategic planning. The more intuitive approach must go beyond traditional models and embrace the nuanced subjective realities of human experience.
Embracing a New Perspective in Strategic Planning: Accounting for Subjectivity
Traditional strategic planning relies heavily on objectivity. This reliance overlooks a crucial aspect of our reality: the inherent subjectivity of people. Individuals and teams bring their biases and subjective viewpoints. Their biases and subjectivity are shaped by their unique experiences and influenced by their reactions to situations.
These subjective lenses significantly confine strategic thinking and work against successful outcomes.
To develop more effective and adaptable strategic plans, we must acknowledge and generate believability-weighted decisions, amidst the challenges of subjectivity.
Here are three introductory recommendations to reduce the impact of previously unacknowledged biases and subjectivity:
- Diverse Perspectives: Actively seek input from people beyond your inner circle. Seek diverse viewpoints, from people who actively challenge themselves to approach decisions from multiple perspectives.
- Situational Awareness: Recognize that situations play the key role in shaping the way people behave. For example, situations regularly trump people’s claimed values. Design planning processes that explore and test viewpoint believability.
- Education and Training: Educate team members about the impact of subjectivity in strategic planning…and the value of objectivity. Training in emotional intelligence, groupthink, blind spots, and bias recognition will help in managing subjectivity effectively.
To improve strategic planning: blend objective viewpoints with knowledge of the influence of situations on people.