Stop Making Plans and Start Making Decisions- myassignmenthelp

Question: Write about theStop Making Plans and Start Making Decisions. Answer: Introduction The topic for this essay is STOP MAKING PLANS; START MAKING DECISIONS. From the primary analysis we get the impression that one should not only make plans to execution certain task but also work towards implementing the whole task and also in allotted time. Making a perfect plan to tackle any situation is always has been the easy part but one does not know about the unexpected real life challenges he could face in carrying out the task which is always the difficult part. Therefore it is always advised to make small goals and implement it in given time and then devise future plan. Discussion The article was written by Harvard in their Harvard business review in January 2006 in volume 84(1) in pp 76 to 84 the article has been written with the view of strategic planning in business (Mankins and Steele 2006). The article starts with the question whether the strategic planning in business is of any use or it is completely useless. The issue was analyzed by the CEO of the companies. The older tradition where companys leaders would sit together and go through the endless PowerPoint presentation which provided them few solutions to tackle the business challenges. To overcome this limitation, the executives of the company decided to sidestep their formal strategy planning process where decision was made on less information and heated debate among them. The members complained that the meetings were long on exhortationbut short on executable ideas for the company. The company executive came up with certain changes in strategy planning. To ensure an effective discussion, the topic of the discussion and all presentation materials of the meeting was sent to employees before the week of meeting . The discussion session were extended to give ample time to each of them to present their views and come to an effective conclusion .Instead of calling the unit heads of the company for meetings the executives decided to visit each of the 22 unit for six weeks to have a long meeting with the managers regarding the ongoing strategy and have problems the company is facing. After implementing the new strategy the CEO tried to gather the feedbacks from the employees and to his surprise the employees were not satisfied with the new strategy as it took much time and on a very high level which was very different from their ways of carrying out the business. Failing of the strategy many executives grew skeptical of strategic planning whether it is of any use. Despite of all time, money, energy spent on the planning it was a complete failure. Analyzing the dilemma of the executives Harvard business review has come up with some reasons as why the strategy planning of the company fails. The company should analyze their root problems and give up calendar-driven planning processesand come up with continuous issue focus decision making plan (Norton and Marmaros 2013). In order to overcome the issue the company has stopped were focused more on taking decision rather than making long term plans. According to the article the company which follow the given process they made twice as more decision as before following the traditional planning model. Harvard business has conducted survey among 156 large companies regarding how effectively company executed their long term plans for the company. According to them strategic planning which are bounded to timing structure is an obstacles to good decision making. The companies should make strategic decisions which are constrained by calendar planned meeting. As long as company depend on calendar planned strategic planning meeting they cannot drive to decision making and without any decisions making the meeting is of no use. The Strategic plans meeting cannot be successful if it is not focused on decision making. The company cannot focus on to a better decision making as long as they are restricted to individual business units and limited by the calendar. The article has concluded that many companies are now doing meeting which is focused heavily on decision making through the continuous identification and systematic resolution of strategic issues (Rumelt 2012). Various successful companies focus their strategy discussions mainly on issues which are limited and also important, which can span multiple businesses. These companies has moved away from business to business plan models which has proved to be successful especially when managing the large business and complex organization where making strategy decision is quite difficult as different division manger will devise a plan in keeping mind their own unit which may not be helpful for other unit of the company. (Bronzite 2012)The article STOP MAKING PLANS AND START MAKING DECISIONS seems to be a social topic, but the Harvard has written the article from business point of view which can be applied in business. Therefore the article should be written in such a way that it also includes the challenges in normal day to day life and how can it be overcome. The essay article STOP MAKING PLANS AND START MAKING DECISIONS has been written after analyzing the various surveys which has been done regarding the timing of strategic planning the analysis of these surveys has produced their views. In 2005, Marakon Associates who has collaborated with Economist Intelligence Unit to survey the senior executives of the 156 large companies in the world where each of them having the sales of over one billion dollars or more than that ,the surveys consisted of forty percent of those companies which have sale over ten billion dollars (Johnston and Bate, 2013). The survey was done to analyze how the executives developed their companies long term plans and how effective their planning drove them to the strategic decisions. Harvard business also conducted surveys regarding the implementation of calendar effect and they analyzed that over sixty six percent of the companies have calendar dependent planning. A survey which was conducted to find whether the pl anning by the executives was worth their effort they find that only eleven percent executives were satisfied with the result of their planning (Daellenbach, McNickle and Dye, 2012). In another survey conducted among executive to find whether the top managers are effectively involved in all strategic planning they found that only thirteen percent of the executives were satisfied that top manger cooperate in strategic planning. The article has been written keeping business management in mind. From the various surveys conducted worldwide. Analyzing the article various conclusions can be derived. Firstly the company important strategic planning meeting should not be constrained to calendars and times, it should be setup any time when required (Birkinshaw et al.2014). According to article ,the company which depend on rigid business schedule and follow calendar scheduled meeting they make 2.5 strategic meeting on an average in year which is very less in order to manage business. The strategic decision should be regular to study the growth of the company. Secondly the meeting should not be review and approve but there should be a healthy debate between members and take an important decision. The companies should not only make plans but also take important decisions. Thirdly the successful companies conducts their strategic meeting on finite issues which are important . which can be extended to multiple businesse s (Johnston and Bate 2013) (De Reuver, Bouwman and Haaker 2013). Moving away from traditional business-by-business planning model it has proved to be helpful specifically to large organization which has to make decision taking all its subsidiaries (Hammond, Keeney and Raiffa 2015). The plans made during the meeting is not approved by each one as each division manager attempts to cover every aspect of the units strategy. The article Stop Making Plans; Start Making Decisions written by Harvard business review can be considered as reliable and trustworthy which businessmen can follow as it is written with the support of various surveys conducted worldwide by them. The surveys include senior executives of 156 large companies which have sales of over a billion dollars and revenue over ten billion dollars. The article has also given examples of big companies like Microsoft, Boeing Commercial Airplanes (BCA), Diageo, Textron, Cardinal Health, and Cadburys. It describes about the problem they faced and how they manage to find its solution (Proctor, 2014). Therefore it is implied that the article has been written in keeping minds the case studies of big companies, so the solution of the problem given in the article is reliable and can be implemented to solve the business problem( Vaccaro, Van Den Bosch and Volberda, 2012). Conclusion From the essay it can be concluded that the article that strategic planning often act as barrier to effective decision making and has a little influence on making strategy. Strategic planning always fails because of two reasons. First it is limited to calendar schedules; second it only focuses on single business units in case of large organization. But companies can find the solution to the problem if they attack its root problems. Various firms have stopped the calendar-driven meeting and replaced it with continuous and making decision which is issue focused. References Birkinshaw, J., Healey, M.P., Suddaby, R. and Weber, K., 2014. 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Stop making plans; start making decisions.Harvard business review,84(1), p.76. Norton, K.S. and Marmaros, D.P., Google Inc., 2013.Automatically schedule and re-schedule meetings using reschedule factors for conflicting calendar events. U.S. Patent 8,375,034. Proctor, T., 2014.Creative problem solving for managers: developing skills for decision making and innovation. Routledge. Rumelt, R.P., 2012. Good strategy/bad strategy: The difference and why it matters.Strategic Direction,28(8). Vaccaro, I.G., Jansen, J.J., Van Den Bosch, F.A. and Volberda, H.W., 2012. Management innovation and leadership: The moderating role of organizational size.Journal of Management Studies,49(1), pp.28-51.