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Strategic planning consists of the process of developing strategies to reach a defined objective. As we label a piece of planning "strategic" we expect it to operate on the grand scale and to take in "the big picture" (in contradistinction to "tactical" planning, which by definition has to focus more on the tactics of individual detailed activities). "Long range" planning typically projects current activities and programs into a revised view of the external world, thereby describing results that will most likely occur (whether the planner wants them or not!). "Strategic" planning tries to "create" more desirable future results by (a) influencing the outside world or (b) adapting current programs and actions so as to have more favorable outcomes in the external environment.

When a word enters the popular culture, quite often its original meaning is eroded, its definition obscured, and its whole concept lost. This is what has happened to the word "strategy." Most often used in the context of planning, "strategy" always carries a certain mystique, perhaps even a sense of panache, but any attempt at definitive, practical specifications typically ends either in confused generalities or in a suffocating restriction in the narrowest of contexts. For example, "strategic planning" is now defined, at least in practice, as long-range planning by most corporations and as comprehensive planning by non-profit institutions. Furthermore, in both instances, it is not uncommon for "strategic planning" to be reduced to program or project planning. While it semantically may be perfectly logical to ascribe any definition to words according to the specific context, to do so with "strategy" robs the original idea of its power to create systems of new dimensions, new realities. Unfortunately, the dilution of meaning has occurred at the precise time that contemporary systems need strategy most.

This is not an academic matter. At any time, under any circumstance, the loss of meaning regrettably would diminish both the system and the persons involved. But present time and circumstance--that is, the end of one epoch and the beginning of another--seem particularly evocative of the creative energies and new possibilities found only in the full implications of "strategy." There is an abundance of dramatic evidence that, at the beginning of this millennium, all of Western civilization, if not the entire world, is suspended in a cusp of historical proportions. All around, the orders that have been built up for the past three centuries are disintegrating and collapsing. Every day, new orders are being cre ated, orders that radically change every aspect of human life and human society. No existing system is exempt. And, as in all previous epochal shifts, the only way any system can guarantee its future is to create for itself completely new realities. That means, simply, a return to the original concept of strategy--from methodology and technique to a fundamental assumption about the world, human beings, and the way things work.

The conceptualization that best recognizes and appropriates all the possibilities of strategy may be termed strategics. Each of the three aspects is essential in the others: Strategic Thinking, Strategic Planning, and Strategic Action. While all of these subjects have been variously acknowledged and explained by both practitioners and theorists, strategic planning has of course commanded most of the attention and is in fact typically undertaken without the benefit of either thinking or action.

Although much has been written about strategic Thinking, little has actually dealt with current strategic issues. Specifically, in the late 1940's, 1950's, and 1960's, strategic planning usually was utilized in de novo situations--start-up enterprises, without precedent, based on assumptions about the potential market or actual demand. But by the 1970's, owing to the sterility of financial analysts, this kind of planning had degenerated into the development of formulaic "business plans."

During that same decade, strategic planning was properly applied to change issues--specifically Level I change issues, which means changing within a system only through "improvement," "restructuring," or "reforming"; however, it still remained the same system. It is regrettable to note that most of today's so-called strategic planning still uses the vocabulary and concepts of Level I change.

Since 1986, strategic issues have been redefined in terms of Level II change, and that demands planning that creates something other than the original system. The questions of "who," "why," and "what" are still valid, but the results are in a new language and constitute a complete metamorphosis.

It is probably an indication of the seriousness with which strategic planning is taken that virtually nothing has been written or said about strategic Action. Perhaps that is the reason most so-called "strategic plans" are never realized. The offices of chief executives are commonly filled with strategic plans whose only effect is occupying otherwise useable shelf space. In fact, most planning methodologies seem to assume that the strategic plan itself is the result, so typically there is nothing in the plan that can be taken to action. For example, the Minister of Health for a British Commonwealth country recently lamented that his agency had invested an inordinate amount of money in a voluminous planning document prepared by a consulting firm, yet he could not find anything that actually could be "implemented." But it is not enough that a plan be translatable into action; it must provoke the action. Strategic plans cannot be ignored or denied. Furthermore, the process of planning must be such that it continually tests the action against the plan and the plan against the action. . . 

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