One of the key issues in strategic planning is not directly addressed by the Baldrige Criteria. It occurs during the strategy development phase of the process as participants analyze relevant data and information about factors that will shape the plan and then use their analysis to agree on what should be in the plan. Coming to agreement can be a contentious debate, one opinion competing with another, with decisions made based on who ranks the highest or makes the best argument or outlasts opposing views.

It’s not the best way to chart a course.

Roger Martin is Dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto. He has facilitatestrategic planning sessions. In “My Eureka Moment with Strategy” (HBR, May 3, 2010), he tells the story of a planning session with ten mining company executives that “quickly descended into adversarial position-taking and I could tell it was going nowhere.”

He stopped the descent by asking the executives a different question. Instead of one person making his case and everyone else telling him why he was wrong, Martin asked the executives “to specify what would have to be true for the option on the table to be a fantastic choice.” Instead of competitors, they became collaborators. Each had expertise to contribute to the cause. They discussed five options and what had to be true for each to make it the best choice, and they agreed at the end of one day to analyze those items they had reservations about and meet again to decide on the best course of action.

“This subtle shift gives people a way to back away from their beliefs and allow exploration by which they give themselves the opportunity to learn something new,” Martin writes. “That in turn enables more options to survive longer and get explored more thoroughly.”

We’ve all been part of meetings where an idea is presented and someone says it will never work and that idea is done, and whoever killed it claims top spot on your hit list, which means his next idea is toast. As a result, a lot of good ideas are never given a chance to become great ideas. And organizations need their strategies to be guided by great ideas.

What would have to be true for this option to be a fantastic choice?

Martin calls it the most important question in strategy.

To read more about strategic planning, click on these articles:

• Revolutionary Thinking
• Identifying Potential Blind Spots
• Find Your Blue Ocean
• Where to Play and How to Win
• What Are Your Critical Success Factors?
• Planning for the Longer-Term

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