Strategic planning is an oxymoron. Throwing these two words around together constantly has done a lot of damage. When I help clients with “strategic planning,” I have to undo a lot of that harm. The distinction between strategy and planning is critical, especially if your goal is to create a compelling and successful future.

When you develop a strategy, you need to be looking at:

• Market wants and needs
• Products and services you could offer to address those wants and needs
• Business models that allow you to reach target markets and fill those needs profitably
• Opportunities to differentiate yourself from the competition
• Your passions and values

Assuming you have been successful in the past, your best ideas will come from examining changes around you. Changes in technology, demographics, market needs, the economy, etc., But also things you’ve learned, especially your worst failures, greatest successes, and biggest surprises of both kinds. The key to developing a strong and winning strategy is to think big, look outside the company, get out of your current mindset, stop thinking about limitations, forget about the “how,” and paint possibilities that are out there a ways.

Planning is the exact opposite. It is rooted in the present, all about the “how,” the gaps, your weaknesses, and logical next steps. It’s an entirely different mindset.

Without a clear distinction between strategy and planning, the planning mentality usually dominates and the results are usually incremental at best. Instead of envisioning possibilities, people envision implementation difficulties. This totally colors and limits their thinking. SWOT, the ever popular strategic planning tool that itemizes strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, feeds this planning mentality at the expense of strategic thought. Half of the four SWOT quadrants are admittedly internally focused. The other two are usually anchored in that mindset – “opportunities accessible from here” with no guarantee that market needs and the other strategic factors will be raised. This is not the road to new thinking and a compelling strategy.

This graphic provides a visual summary of the important distinction between strategy and planning. With the former, you think big, draw a new future, and work backwards to make it a reality. When planning, you move forward one step at a time. A strong strategy can put you on the moon. Planning will get you across town.

I hope you are headed for the moon!