Thrilled to have hosted DOE's Building Executive Leaders for Tomorrow (BELT) program here at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) this week. This leadership program brings together highly-talented national laboratory and federal staff to develope and expand their skills in building teams, strategies, and transformation. Fantastic fun to host and serve as a mentor to these amazing folks. A colleague of mine (Kate M.) prepared closing remarks and made a brilliant observations that captured one of the core themes of this session: "A plan is not a strategy --- and a strategy is not a plan." Has the term "strategic planning" become a rabbit hole that no longer provides value? Consider that a strategy is "...the act of making an integrated set of choices, which positions the organization to win; while planning is the act of laying out projects with timelines, deliverables, budgets, and responsibilities." [quoting https://lnkd.in/ePu6zeB5.] How many times when I am asked for a strategy do I produce a To-Do list with a Risk Registry glued on? Is that really a strategy? No. So, going forward, I'm going to strike the term "strategic plan" from my vocabulary. Let's create Strategies and Plans!
Was great to visit PPPL, participate, listen and learn.
Master of Arts - MA at Texas Tech University
5moThanks for hosting us Tim! I had a great time. And I thought Kathryn Morrison did a beautiful job summing up what we learned over the course of the session. I took away a few great nuggets. One of my favorite quotes was from the leadership panel: “If your values don’t line up with the lab’s values, maybe you should look for another job.”