Strategic Planning and Strategic Thinking: Rule Makers or Rule Breakers

Remember the Proverb, “Rules were made to be broken?” (Clarke, 1953). Do you believe this can be applied to Strategic Planning and Strategic Thinking? How can breaking a rule or policy be a positive influence in an organization? Is it presumptuous to suppose breaking a rule can restructure a better plan? It’s all in the perspective of the planner or thinker.
Today’s organizations are being restructured to meet the needs of the consumer. Organizations that were once in competition are not uniting to provide consumer convenience options. Mergers are taking place that were once considered unimaginable to pioneer founders; breaking old mindsets to rethink mission and vision. I believe the current day challenge for organizations is to replace planning with strategic planning and thinking with strategic thinking; breaking the old rule to remake a new rule. Are organizations willing to take the challenge of change by breaking the mold and reshaping and preparing for tomorrow’s consumers? It’s all about growing and changing, planning and thinking, rule breaking and rule making and accepting the challenge.

Understanding the Definitions

Through definition, rule breaking and remaking can enhance Strategic Planning and Strategic Thinking. John M. Bryson (1997) states that strategic planning is a management tool used for one purpose only: to help an organization do a better job – to focus its energy, to ensure that members of the organization are working toward the same goals, to assess and adjust an organization’s direction in response to a changing environment. In short, I believe strategic planning is a disciplined effort to produce fundamental decisions and actions that shape and guide what an organization is, what it does, and why it does it, with a focus on tomorrow.
Strategic Thinking is a MINDSET or way of thinking about a business or organization. The focus is on long term, holistic thinking, not just functional parts, but giving attention to the whole system. This type of thinking is analytical and creative, examining assumptions. (Bacal, 2007) Maree Conway (2002) states that strategic thinking is about synthesis and cites Liedtka (1998) as suggesting that such thinking is intuitive, experimental, and necessarily disruptive, and attempts to explore areas beyond logical thinking, in order to develop a vision of an organization’s future. Because information about potential futures is always incomplete, the thinking required for success in this activity needs to be ‘synthetical’ and inductive, rather than analytical and deductive. Foresight (Conway & Voros, 2002) is an organizational context best conceived and positioned as an aspect of strategic thinking, which is meant to open up an expanded range of perceptions of the strategic options available, so that strategy making is potentially wiser. Strategic thinking is concerned with exploration, often based on limited and patchy information and options, not the steps needed for implementation of actions, which is the realm of strategic planning.
I believe the basis of understanding strategic planning and thinking is to assimilate the definitions and demonstrate the degree of compatibility needed for each element to function dependently and independently of each other. The level of dependence and independence will be determined by the need to develop a more productive plan or to pursue futuristic goals in the organization.

What’s the Rule?

Now that Strategic Planning and Thinking have been defined, let’s see how the breaking and/or making of rules in the organization can validate a justifiable cause. Let me give you my definition of ‘breaking and/or making a rule’ in this article. I define breaking or broken as something separated from its original state through force or impact, purposed for a cause or through an accident. Being broken does not necessarily mean unusable. The purpose of being broken is to restructure, remodel, or revamp, to be built back to its original state, re-modified state, and/or built into a new structure. The next quest is to relate the broken rule to a rebuilt rule. I believe humanity was created to pursue a better way for a greater cause. This greater cause impacts how humanity relates to rules. Rules can be temporary or permanent. Whichever way rules are defined and implemented into a plan, humanity will strive to improve and increase; breaking to remake and/or restructure. Organizations that have implemented strategic planning in the past, choosing to expand the rules and not break them have suffered the consequences of internal and/or external loss within the organization. An example could be seen in the merging of corporations/organizations in order to survive changing times. Can breaking a rule and making a rule save lives?

A Life and Death Situation

In March 2007, a firefighter was cited for breaking procedural policy and jeopardizing his life to rescue a drowning woman. The firefighter, a 15-year veteran, stated he could not see the woman drowning before his eyes without his rescuing her from a river’s rising waters. The firefighter stated that he was expected to watch that young girl die in front of him. He stated that as a father and a caring human being, I couldn’t live with myself if I’d had to do that. He breached safety rules during the rescue and his actions became a cause for an internal investigation. (Lister, 2007) This real-life situation is a prime example of finding a balance between breaking a rule or keeping a rule. Because the firefighter’s instincts became his motivator in rescuing another human, his regard for policy and procedure became secondary, causing him to ignore standard compliance. The firefighter’s rule breaking became the woman’s rule making. Perhaps this event can be used in fire stations across America as an example of rule breaking, risk taking, and rule making.
What’s the Point
The point is not so much in the ability to break a rule or to find satisfaction in breaking a rule. The point is if you break a rule, make a better rule. I believe organizations that have survived the changes of time have broken old rules to revamp, change, break ‘out of the old’ to create, rebuild anew in order to remain in operation today. Rule breaking can be identified as the words listed below, just to name a few:
• Paradigm shifts
• New Opportunities
• Influence
• Change in conditions
• New Horizons
Whatever definition you choose, the results are the same. When you change a rule, you ‘break it down’ to remake a new rule. This is where Strategic Planning can be implemented; moving an organization into new direction. Today, the results of implementation in organizations can be seen on every street corner. Strategic planning is helping organizations assimilate product and service into one-stop-shops; all for the convenience of the customer in support of productivity and global success. The daily demand of change and technology creates new ideals and concepts in organizations and takes leadership into planning ‘sweat shops’ to forge out new realms of thinking to stay in the new global production race. Will strategic planning provide enough fuel to carry the vehicle of change into global foresight? I believe that as organizations engage in rule breaking and rule making, the direction of strategic planning and strategic thinking will enable them to foresee the challenges of the future. In spite of the reputation strategic thinking has had in the past, the benefits of understanding the ‘why’ and ‘how to’ of rule breaking and making will give organizations a greater understanding of why strategic thinking can enhance their process.
Why Strategic Thinking

When an object is broken, it fragments. Strategic planning is the study of the pieces instead of the whole. Strategic thinking, on the other hand, is the study of the whole object, seeing it in a futuristic dimension, bringing the object back into the present, and forecasting its future. Eton Lawrence (1999) writes that strategic thinking involves thinking and acting within a certain set of assumptions and potential action alternatives as well as challenging existing assumptions and action alternatives, potentially leading to new and more appropriate ones. Lawrence’s thoughts can be interpreted as rule breaking, which he calls ‘potential action alternatives’ and rule making, ‘potentially leading to new and more appropriate ones’ for the sake of strategic thinking; the ‘why’ to strategic thinking. Strategic planning is the platform reflecting the organizational segment directives. Strategic thinking is the set of wheels that move the planning elements into new paths, dimensions, creating and updating new planning platforms, allowing leadership to see the whole object.
As leadership evaluates strategic plans, breakdown of rules, policies, and procedures occur remaking new rules to accommodate vision and insight for strategic thinking processes; filling the gap.

Filling in the Gaps

Strategic planning and strategic thinking are the super vitamins for revitalizing organizations and reenergizing key components necessary to carry the organization into the next dimension of growth. Part of the reenergizing process is rebuilding the broken parts; rebuild stronger, workable parts, to restore the whole. The rule breaking is not so much a destructive process as much as it is a change agent needed to re-strengthen the organization for the next phase; the rule making. Gaps that occur in the strategic planning process can be attributed to changes that did not pan out; rules that became broken. This can become an opportunity to interject strategic thinking; a rule maker. As gaps occur in the developmental stage or planning stage, rules may change, breaking down elements that are made up in the planning stage. Once breakdown occurs, rule making can be instituted. Loizos Heracleous (1998) writes that discovering and committing to novel strategies which can re-write the rules of the competitive arena, necessitates relaxing or suspending at least part of the conventional wisdom and assumptions about the industry, the industry recipes, as well as one’s psychological frames in which these recipes are represented, envisioning a number of possible futures, and challenging the existing operating assumptions in which current strategies are built. Expanding his belief system a little further, the ‘discovering, re-writing, and building’ process he mentions can be attributed to change.
The bottom line to any rule breaking and rule making is who is going to be affected by the change? People will, regardless of the role they play in the process. It is no longer a matter of convincing; it is a matter of communicating the change. Even though rules were made to be broken, they are broken to be rebuilt. I admire the many creative entrepreneurs that have taken the challenge to change; breaking the rules to make new rules. Perhaps necessity called in the challenge for change; testing unknown territories to discover new and fresh concepts for change. I believe there are untapped resources to be discovered, many inventors, entrepreneurs, that are carrying visions and dreams waiting to be birthed in the human spirit that will answer questions of the future.
So the next time you are in a planning meeting ‘sweat room’ ironing out the process, remember that rules are broken all the time so they can be rebuilt to provide a greater hope of a stronger leadership, a loyal followership, and a prosperous organization for the future.
Who would have ever thought there are benefits to breaking a rule to remake another rule? Sounds like a vicious cycle? Yes, to some degree depending on how the breaking and making is used. There are some organizations that break all the rules and get by. Those are the guys that end up on the front page of our daily newspapers, or the evening news. Could it be that breaking and making are synonymous? Can you have one without the other? I believe rule breaking and rule making go hand in hand with organizational productivity whether it is to improve the internal structure of an environment or the external ecosystem. Strategic planning broke the rule, the rule to improve/remake a new rule to forge organizational management systems into the next era. Strategic thinking is now remaking a rule, creating an environment of possibilities, causing leaders, managers, stakeholders, followers, and all involved, to get excited as they enter realms of thinking above and beyond old mindsets. Do you believe change is risky? Yes, risk taking is part of strategic thinking; that is what rule breaking and rule making is all about. Where impossibilities once existed, possibilities are part of futuristic thinking. So what is next in line in the rule breaking and rule making event? Perhaps, chaos? Allow your imagination to stand at the door and see into the next level of thinking. The sky is the limit. Ok, I’ll stop there and let you ponder on the next generation of rule making and rule breaking.

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Lister, David. (2007). Fireman Faces Punishment for Risking His Life in Rescue. TIMES ONLINE. UK: London, England. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1567322.ece
Strategic planning Frequently Asked Questions and Answers. http://www.work911.com/planningmaster/faq/thinkingstrategicthinking.htm

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