What Makes a Decisive Leadership Team, 2nd Edition (HBR Article Collection)

Does your leadership team side-step the annual strategy planning marathon--making strategic decisions on the fly instead? Does it fritter away precious hours wrestling with strategically irrelevant issues? If so, you're not alone. Most executives abhor formal strategic planning because it doesn't help them respond swiftly to threats and opportunities that arise unexpectedly during the year. But lacking an effective planning framework, they avoid debating strategy and don't gather the data they need to make informed decisions. When they do talk strategy, they bicker over alternatives. Result? Wasted time, poor decisions, and lost opportunities. To avoid this scenario, establish a rigorous discipline for addressing strategic issues as they crop up throughout the year. Conduct separate meetings for operational and strategic questions, and concentrate strategy discussions on issues driving your firm's long-term value. Put real choices on the table before approving any strategy. And transform bickering into constructive "fights" that expose smart solutions. Finally, clarify who's accountable for carrying out each decision--and when the work must be done.