Just What IS Strategic Planning, Anyway?

by Roy E. Disney

“Strat Planning …actually “plans” nothing - - rather, it looks at the past and extrapolates trend lines into some infinite – and impossible – future.” “But here’s the catch – strategic planning is NOT strategic thinking. It is the thief of creativity. It is the manipulator, not the visionary. It is, in fact, the arch enemy of the business Disney used to be in.”

http://www.savedisney.com/news/essays/rd052704.1.asp

That "silver pass" comment from vault.com is not true. Silver passes are more like SoCal APs these days.

I think Roy is really showing his lack of business skills here. Strategic planning is absolutely >vital< at any large company, but in the article Roy doesn't even really seem to understand what it is or how it works within the Disney company. The real key with strategic planning, like pretty much any other business endeavor, is doing it well. In fact, this is probably the key area where Disney is falling short right now. Calling for an end to Strategic Planning rather than an improvement of it really is out of touch with reality.

I find it particularly odd that someone who was a senior executive at the company for so many years seems to have the need to quote an outside analysis firm to even explain the department's role and position. Shouldn't his position within the company have allowed him to describe this in his own words based on his direct experiences? That certainly should be more meaningful than a description from some outside organization that may or may not have accurate information. Honestly, Roy's attempts to paint the Strategic Planning team as some sort of a shadowy organization ruling from on high seems to support the accusation that he really has been a fringe figure at the organization for some time, mostly kept around for his name rather than his contributions.


-Jeff

Of course you would say that Jeff... Did you start in strategic planning too? ;)

Ya know, I think ol' Roy and Stan have done pretty well, even with their limited business skills. :rolleyes:

Honestly, Roy's attempts to paint the Strategic Planning team as some sort of a shadowy organization ruling from on high seems to support the accusation that he really has been a fringe figure at the organization for some time, mostly kept around for his name rather than his contributions.
-Jeff

It depends if the Strategic planning that goes on is interactive with the rest of the organization or simply studies charts and graphs and comes out of their offices long enough to tell the rest of the business how things SHOULD be run. A key fact of strategic planning is that tactical processes stem from the strategic roadmap you create, and the results of those processes must be fed back into the continued planning for the coming months, etc.

IF the group at WDC did act more in stealth mode and came out to say - change this, do that (like the creatures in the movie "Dark City") - then you have a problem. This is because the folks who are doing the day to day don't understand how some of the decisions were developed....

Well said, Oleg. I didn't even attempt to address this because it is just so well documented; they'd like to portray Roy as Jeff suggests because they have no other defense or rebuttal. How on earth do you think Zenia earns her keep? Playing nice? There are simply too many others that have inside knowledge as to the workings of the upper level exec's- the WDC is extremely dysfunctional, and there are few who do not acknowledge this. The article on strategic planning is but one small example of the thought processes at work here.