Introducing OST for strategic planning - Question

[Harrison Owen]

I think a first question to ask is, "What is meant by Strategic Planning?"
If the answer comes out something like, a brief consideration of outside
opinion regarding the environment and future possibilities, it doesn't sound
to me like there is much space, open or otherwise. On the other hand, if the
intention is to work together in a collaborative manner to architect the
future directions of the company - space gets a lot more open. And OST can
be very useful. In fact it has been useful in multiple similar situations.
But you do need time and a few hours at the end of a day of speeches does
not qualify.

 

Parenthetically, if I were one of the invited corporate executives I would
feel pretty demeaned. Either I and my colleagues possess the necessary
smarts and experience to guide the enterprise or we should all be fired.
Assuming we do possess the essentials, give us the time and space necessary
to do the job. If we don't then just have the experts write the strategic
plan and tell us what it is...

 

Harrison

 

 

 

Harrison Owen

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Potomac, Maryland   20854

Phone 301-365-2093

Skype hhowen

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-----Original Message-----
From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of Susan M
Kerr
Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 8:36 AM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Introducing OST for strategic planning - Question

 

 Hi Everyone,

 

Does anyone have experience with using OST for strategic planning for an
organization? If so, how did you would you introduce it to the leaders of
the organization in order to use it for this? 

 

I'm not new to this list but still new to using OST. While I've experienced
it Harrison, Michael H, and others, I haven't experienced it within an
organization for problem solving. My role in my company is to manage
training for one small section of the company (700 employees out of 26,000)
and I have only used parts of OST or on a very small scale. 

 

Yesterday out of the blue, the VP of Org Dev called me to ask me if I
thought OST could be used at their upcoming strategic planning meeting where
20 - 30 strategic leaders will be meeting for 1 day I believe. He asked me
if I would be willing to meet with himself and one other leader responsible
to plan this meeting to explain what OST is and how it could be used for
this. He specifically asked for:

 

What OST is

How OST can be used

What could work for strategic planning

What might not work

 

The "wrench" he threw into it that I don't quite know what to do with is
that they are considering bringing in "experts" in social trends and
healthcare/business trends to present to this group of strategic planners
and allow them time for Q&A of these experts. Then there would be time for
priority setting/developing the strategic plan. He was thinking of OST for
the latter phase. 

 

I welcome any thoughts or coaching from this group! I followed some of the
recent conversations on "experts" in OST sessions and understand that
purpose of holding two day open space (I think I do, anyway) but am not sure
if it could be accomplished in one day and if this is a situation to use it
in or not. 

 

Thank you! I look forward to hearing from you. 

Peace,

Susan 





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