Reviving your corporate strategy

Lots of factors come to play into this end result "failing/ineffective strategic planning" and the best thing would be to draw a cause-effect fish backbone diagram with the result (failing/ineffective strategic planning" at the head of this fish backbone diagram and thinking of all possible causes (internal and external) that lead to such result.

I am not trying to dictate preset reasons for such a thing, but I would suggest a good brainstorming session would be helpful to identify these reasons, provided

• All relevant functions (across the organization) participate in this session
• Within, each function, the representation should go down to the knowledge workers who got a clue with the reality of things, as well as enough authority level to turn findings into decisions and actions
• A damn good (external) facilitator who can 
• Provide the necessary guidance through this exercise
• Give an external view/assessment of what he sees in the organization
• Bridge higher levels of the organizations (where all what they see below is shit) with the lower levels (where all what they see above is assholes)  ... excuse my language.

I am sure such an exercise would be an "eye-opener" and and "emergency call for action" within the organization provided

• The effort is sponsored and supported by top-level management and backed up by influential/powerful key stakeholders
• A spirit of positive and healthy corporate culture dominates the atmosphere that surrounds this initiative/effort

The findings should not come as a surprise to most of us who are in this field, as they will touch on such things as

1. Internal Politics/Power Struggles/Personal Agendas
2. Management style
3. Lack of effective and inspiring leadership
4. Lack of unifying culture / teamwork spirit
5. Inherent weaknesses impacting the organization's ability to execute and delivered
6. Missing or weak communications across the organization
7. Lack of incentives to motivate the people at the lower levels of the hierarchy
8. Organization split (vertically) which creates "isolates islands" within the organization
9. Failure to understand/appreciate the complex "inter-dependency" patterns within the organization and their counter-part external dependencies
10. Lack of powerful and effective "all way through" performance measurement system in all relevant perspectives that are significant to the organization

I hope this is of help ! 

It actually comes from real-life case studies and practical experiences with clients facing such problems