An article in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal announced, “strategic plans lose favor” in the current economic environment. Executives, it reported, were adopting “just-in-time” decision-making according to a partner at McKinsey & Co. There is no longer time to “predict the future” and, anyway, the future was too uncertain. Now, quick adaptation and decisions were needed. Amazingly, some companies had even created “situation rooms” to monitor current events to support quicker decisions. An Accenture manager summarized by saying, “strategy, as we knew it, is dead.”

Wow. Who would have thought that we would see the death of strategy in our lifetimes?

After all, strategy has been employed in so many ventures over hundreds (thousands?) of years and now, apparently due to the recent economic issues, it is “dead.” This shocks me as much as seeing the Berlin Wall fall in 1989 or as seeing Sadat address the Israeli Knesset in 1977. Are we experiencing a radical transition to a post-strategy business era where reflexive actions completely replace strategic reflection?

I doubt it. It would be better for readers of such pronouncements to translate the death knell statements to what they really mean.

Competition is a constant.

My son competes in basketball. His team has many challenges. Perhaps the biggest challenge is that they are a new team (formed this year) competing against established teams that have played together for multiple seasons. Moreover, the other teams have “serious” coaches that teach sophisticated offenses and defenses. Those teams execute plays with coordination, skill and timing that give them decided advantages against less prepared teams.

Here is an interesting point. My son’s team has talented athletes. In fact, they have enough talent to win any game (even against the best teams in the league). Talent alone, however, is not enough. They need to have better offensive and defensive plays. They need to make better adjustments during the game to react to what the other team is doing. They need to learn more from their opponents to make their team better.

Is business any different?

The survey was unscientific. Nevertheless, the results were a bit surprising (and valuable) to me. Perhaps they might reflect your situation as well. Maybe you are facing similar challenges in 2010 to improve your strategy effectiveness. You can download the survey here and view the complete set of results here.

The respondents answered five basic questions about strategy facing their organization or work group in the year ahead. The fourteen organizations mostly represented high technology companies ranging in annual revenues from $30M to greater than $10B. However, there were also startups and nonprofits included.

Here were the questions that I asked.

1. What is your relationship to strategy decision makers in your company or work group?
2. What types of strategy do you influence or decide in your company or work group?
3. How would you assess your company’s or work group’s strategy effectiveness?
4. What critical strategy challenges does your company or work group face in 2010?
5. What types of strategy help would help you most?

From the (admittedly) small sample, several interesting responses jump out.

Okay, we are far along in January for many people to confess. How exactly are those New Year’s resolutions going for you? Are you still going to the gym? Are you still laying off the extra slice of cake? Are you still being nice to all those annoying relatives that know exactly how to irritate you?

These are challenges. They affect how we think, act and feel about ourselves.

Business challenges abound, too. Many of us face the new year with the same old problems. We need to introduce or market products better. We need to deploy a beautifully crafted strategy throughout the organization. We need to turn our slumping business around to attract new customers.

We know that we have to do something different in 2010 (how did 2009 go for you?). That is not the debate. The challenge is deciding what to do and moving forward with something that will solve the problems rather than perpetuate them.

That is where strategic thinking comes in.

Long needed solutions often come when the epiphany of a new strategy occurs. Then, instead of trying the old approach, we do something from a new perspective. The beauty of a new perspective is that often that view is freeing. That is, the barriers to movement are removed, the organizational energy returns and a sense of hope becomes evident again.

I am conducting a survey about 2010 Strategy Challenges. The survey has five simple questions. When I am finished, I will analyze and report the survey results on my website and in my Strategically Thinking newsletter.

Would you give me your opinions?

Click here to take the survey. It will require less than five minutes of your time. Thanks!