How to Build Trust Through Your Strategic Planning Process

These days, it feels like every waking moment is filled with uncertainty.

As leaders, we spend our professional energy trying to guide our organizations towards a clear, unified vision. This is especially true during strategic planning season, when we try to fend off the uncertainty of the coming year with clear goals and objectives the whole company can get behind.

But with the increasing volatility and ongoing disruption of the marketplace, not to mention our polarized politics, this task of creating unity and clarity can feel daunting, if not downright impossible. 

Uncertainty goes against our wiring as humans. It raises feelings of anxiety and distrust. In organizations, it can erode morale and engagement. And we’ve clearly seen its divisive impact on our society as a whole.

But the truth is that no matter how many answers we gain, how many elections we win or lose, or how many strategic plans we draw up, uncertainty is here to stay. 

We can’t escape uncertainty – so instead, what if we accepted it as a given? What if we planned for the unknown, instead of trying to shield ourselves from it?

Effective strategic planning in an era of uncertainty is no longer about simply creating unity or clarity. 

It’s about building a resilient culture of trust within the organization, so that when plans and priorities inevitably change, everyone is already equipped with the mindsets and practices needed to weather the storm.

How can strategic planning help build trust?

Most traditional strategic planning processes are heavily focused on what the organization wants to achieve in the coming year, but fail to account for how the organization will navigate an uncertain future to achieve those goals.

But today’s employees know that a gorgeous PowerPoint isn’t enough to make a strategic plan a reality.

In order to trust the strategic plan and the leaders who wrote it, today’s teams also need a clear picture of who will lead the day-to-day work, and when the org will pause to reflect and redirect.

Most of all, they need a deep understanding of the why behind these strategic efforts.

Being explicit about these elements incorporates the uncertainty of the future into the plan itself, and sets up clear structures and guidelines for how to navigate the unexpected and unknown.

This approach builds internal trust in several ways:

• Being explicit about the how will require you to engage stakeholders and incorporate their expertise into the strategic plan, which will build their trust in the plan’s ability to address their specific concerns.
• Designating who will lead on various elements of the plan will spur you to delegate authority and decision-making power to people closest to the work, upping their engagement and signaling your faith in their abilities.
• Clarifying the why will give everyone in the organization a shared vision, and equip them with the flexibility to pursue that vision responsively in a continually changing landscape.
• Specifying the when will establish a clear cadence for evaluation and pivoting, and empower your teams to pursue small bets with minimal risk and maximum learning potential.

In short, building uncertainty into your strategic plan will transform a previously abstract exercise into a collaborative set of practical guidelines for how to sense and respond to change.

A strategic plan built for uncertainty signals your trust in your teams, and bolsters their trust in the organization’s ability to achieve its goals in a volatile landscape.

Incorporate REAL Trust into your strategic planning process!

August’s Four Cornerstones of REAL Trust (Reliability, Empathy, Authenticity, and Logic) are a useful framework for strategic planning. 

The cornerstones prompt us to consider: How will we reliably deliver to our customers in the year ahead? How will we demonstrate empathy for our employees? How will we authentically communicate the hard tradeoffs that must be made, and back up our decisions with logical reasoning?

As we formulate our own strategic plans at August, we use the cornerstones to actively build trust in the organization’s ability to be successful in the year ahead:

• Reliability: Is our strategic plan something we can deliver on? Are our targets achievable? What can we depend on to ensure our success? How will we adapt to unexpected changes?
• Empathy: How will our goals land with the folks on our team? What are we asking of them? Are these expectations sustainable? Are we prioritizing wellbeing?
• Authenticity: Are we being honest about what we know and don’t know? Are we making clear bets that expect failure and adaptation?
• Logic: Are our priorities reasonable and clearly communicated? Are our decisions supported by data and our company values? Can we explain the strategic tradeoffs and what we’ve decided not to do?

Using this trust-building framework to guide your strategic planning process will lead to an achievable, actionable plan that’s grounded in your current reality without compromising on your future ambitions. And your culture will reap the benefits of a trust-driven process!

Summary: Building trust and strategic planning go hand in hand.

Many organizations have clocked trust itself as a critical cultural priority. Some are even setting goals around increasing organizational trust as part of their strategic plans for the future.  

But setting trust as a goal for the future misses the opportunity to build trust right now, within the goal-setting process itself. 

Prioritize activities that bolster each cornerstone within your strategic planning process, while explicating precisely how you plan to navigate the inevitable bumps along the way.

You’ll end up with a resilient strategy that will strengthen your company culture and boost your organization’s performance in an ever-changing world.