Strategic planning the way most businesses do it is pretty mundane stuff. There are things to read, comparisons to make, forms to fill out, and numbers to put together. The first year they do it, its modestly intriguing. There are a few new revelations and they see some things differently. The second year, it's merely interesting. They've "been there, done that" and don't want to do it again. In the third year and beyond they can do it in their sleep; they just take last year's "plan," change a few dates and numbers, and that's it - they're done.

Sound like a productive process that you want your small business to engage in - certainly not. If this is what your planning process looks like, scrap it or change it; it's simply not worth the effort that your business is putting into the process.

There are four fundamental reasons why strategic planning is not just necessary, but essential - (1)it allows you to recognize the need for and manage change, (2) it compels you to focus on the long term, (3) it helps you find and keep a competitive advantage, and (4) it gives your team a basis for identifying with your business. In the end it doesn't matter how you do your strategic planning. There is a mind-numbing array of templates around (a couple of which are on the Business Advisor Online site) - just pick one and go with it. It's not about the forms you fill out, it's about the thought you put into it.

Start by asking yourself these three questions. First, what percentage of your time is spent looking outside your small business, rather than at internal company issues? Second, of the time you spend looking outside your business, what percentage of that is spent looking at least five years down the road? Third, of the time you spend looking at external issues that are five years off, what percentage of the time do you involve other key people in your small business? You will have to supply your own numbers, but assume for a moment that they are all 30%. That's probably higher than the numbers for most businesses, but if that's what they are, you spend 2.7% of your time looking at long term external issues with your team (30% x 30% = 9% x 30% = 2.7%).

That's simply not enough time spent on identifying issues that can have a fundamental influence on your business. A business can't think through the implications of changing, until it first identifies the need for change. A well conceived and executed strategic planning process compels you to look far enough down the road to see how things could evolve and how that evolution could affect your business. It forces you to ask what new competition lies over the horizon and why you are and will remain a better choice for customers and prospects that the others that are out there. It helps you identify how your market and competition is likely to change in the future and whether your market will shrink, or grow. It helps you ask what your customer's customers need, or will need in the future so you can add value to what they do.

I am a strong proponent of every business, large or small, identifying and capitalizing on their particular strategic advantage. You need something that gives you an edge; other companies may have an edge that is similar to yours, but a business has to focus on something to be successful. In the end, one of the best strategic advantages any business can have is a genuine ability to update, or even revise its business model when the need arises. That's a strategic advantage by itself, because most businesses simply can't do it. Most businesses are introspective and bury their heads in the sand when it comes to change. Only with a strategic planning process that gets at real issues will you be able to manage this.

Do you remember the old "Pogo" cartoon, where he says "I have met the enemy and it is us?" The real threats to any business come from inside the organization, not outside. It isn't the markets, the competition, or regulation - it's us. It's our inability to focus on what might happen, when it's not happening today. It's our not wanting to initiate change, when there's no "burning platform" that we can point to, to justify the change. We are too often unwilling to invest our time and effort, not to mention our stress and frustration, in a real strategic planning process that lets us ask the right long term questions and come up with the best answers for them that we can.

Finally, strategic plans, when they're done correctly, pull people together and give them a sense of purpose and direction. (Be careful though - the opposite is also true, when they are not done right.) Whether your small business has 5 employees, or 500, the best strategic planning process you can devise involves them directly, in a hands-on way. It's human nature to want to be part of something and to succeed. When your team is genuinely involved in fashioning a strategic plan, they will want to see it work and they will want to be part of that success. You have to lead people through change, it doesn't just happen; when people are involved in looking at the future from the beginning, it's a lot easier to get them to buy into it, no matter how frightening it might look.

Real change involves taking risks - and strategic planning lets you identify those risks and decide when they are worth taking. When you go down the road to change, you take yourself and everyone else out of their comfort zone. If you're like most of humanity, you put change off until every excuse, comfortable alternative, and available resource has been utilized. If you differentiate yourself, you "bother with" strategic planning. You just can't know the outcome of real change with any certainty and, to do it right, you need a process that at least lets you think through the risks and be better prepared to minimize them. But, more than a process, you need a mentality, a mindset that helps you get at real issues that make a difference and that produce the results you are looking for. And, you need to do it consistently, all the time - not just once a year.