What is strategic planning and how can it be a competitive edge?

Part 1: Strategic Planning What is strategic planning and how can it be a competitive edge? How is it developed and by whom? Does your organization have a strategic plan, and if so, what do you know about it? Please explain. How should leadership use a strategic plan to create organizational alignment and organizational effectiveness? What roles do timelines play in strategic planning? Review Criteria #2 in the Baldrige Framework for this discussion. Strategic alignment is arguably the most important step needed prior to strategic planning: https://www.nist.gov/blogs/blogrige/so-what-strategic-alignment (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. Part 2: Response (Respond to the attached Post with a small paragraph, 60 words or more.C.G.) An organization cannot simply go about its business in chaos and expect to be successful. A strategic plan guides organizations to be successful in its market. A well designed strategic plan not only outlines how to beat the competition and be profitable but also address how to address customer’s needs and provide value by properly allocating resources, addressing issues, and limiting waste (Summers, 2009, p. 161). It is up to business leaders to develop and implement a strategic plan. When leaders are unable to commit to or participate in the development and implementation of the plan, they increase the chances that the strategic plan will fail from either lack of participation by employees, activities are not in line with the plan, poor performance measures, unrealistic expectation or vision, and poor prioritization (Summers, 2009, p.168). Organization’s need to ensure their strategic plan takes into account the organization’s environment in order to adequately align the organization to increase organizational performance (Ali, 2018, pp. 14-15). In doing so, effective leaders are much like that of a musical composer. Many instruments and musicians are brought together with the goal of working harmoniously to create beautiful music from predetermined sections of composed music for the pleasure of an audience. Leaders are responsible for creating harmony between the strategic plan and day-to-day operations through policy, empowerment, clear communication, and positive reinforcement to ensure the organization is aligned with the strategic plan and its environment; resulting in increased organizational effectiveness, performance, and support (Summers, 2009, pp. 169-171). Just like in music, timing is essential to the success of a strategic plan both in its deployment, evolution, and how it is measured. Leaders need to develop and deploy a strategic plan that takes advantage of opportunities both internally and externally as well as establish clear timetables for successfully completing key objectives (Baldrige Performance Excellence Program, 2017, pp. 10-11). Timetables assist leaders in being aware if objectives are taking too long to be met or if internal or external factors of the organizations environment require the strategic plan to evolve prior to achieving objectives. Part 3: Reflection (Small Paragraph minimum 60 words or more) This posting is for you to reflect on what you learned during the week from others, from the readings, and from any other sources relevant to the class relative to continuous improvement (not where to see a movie, sports event, share baseball stats or get decorating ideas from side conversations). Your reflection needs to include what you have learned that may be new or different and how this will impact your leadership style going forward – think about what you learned and how you can use this to improve everything/anything. I read every submission to the forums, and you should read at least the primary postings – I hope you read everything. If I see a submission similar to an “I agree” type of comment or anything off track, I will remove it, and the student will not receive any credit for it. Each of your comments must be presented as a professional would present it by substantiating it with evidence and critical thought. This means a reasonable paragraph related to the discussion topic – not off topic, short, or compromised in any way (one or two sentences simply will not do). Use a reference and a citation if appropriate in your reflection. *** You can use the PowerPoints for the reflection, the links are attached below Book Reference: Quality Management: Creating and Sustaining Organizational Effectiveness Author: Summers Edition: 2ND 09 SBN -13: 978-0-13-500510-1 ISBN 10: 0-13-500510-8 Publisher: Pearson/Prentice Hall Chapter 6 Strategic Planning Link address: https://troy.instructure.com/courses/42253/files/30605001/download?download_frd=1 Chapter 7 Human Resource Development’ Link address” https://troy.instructure.com/courses/42253/files/30605000/download?download_frd=1