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Strategic planning requires two separate teams and two separate activities
Executive overview
Most teams treat strategic planning as a single activity. It is two: strategic thinking and execution planning. Each requires a different team and a different cadence.
The CEO owns strategic thinking — an ongoing, weekly discipline. The leadership team owns execution planning — converting the set strategy into action.
The CEO's job is to set strategy and then get out of the room.
Strategic thinking: the CEO's first job
- Not a quarterly or annual event — requires weekly attention
- Conducted in a small council, not the full executive team
- Generates firsthand intel from customers and employees
- Mark Zuckerberg runs this meeting every week
Execution planning: the leadership team's job
- CEO enters the planning session and shares the strategy in the first hour
- Team reacts and aligns; CEO then leaves
- Remaining one to two days: the team works out how to execute
- CEO role in this phase: orchestrator, not driver
The strategist and orchestrator model
- Steve Jobs drove the creation of the iPhone (strategist)
- Tim Cook figured out how to get 10 million units shipped on launch day (orchestrator)
- One role sets direction; the other makes it real
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