Strategic Planning Model

Kathie Dannemiller was a master of adaptation.  In the model above (DTA, 1994) she took what she learned from Drucker's Management by Objectives (MBO) approach and applied it to strategic planning.  As you can see, the phrase above the model states "our version of Drucker's model ..."  Kathie was not the kind of plagiarist that is alive in well in the consulting world today (see Gail Severini's blog series on consulting plagiarism).

However, I had trouble tracing Dannemiller's model back to Drucker.  I was an undergraduate when I first saw this model and spent a large amount of time in the graduate library at the University of Michigan (huge library).  I went through countless Drucker articles and books and could only find bits and pieces of MBO that resembled this model.

Almost a decade after Dannemiller adapted Drucker's work, he published something that closely resembles Dannemiller's model.  Drucker (1999) called this a "Planning for Results Diagram" and published it in a non-profit management context:

Merriam-Webster online (2013) defines adapt as follows:

to make fit (as for a new use) often by modification

I only make this point because many leaders place a higher value on newer models.  I get the fact that MBO is out of date.  However, that doesn't mean every aspect of MBO is useless.  Dannemiller took the good pieces out and adapted them to strategic planning.  Drucker took the good pieces out and adapted them to non-profit strategic planning.

I will analyze the details of the Drucker/Dannemiller approach in a later post.  For now, please know that Drucker's principles and Dannemiller's model are as relevant in 2013 to boards and senior management teams as MBO was to a manager in the 80s.

References:

adapt. (2013).  Merriam-Webster online.

Dannemiller Tyson Associates. (1994). Real-time strategic change: A consultant guide to large-scale meetings.  Ann Arbor, MI:  Dannemiller Tyson Associates, Inc.

Drucker, P. F. (1999). The Drucker foundation self-assessment tool: Participant workbook (revised ed.).  San Francisco, CA:  Jossey-Bass.