Category: Strategic Process

Nobody really thinks a lot about how to build a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. If you want a PB and J you know the ingredients, you know the tools, and you carry the knowledge and skills to put things together appropriately. (Once for an interview I had to write a “technical paper” on how to build one. So I have special knowledge on this particular topic.)

That said, if I asked you to build a PB and J for me, would it be just as easy? Or might you need to do a little more planning and thinking? The fact is, you’d need to do a little “Strategic Planning” to build me that sandwich. You wouldn’t have to. You could just make it the way you always do. But if you wanted to get the job done with excellence, you’d probably subconsciously walk through a strategic process in your brain. It’d probably look something like this:

• What’s the problem? Answer: Wayne is hungry for a PB and J .
• What are my current resources? Answer: I’ve got some Skippy Plain Peanut Butter, white bread, but no Jelly.
• How does he like his PB and J? Answer: Crunchy Natural Peanut Butter and Strawberry Jam (100% fruit) on toasted Rye Bread.
• What is in the way of me getting this done? Answer: I don’t have the ingredients. I don’t have money to buy them. I only have an hour before lunchtime.
• What is my plan of action? Answer: I’ll ask P. Wayne for a few bucks right now, drive to the corner store to purchase what’s needed, just before lunch I’ll toast his bread, put all the ingredients together and deliver to him his perfect PB and J.

In case you’re wondering. Yes. I’m hungry.

That said, who really cares about how I like my PB and J? Probably not you. What you DO care about is that the process you would have unconsciously gone through in your head is exactly what you should do when making future plans for different areas of ministry. I shared these four steps in “Strategic Spoiler Alert“. Here they are in the appropriate order:

1. Define the Problem.
2. Clarify What Is.
3. Envision What’s the Future.
4. Face What’s in the Way.
5. Determine What’s the Path.