AI Strategic Planning??
What’s the point of Strategic Planning?
As I’ve been working in this capacity with more clients in the last couple years I’ve had to define not only my approach and process, but my understanding of what we’re really trying to accomplish.
This week Chris Bosch, who I’ve mentioned a couple times before, posted about an article in the Harvard Business Review about the results of an attempt to have ChatGPT develop a strategic plan for a proposed new bagel shop in Paris, France. The results (in just 60 minutes) were equal to or better than what a team of MBAs prepared in a week of effort.
So AI wins!
Not so fast.
What the experiment generated was a sound business plan with some innovative aspects that even the human experts didn’t come up with. That’s impressive.
But in practice, perhaps especially in the charitable sector, strategic planning isn’t entirely (or even primarily) about creating a functional business model. That might work for an entrepreneur or venture capital firm, but in our sector it misses something crucial.
The process of strategic planning works when it involves, engages, unites, and inspires people.
You can get alignment and effort by simply offering the highest compensation in some cases (though Daniel Pink’s insightful book Drive would dispute it). But that isn’t how we generally do things.
To get the most out of most people we need to give them a sense of ownership and involvement. That takes time, interaction, and engagement. That’s the missing piece that the AI experiment left out.
That doesn’t mean AI won’t be a valuable strategy tool; which is what the HBR piece also concludes. If it can do the contextual analysis and process design quickly and effectively it may be an excellent contribution to support the human discussions and skilled facilitation. I’ll be curious to see if that becomes more common.
I don’t know what it will take for me to embrace all that emerging AI clearly has to offer. I should probably begin getting familiar with it. (And if you have any tips I’d be glad to hear them). But I remain skeptical that super efficiency is the glorious solution to all things, at least not where people are involved.
Contact me if I can be helpful to you and/or your organization.
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