A SYNTHESIS OF THE STRATEGIC PLANNING PROCESS WITH THE PRINCIPLES OF ANDRAGOGY: LEARNING, LEADING, AND LINKING

REFERENCES

• Fortune Magazine(September 7, 1998) reported that strategic planning was then the most popular modern management tool as well as the technique in the private sector with the highest satisfaction level. Strategic planning is also central to many contemporary public management philosophies and objectives such as the Community Policing movement and the Federal Government's Performance and Results Act of 1993
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• A Systems perception of strategic planning is vital. Although it is modeled and discussed as a linear sequential process, it will seldom be applied that way. Each step may effect any or all other steps, and compel their revision. It must, therefore, be viewed from the outset as the fluid, flexible, adaptive, and iterative process comtemplated by Open Systems doctrine
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• This initial step provides an example of the iterative nature of the entire SP process as a more explicit stakeholder analysis is included in step 3. New clues about stakeholders are likely to be discovered at any step of the process – necessitating re-examination of some or all the preceding steps
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• That the analytical processes of SP facilitate the synthesis of organizational vision is central to the theory of the SP process. There is, however, dispute about the proposition of analysis furthering synthesis generally – this is briefly discussed in section II-D of this analysis, addressing the criticisms of SP. The appraisal of this article maintains that analysis can facilitate synthesis if the analysis is conducted in a collaborative iterative manner
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• He concludes that intuition need not be inhibited, that the detail of the process assists analysis (particularly for technical support staff), and that the rigorous methodological framework is intended for posing questions, not for formulating strategies
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• Praxis is a very important concept to this analysis. It will be discussed further along in this article – in the section reviewing the principles of adult learning
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• Note here that it can be argued that strategic planing is merely a form of strategic change which has become a recognized intervention tactic of the Organizational Development (OD) school. It appears, however, that SP really evolved from the planning school about the same time that OD was evolving from the behavioral science school of management. “Strategy” has now come to be recognized as a principle of both schools and may provide a concept for the consolidation of the change, power, and decision making theories of OD, SP, and Leadership (see Klein, G. Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions; The MIT Press: Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1999; Greisler, D.; Stupak, R. The Evolution of Planning; Exploring Strategic Linkages and Developing Action Guidelines for Public Administrators. International Journal of Public Administration 1996, Fall/Winter, 1687–1718; and Handbook of Public Quality Management; Stupak & Leitner, 2001; especially 194–206 and 697–709
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• Highly regarded and prolific authors in the area of adult learning include S. D. Brookfield, G. J. Conti, K. Patricia Cross, R. P. Fairchild, N. Gardner, R. Golembiewski, M. Knowles, R. M. Smith, A. M. Tough, and F. Sherwood.  Chris Argyris and Donald Schon are two well known authors who theorize about organizational learning. Peter Senge is an author who has recently brought the concept of organizational learning to popular awareness. He is the founder and director of the Center for Organizational Learning at MIT
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• Knowles , M. 1984 . The Adult Learner A Neglected Species , 3 Houston : Gulf . also examines them thoroughly, though he does not condense them into precisely the same denominations
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• “Praxis” is a term that means somewhat different things in different contexts. Most dictionaries define it as practice (distinguished from theory) and/or established custom. In law it simply means “practice.” In Organizational Theory literature, it is a kind of self-transformational organizational process resulting from the examination and understanding of both objective and subjective realities – a situation of simultaneously concluded and continuing double-loop learning (see: Heydebrand, W. V. Organization and Praxis. In Beyond Method; Morgan, G., Ed.; Sage Publications: Newbury Park, Calif., 1983; 306–319.). The Brookfield definition and the Organizational Theory concept are essentially the same. (For a fuller explanation of our use of praxis, see Stupak, R. Creating Civilian Leaders: Air Force and Learning Institutions. The Public Manager 1996–97, Winter, esp. 48–49.)
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• Other well accepted principles of adult learning are also important but will not be individually discussed in this article because they will likely be intuitively applied, to the extent possible, in the context of SP. These are the principles of: 1. voluntary participationand 2. mutual respectamong participants. The last of six broadly sanctioned precepts of adult learning is the canon of self directionwhich is clearly applicable to training or formal education circumstance but which has only an ancillary relationship in the achievement of quality SP
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• This analysis could well have included the “General Change Model” from the Organizational Development (OD) literature. The similarities of technique and purpose between SP and that model are striking – a synthesis of the models could certainly be proposed. On examination of the General Change Model, it is even more readily apparent than with Strategic Planning that it contains processes which foreordain the participants that it contains processes which foreordain the participants to engage in “learning.” The action research concepts that have been adopted there, for instance, were also intended to develop learning while the iterative, evaluative, and collaborative nature of the process of that model also prompts “learning” generally (See Cummings, T.; Worley, C. Organization Development and Change, 5th Ed; West Publishing Company: New York, 1993; a popular OD text)
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• Looking from the other side of the same Organizational Theory structure where the “Learning Organization” concepts abide, one easily recognizes the potential of SP for the development of Learning Organizations. David A. Garvin in a response to several reviews of his article “Building a Learning Organization,” agrees with two of the reviewers “…who urge that effective learning be purposeful and supportive of an organization's mission and goals.” He goes on to state that “[w]ithout clear direction and purpose, learning is seldom very helpful.” Direction and purpose are, of course, the objective and the forte of SP (the article is Gavin, D.A., Building a Learning Organization. Harvard Business Review 1993, Jul/Aug, 78–91. The review is Gavin, D. A., Keep Learning [reviews of the above article, and Gavin's response]. Harvard Business Review 1993, Sep./Oct, 190– 200.). By the way, we are fully convinced that one of the fundamental anchors of adult learning theory, namely, that “unlearning is as important or maybe even more critical than learning” is a missing element in much of the academic discussions of learning organizations. Stupak, R. The Good Teacher. PA Times 2001, October, forthcoming
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