Case 1: Recommendation #2

On the surface, this would appear a reasonable choice. A critical function of CEOs is strategic planning, and getting them involved in a professional association to compare notes with others or arrive at new insights makes sense. In fact, this is what The Planning Forum chose to do. But things didn't quite turn out as it planned... To broaden its market to upgrade its membership by targeting CEOs, it changed its name to The Strategic Leadership Forum, and upgraded its international conferences to make them "very high level." It paid substantial fees to its speakers (as opposed to the typical honorariums plus expenses that is usually offered) and spent a lot in advertising. In addition, it outsourced its operational management function to a PR firm (to match the "class" of its new target market) and increased its operational costs substantially. As things turned out, fewer people came to the conference each year, culminating in one disastrous event when SLF drowned in red ink. CEOs, in fact, did not respond favorably either coming to the conference or joining the association. SLF had failed to do the requisite market research before making the decision to target a different market. Worse, it had the opposite effect with its corporate members, who were encouraged to join an association for planning, but not for "leadership," which bosses considered as their domain. And the bosses, of course, were too busy to go themselves. The effect spread to consultants, who often joined the association in part to network with the corporate folk. With fewer corporate members, consultants stopped renewing and coming. By 1998, SLF was forced to declare bankruptcy and then went out of business. (The irony of it all was the inability of a bunch of strategic planners to manage their own organization!) Its two largest chapters--in New York City and Toronto, Canada--still exist today under the name Strategic Leadership Forum. In Los Angeles, a new organization took the place of the SLF chapter in 1999, called The Association for Strategic Planning.

Of course, no particular option is necessarily the best option, i.e., there is no "right" or "wrong" answer to this case (in the event you were expecting one). When companies choose to change their strategy, they do so only by being persuaded at the time that it makes the most sense. It's an imperfect process at best, witness the many corporate decisions made today that turn out badly, and this particular choice that turned out badly...

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