CLC Strategic Planning & Goal Setting 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A leadership coach is helping a client organization that frequently abandons strategic goals mid-year. Which intervention best addresses this pattern?
- Reduce the number of annual goals to one
- Establish quarterly milestone reviews tied to accountability structures (Correct answer)
- Replace long-term goals with monthly targets only
- Delegate all goal tracking to middle management
Correct answer: Establish quarterly milestone reviews tied to accountability structures
Quarterly milestone reviews create structured checkpoints that sustain momentum and surface obstacles before goals are abandoned.
Question 2: Which concept describes the gap between an organization's current state and its desired future state in strategic planning?
- Strategic drift
- Performance gap (Correct answer)
- Vision misalignment
- Capability deficit
Correct answer: Performance gap
A performance gap quantifies the difference between where an organization is and where it wants to be, guiding strategic priorities.
Question 3: A coachee sets a goal to 'become a better communicator.' As a CLC, your primary task is to:
- Accept the goal and schedule communication training
- Help the coachee define specific, observable communication behaviors to improve (Correct answer)
- Suggest they read books on communication skills
- Refer them to a communication specialist
Correct answer: Help the coachee define specific, observable communication behaviors to improve
Coaches transform vague aspirations into specific, observable behaviors so progress can be measured and sustained.
Question 4: In strategic planning, 'environmental scanning' primarily refers to:
- Assessing office sustainability practices
- Analyzing internal workflow processes
- Systematically gathering information about external trends and forces (Correct answer)
- Reviewing employee satisfaction surveys
Correct answer: Systematically gathering information about external trends and forces
Environmental scanning examines external factors—market trends, competition, regulations—that may affect strategic direction.
Question 5: A leader's strategic plan sets a 3-year goal but provides no intermediate milestones. The most significant risk is:
- The goal will be too easy to achieve
- Course corrections cannot be made until it is too late (Correct answer)
- Team members will become overconfident
- Resources will be allocated too quickly
Correct answer: Course corrections cannot be made until it is too late
Without milestones, organizations cannot detect deviation early enough to adjust strategy before the deadline arrives.
Question 6: The balanced scorecard approach to strategic planning measures performance across which four perspectives?
- Financial, Customer, Internal Processes, Learning & Growth (Correct answer)
- Vision, Mission, Values, Goals
- People, Process, Product, Profit
- Short-term, Mid-term, Long-term, Aspirational
Correct answer: Financial, Customer, Internal Processes, Learning & Growth
Kaplan and Norton's balanced scorecard links financial outcomes to customer satisfaction, internal processes, and organizational learning.
Question 7: When cascading organizational goals to individual team members, the most important principle is:
- Each person's goals should mirror the CEO's goals exactly
- Individual goals should connect clearly to team and organizational objectives (Correct answer)
- Goals should be assigned without input from the individual
- All employees should have identical goals for fairness
Correct answer: Individual goals should connect clearly to team and organizational objectives
Goal cascading is effective only when individuals can see a direct line of sight between their work and the organization's strategic priorities.
CLC Strategic Planning & Goal Setting 3
A leadership coach is helping a client organization that frequently abandons strategic goals mid-year.
Which intervention best addresses this pattern?