What are the key elements of a strategic plan? (Part 2)

What is strategy after all? If You search for the term in google you will find 456.000.000 results.
In my opiniom one of the most comprehensive definition is the one provided by Arnoldo C. Hax and Nicolas S. Majluf :
"determines and reveals the organizational purpose in terms of long-term objectives, action programs, and resource allocation priorities;
selects the businesses the organization is in, or is to be in;
attempts to achieve a long-term sustainable advantage in each of its businesses by responding appropriately to the opportunities and threats in the firm's environment, and the strengths and weaknesses of the organization;
identifies the distinct managerial tasks at the corporate, business, and functional levels;
is a coherent, unifying, and integrative pattern of decisions;
defines the nature of the economic and non-economic contributions it intends to make to its stakeholders;
is an expression of the strategic intent of the organization;
is aimed at developing and nurturing the core competencies of the firm;
is a means for investing selectively in tangible and intangible resources to develop the capabilities that assure a sustainable competitive advantage."

What are the key elements of a strategic plan? (Part 1)

What happens if a manager wants to see beyond how his business is performing today?

Measures like; revenue, profitability, market share and customer satisfaction are only a Photograph of the actual position that company is in.
But those measures can not point us the path to the future, in a constantly changing business environment, the above measures only tell us how well / bad the business has performed in the past.
To overcome this situation creative leaders should focus on more than just documentation driven strategic planning, this process should be much more based on one to one conversations, listening to others opinions, be more motivational for everybody involved in the process, seeking voluntary commitment, it should contain strong creative elements instead of being just analysis driven, focusing on the big picture than rather on details.
Strategic planning should be mainly about setting a direction rather than segmenting and budgeting, it should be aligning and inspiring people rather than organizing and staffing.