Through the corporate strategic plan, the legitimate system ensures that the organization has the skills and knowledge to survive the immediate future. However, the conventional planning process can only provide answers in this close-to-certainty situation the immediate future – and hence can be described as strategic programming. To ensure survival in the longer term, the organization relies on its shadow system. The shadow system strategic thinking (rather than the strategic programming) by allowing the people in the organization to explore the future and to learn. This means that the shadow system. Relies on an organization culture of trust and loyalty. The strategic planning processes of the shadow system are explored more fully in chapter14.