​I was at a three-day training last week for the Standards of Excellence: An Ethics and Accountability Code for Nonprofit Sector. One of our trainers, Justin Pollock of Orgforward helped us dig into both the why and the how of each of the major areas of the code.
 
He posed two provocative questions set up our conversations – When XYZ is going well in the organization, what does that make possible for the people? And for people to achieve these results, what are the favorable conditions that need to be in place?

​Too often organizations and the consultants that support them get too caught up in doing the “thing” – whether that is strategic planning, clarifying the mission and vision or program evaluation – without stepping back and thinking what they are hoping to get from this work – or what they are hoping will be different.
 
By asking “when strategy and mission is going well in the organization, what does that make possible for the people? What does it enable staff, board and volunteers to be able to do better? What are the benefits?” first, you get at the hopes, aspirations and motivations for the strategy or mission work. And further by asking, “what do they need to know, have access to, be able to do and believe?” – in other words – identifying the favorable conditions for making progress in this area. 

​What does this look like in practice? With strategic planning for example – what will be different when you engage in strategic planning? Too often people complain about an involved process that just resulted in a plan that sat on a shelf. When does strategic planning have real benefits for the organization? This could be in terms of the process itself – having time and space to dig into why the organization does what it does. This could uncover misalignment between stakeholders – whether board, staff, clients – on expectations. By uncovering these, they can then be worked through to bring people closer together in their understanding of the organization’s goals. When done well, the process helps the organization focus its resources, letting go of activity that is no longer serving the mission. It can serve to enable the organization to work on reducing the “friction” and “static” within the organization. 
 
What are the favorable conditions to make these positive results possible? Favorable conditions would include having an inclusive and participatory process. If people feel like they are simply being told what the goals and priorities are by a few people within the organization, they may or may not be ‘bought in’ to the desired outcomes. Even if they are included in the process from the outset unless they feel like they can speak openly and honestly, they will just be going through the motions. A second condition that supports success is to have a clear pathway to translate large organizational level goals into team work plans and individual goals for the year. This will facilitate action.

So the next time you launch into a large project, takes some time to consider these two questions – when we are successful with our project, what will it make possible for people in the organization? – to get clear on the “why” behind your work. Then consider “what are the conditions required to make our work go well?” – to think about the “how” of your project and set yourself up for success.
 
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Every organization development and strategic consulting project begins with a discovery stage. A time to research and hear from stakeholders and constituents. A time to hear stories about the past, assessments of the present and aspirations for the future. Depending on the project the exact focus will differ. 
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​Organization development projects focus on how people are working with each other – what is going well and what are the rubs that are getting in the way of the group being effective in achieving its purpose.  The consultant engages in an action research project which could involve observation, interviewing key stakeholders, running focus groups and surveying wider audiences.

​In the case of strategic planning, the consultant also digs into past work – past strategic plans, other research, basic organizational documents such as by laws, financials, organizational charts, board minutes, work plans, etc. The goal is to begin to get a sense of the current state of the organization. With this grounding in what the organization has documented, the consultant will then dive into talking with stakeholders – through interviews, focus groups and surveys.

The next step is to synthesize all this data. This step can be overwhelming when you are sifting through piles of interview and focus group notes to look for the significant nuggets. But once it comes together in the form of themes the gold starts to shine through.

​One of the real powerful aspects of all this work comes through the interactions with the people you interview, listen to in a focus group, ask for feedback in a survey. Too rarely in organizational life are people asked to reflect on and talk about their experience within the organization. Each interview is an opportunity to be a gift of true listening. 

​Sharing the synthesis of the research is the point of truth. When you succeed in accurately capturing what you heard and your highlights resonate with the people whom you gathered it from – you can often hear an audible sigh of relief and recognition. “You really heard us,” is music to my ears. The act of being truly heard and seen empowers people to stand in their lived experience and then take action. This could be to face a difficult challenge or have a difficult conversation. This could be to dream bigger for their organization and start envisioning how to take action towards it. 

​Conversely, when you share the themes with the group and they do not want to hear some of the feedback, lots of different reactions can happen. Denial and dismissing the information. Questions and challenges about your methodology. Getting stuck on one point and spending lots of time arguing about it. Sometimes a project then gets shut down. This is unfortunate for a couple reasons. The organization expended resources gathering information with which they are not ready or willing to deal. More importantly gathering data often raises the expectations of those involved in the input process. They may then be more discouraged after the process than they were before if they see no action taking place.

Either way – whether the information prompts the relaxation that comes with – “oh I am not alone – lots of other people think like I do but we just have not been discussing it,” or “no way, you are wrong – that is not how our team functions…” Something powerful happens. The group will not be the same afterwards. Be ready for change when you ask for input.

Need support with the strategic questions your organization is facing? Inquire about a coaching call.

​A motivated board chair stepped into clean up the mess. She made great strides.
They were just emerging from these series of events and getting themselves back on their feet, when she called to engage in consulting.  

​They were not ready, however, for engaging in strategic planning.  They were out of utter crisis mode but not completely. The organization’s future was still tenuous and the board’s commitment to do what it would take to turn it around was not clear.  Thus trying to engage in a longer-range visioning process just was not called for. 

​When we are faced with a threat or a crisis, our vision and thinking narrows. Our brain does this to help us focus on the most immediate challenge. The threat does not need to be a saber tooth tiger. Our brain reacts to social threats in the same way as a physical threat. Thus a threatened brain is literally fixated on the short-term.

Timing is important for strategic planning. The organization needs to be stable enough to be able to think longer term creatively. Does the organization have enough capacity to dedicate the time and energy needed to engage in strategic planning? Is the leadership committed to supporting changes that emerge from new and creative thinking about the organization’s future? Or will be the process be just going through the motions?
 
Strategic planning is a powerful process to shape the future path of your organization. Thinking about timing when you are going to launch a process is an important factor to consider.
 
Need support with the strategic questions your organization is facing? Inquire about a coaching call.

This is the fourth part of a series of posts on the mistakes organizations make in strategic planning. In previous posts, I have explored a number of mistakes that organizations make. These include plans that:

• Lack buy in
• Are not grounded in sound data or reality
• Are too complicated
• That the organization fails to operationalize.  

These are all mistakes that can trip up organizations as they engage in strategic planning.  A couple others include not allowing enough time and simply not really being ready for change

​Some organizations make their process and plan too complicated. While others go in the other direction by under estimating what is needed for a strong planning process. They do not allow enough time and do not allocate enough resources to support the process. This can lead to a rushed process that results in a superficial analysis. This often ends up with business as usual – even if there is a grand vision – because there was not sufficient thought put into the implications of the plan.

​Rushing the process can also be a symptom of the most fundamental reason a planning process will fail – not really wanting to change. If influential stakeholders do not really want to make the changes that some are advocating for in the organization. Or if they are not willing to make hard choices, the plan will likely fail. 
 
Are the stakeholders are truly bought in to the new vision? Or alternatively – people want change and yet are not willing to do the things that would get them there. The desire is not enough. It is like saying, “we want to be innovative, we just don’t want to do anything new.” There may be lip service to change but underneath the commitment is not there.

​Often times people bemoan ‘resistance,’ demonizing the people they label as resisters.  There is often talk of how to overcome resistance. A better approach is to investigate what is motivating the resistance. Approach those who are working against or just not working towards the envisioned changes and talk with them. Learn about what is going on with them – what are their fears and hopes?  There often are good reasons for their resistance and addressing their concerns can strengthen the plan. There may be more common ground than you realize.

This is the third part of a series of posts on the mistakes organizations make in strategic planning. The first reviewed how plans lacking buy in from key stakeholders usually end up gathering dust on the shelf as well as how to avoid that outcome. The second explored how some planning processes do not ground themselves in real data, relying instead on anecdotes. I also discussed how visioning can sometimes go too far, creating plans that lack connection to the organization’s actual capacity.  In this third post, I will discuss two additional mistakes that get in the way of an organization having a successful planning process.

Getting overly complicated can show up a few different ways. Sometimes it’s the process itself. Organizations trip themselves us when they try to tackle too many strategic issues through one planning process. The process gets bogged down. People forget why they started the process in the first place. At the end of an overly complicated process, people are often so tired that they have little energy to implement the wonderful plan they have just created. Keep your focus on 2-3 major strategic issues and keep the process moving for success.

The plan itself can also be overly complicated. A strategic plan that ends up too long and too detailed often tries to nail down all the actions steps in advance.  The big ideas get lost in the pages and pages of graphs and Gantt charts.  Keep the strategic plan itself simple – a few pages with 3-5 big goals that will orient the work of the organization. The details should go in an implementation plan, focusing on the first year’s work plan.

​Failing to operationalize the plan is one of the most frequently mentioned challenges by consultants working with organizations on strategic planning. When your strategic plan is not connected to your regular management practices, you set yourself up for failure. Staff and volunteer work plans need to be driven by the large strategic goals with details on what action steps will move the organization closer to those goals. I worked at one organization at which a lot of effort was expended to connect volunteer groups actions to the strategic plan. Yet the strategic plan had no impact on staff work plans. This practice missed a key element to increase the likelihood of the plan’s success.

Budgeting is a second key area for operationalizing the plan. Remembering that a budget is nothing more than a plan in numbers, when the budget does not support the strategic goals then progress is unlikely. Are new initiatives being adequately supported with investment?

Be sure to create a process for monitoring progress and making tweaks to the plan as needed.  Staff and volunteers should be reviewing it regularly, acknowledging and celebrating where progress has been made and adjusting as appropriate.

So keep it simple – both in your planning process and in writing the plan itself. Think about how you will operationalize the plan and integrate it into the your regular management practices at the beginning of the process.
 
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