Identifying the skills your team needs to bring your nonprofit strategic plan to life with Heather Burright

In episode 84 of Mission: Impact, Carol Hamilton and Heather Burright discuss:
how nonprofit strategic planning, implementation and staff and volunteer skills development all fit together. 

We delve into the critical aspects of strategic planning and its effective implementation. I highlight the importance of aligning the implementation plan with the organization's regular processes and cycles, emphasizing the need for a shorter time frame for implementation, typically six months to a year.

​I also talk about the significance of continuous evaluation, tracking progress, and making necessary adjustments to ensure the successful execution of the plan.


​The conversation underscores the pivotal role of understanding and addressing the skills gap within the organization. Heather discusses how to identify the skill gaps that will undermine the success of your strategic plan and then the essential elements of creating a training program, focusing on relevance, meaningfulness, and a touch of fun to engage employees effectively. She emphasizes the importance of custom competency models and the value of building cross-functional relationships and trust within the organization to facilitate successful change management.

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Episode outline:
(00:07:07) Strategies for Successful Nonprofit Strategic Planning Implementation Planning
(00:11:09) Integrating implementation into your regular practices
(00:12:36) Why training is a key piece to strategic plan implementation
(00:16:11) Maximizing Impact Through Whole Nonprofit Organization Involvement
(00:24:29) Listening to People: Key to Change Management
Guest Bio:
Leveraging 15 years of experience, Heather Burright, founder and CEO of Skill Masters Market, specializes in creating dynamic, people-centric solutions that drive business goals.  With her comes expertise in strategies for diversity, equity, and inclusion; instructional design; and change management.  She’s dedicated to identifying core competencies that are needed to see real results and to creating the learning strategies and solutions needed to develop those competencies.  
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Important Links and Resources:
Heather Burright: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heather-burright/ 
Skills Masters Market: https://www.skillmastersmarket.com/
Learning for Good podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/learning-for-good-podcast-learning-and-development/id1621971310
Standards for Excellence Institute: https://standardsforexcellence.org/ 

Transcript:
​Carol Hamilton
My guest today on Mission Impact is Heather Burright. Heather and I talk about how strategic planning, implementation and staff and volunteer skills development all fit together. Implementation planning and support can often be the missing link to really make a strategic plan come to life and be useful and relevant to an organization. A plan gets done – but if those big goals and initiatives are not integrated into the regular work of the organization – then the plan can sit on the proverbial shelf. And when the organization doesn’t commit to integrating, reviewing and updating the plan on a regular basis and make it part of their regular practices, it can go by the wayside.

I appreciated Heather’s point about – looking at the plan – not just from the point of view of who is going to do what by when – or from the point of view of budget implications – but also what are the skills that those putting the plan into action are going to need to make it a reality. Then with those skills in mind – where do people know and where do we need them to be? I don’t think many organizations are taking the time to think about this piece. It is something I will certainly be bringing forward in the future when I have the chance to work with organizations on their strategic plan implementation planning.

Mission: Impact is the podcast for progressive nonprofit leaders who want to build a better world without becoming a martyr to the cause. I’m Carol Hamilton, your podcast host and nonprofit strategic planning consultant. On this podcast we explore how to make your organization more effective and innovative. We dig into how to build organizational cultures where your work in the world is aligned with how you work together as staff, board members and volunteers. All of this is for the purpose of creating greater mission impact.

Mission: Impact is brought to you by Grace Social Sector Consulting. Grace Social Sector brings you whole-brain strategy consulting for nonprofits and associations. We help you move your mission forward, engage all voices and have fun while we are doing that. We combine left-brain strategy and analysis with right-brain wisdom about human complexities for a proven, whole-brain, whole-organization process through which every stakeholder thrives. Reach out to us for support and facilitation of strategic planning, mapping your impact, auditing your services for mission alignment and getting an organizational assessment. We especially love working with staffed nonprofits and associations with human centered missions.

Today Heather and I are doing a little bit of an experiment with this episode. Our conversation is appearing on Mission: Impact – and on Heather’s podcast, Learning for Good. I am looking forward to listening to Heather’s version and hearing what she took from our conversation.

Heather, I'm curious what drew you to the work that you do? What would you say motivates you and what would you describe as your why?


Heather Burright
I am motivated by a few core beliefs. I believe that people excel when they know what is expected of them and they can show up authentically at work. I believe people are worthy of investment, and I believe investing in your people makes them feel valued and gives them new skills and a new passion for their work. And I believe organizations are better when they empower their people to operate from their strongest capabilities. And so that's why I personally work relentlessly to create dynamic, people centric solutions for nonprofits and associations. I want the solutions to be both strategic, supporting the organization, but also compassionately human centered, supporting the people themselves. And I want nonprofits and associations at the end of the day to have exactly what they need to support their people and move their mission forward.


Carol Hamilton
I love that combination between the strategic and the human centered. That's definitely something that I'm always aiming for as well, enabling people to do well. I don't know whether it's bringing your whole self to work, but bringing whatever part of yourself that you want to, to work and then being fully supported in what you're being asked to do.


Heather Burright
Absolutely. But Carol, I'd love to hear a little bit about you too. Tell me a little bit about what I generally ask about people's career journey, but share a little bit about your journey to where you are, how you ended up here, and why you do what you do.


Carol Hamilton
After college, I worked at an organization that helped people get on talk shows, but we did it for all comers. And so quickly after that, I decided I really wanted to if I was going to be doing something like that. And I wanted to do it for organizations that I supported the mission of and so shifted into the nonprofit sector and worked for a variety of organizations over the course of my career with those human centered missions. And I continue to really enjoy working with organizations that center education and helping people thrive in their human capacity, but over time just became more and more interested in really what helps organizations work more effectively so that we can really move that mission forward strategically. And so over the last several years, I've been consulting to nonprofits and associations, helping them with strategies, strategic planning, mapping their impact, doing audits of their services, and then also organizational assessments. And I really enjoy doing all of those things to, again, try to help the organization hone in on what's really their core competency so that they can be less stressed as they try to move their mission forward.


Heather Burright
That's always a good thing, right? A little less stress. That never hurt anybody. So I love what you do. I think that what we do complements each other so well. You really help the organization set that strategy, be really clear about what they're trying to accomplish and do so, like you said, in a more effective way, hopefully a stress free or at least less stressful way.


Carol Hamilton
Probably not stress free.


Heather Burright
Right. At least less stressful. That's the goal. And so then I help organizations take that strategic plan, prepare their people to implement. And so we're so complementary in our work. And I love that. I know you mentioned that one of the things you do is the strategic planning process. What are some of the challenges that you see when it comes to actually implementing that strategic plan after it gets created?


Carol Hamilton
I think those challenges are part of the reason that strategic planning gets a little bit of a bad rap. People are always, oh, we went through that whole process and then the plan just sat on the shelf for probably more appropriately now, sat in a Google Drive or sat in a Dropbox folder and never was referred to. And I think it's that moving from the process to then how are we putting this into practice? How are we actually going to? I think making that translation, taking the time to think about how we are going to bring this into our regular planning processes, into our regular meetings, what's the cadence that we're going to be doing? All of those kinds of things, asking those questions and having a plan to implement really supports an organization making the most of the time that they've spent together to identify what's really important for them to move their mission forward over the next couple of years.


Heather Burright
That makes a lot of sense. You do all the work. A lot of the focus at the time is on the plan. If there's not a plan to then implement the plan, if it's not then integrated into your existing plans processes, then.


Carol Hamilton
It makes that integration. I think integration is really the key thing. It's like, how are you integrating it into how you regularly work rather than thinking of it as something special?


Heather Burright
That makes a lot of sense. And what do you recommend for nonprofits to overcome that or what have you seen them do in the past?


Carol Hamilton
A couple of different things. I think the first is for that implementation plan being realistic about the time frame. So your bigger plan may be that medium term time frame of three to five years, but the implementation plan really needs to be a shorter time frame. It could be six months, it could be a year. Really depends on the organization and its cycles and what makes sense. And then for that plan, that's where I recommend that people get into the real nitty gritty of who does what by when and how. All of those kinds of things because that year one or first six months, you're getting into those details, planning that out, and then having a process to say, okay, we've come to the end of this time period. What did we actually manage to accomplish? What do we still need to do? What is less relevant or what might need some tweaking? What have we done that we didn't expect to do? And so asking those questions on a regular cadence and having a way to track and then do the next six months or the next year implementation plan where you get into that nitty gritty. Because I think one of the challenges is when organizations try to nail everything down for that entire period, and that's where it starts ending up feeling a little ridiculous. It's like we can't actually predict what's going to be happening three years from now. I say don't waste your time trying to nail that down in terms of the specifics that make sense.


Heather Burright
When you put it into that detail of a plan, you have something that can help guide you as you're implementing. But like you said, it also allows you to go back and trust so that you can see, am I on the right track? Are there things I need to adjust? And doing that in those smaller increments makes a lot of sense. Have you found that nonprofits have a lot of success with that?


Carol Hamilton
I think when they are able to make a regular practice of it, know what's expected at that check in, do that within their regular meetings, whether it's staff meeting or at a regular cadence at a board meeting, and or both. Knowing what part of the plan the board is responsible for, what part of the plan is staff driven, and then just having someone be the champion to make sure that they're doing that as well, all of those things really help. And then realizing that it's not just about checking off what you've done or doing. I've seen a lot of groups have that green light, yellow light, red light of where things are in terms of progress, but also having those questions in mind so that you are making those adjustments as needed.


Heather Burright
That makes a lot of sense.


Carol Hamilton
Part of going into implementation, sometimes there's a new initiative or something that really needs some extra support for an organization to really make it happen. You work with creating training for nonprofits and association members. How do you see training actually supporting the implementation of a strategic plan?


Heather Burright
I typically look at a three pronged approach, and it does all go back to making it strategic and compassionately human centered. As I said in the beginning, it's very important to me. So the three pronged approach that I typically take is you want to make it relevant, you want to make it meaningful, and you want to make it fun. 

And I'm going to define what I mean by those because some people probably just went for fun what? So I think it's important that we define each of those. So the first was to make it relevant. And that to me is where you really go back and you look at that strategic plan, you look at the things you've said you really need to accomplish and you look at other supporting documents in the organization. What is your mission, what is your vision, what is your DEI commitment? Those kinds of things that also impact the work that you do. Review all of those things and identify the skills that your people are going to need to be successful. Start with skills. 

Skills are always the driver for any training if you want to see a behavior change. So identify the skills that are going to be needed to deliver on that strategic plan and continue on with your mission, vision and DEI commitment and then compare those skills to your learner's current skill set. So where are they now and where do you need them to be? And that change, that shift, that gap is what you want to focus on to make the training relevant. 

The next piece was to make it meaningful. And so this again, it is a little bit more of that compassionately human centered piece. If it's relevant, it will already be meaningful, right? Because it's going to impact them in their role and their job. But you also want to take the time to build cross functional relationships, trust, psychological safety, all of those foundational things that need to exist in the organization for the change to be successful. And any sort of opportunity that you have to bring people together, whether virtually or in person, is an opportunity to build those cross functional relationships, to build that trust and to build that psychological safety. So yes, there are self paced training options out there but a lot of nonprofits and associations are running in person or virtual gatherings as their training option. And so there is a huge opportunity to build that trust during that time. And then the last is to make it fun. 

And again, I use that word, I laugh every time I say it because sometimes people think about forced fun, which is not very fun. But what I mean by that is to do something unexpected within the experience, design that training so that there is something unexpected, so that they remember what they are learning. And you can do that in a variety of different ways. I've certainly used improv in a very light way. It can be intimidating for somebody who is not used to improv, right? But if you do it in a very light way, then it can be fun for people and it is memorable for people. You can use outside tools like Kahoot brings in a game experience. 

Or you could use Mural or Miro where they're working together collaboratively in a different way. There are different things you can do, different elements you can bring in to make it unexpected, to make it just a little bit playful. And then they're going to remember what they're learning and be better able to actually change that behavior. Bring the skills that you need them to bring in order to execute on that strategic plan.


Carol Hamilton
I love all the parallels between the actual planning process. I always want it to be for people to tell me that it was fun, that it was unexpected to them because they might have been dreading a strategic planning process. But what you described in terms of the relevance, meaningfulness and then fun, and that gap between, okay, what are the skills at the individual level? What are the skills that are needed for this initiative? And then at the individual level, for me, there's a lot of like when you look at that gap, essentially it's what the whole group has done as a cross functional group through the planning process. 

When I'm working with groups, I really want them to not have it just be a top down process, but really have it be a whole organization process. And in some cases when the organization is really large, that might be a slice of the organization. People representing the various constituencies and levels and stakeholder groups. But then you are looking at what is the current state, where are we right now and where do we want to be and what's the gap in between? What do we need to do? 

There's so many parallels and then with what you were describing in terms of training and how that can really support the plan moving forward and the actual planning process. One of the things that I always hear from clients is that by bringing people together, mixing them up into different groups, there's all sorts of other benefits that come out of the planning process because people get to know each other and understand their work better. But I really feel like thinking about what the skills that are going to be needed in a plan is probably a missing piece that very few organizations are actually looking at.


Heather Burright
I would agree. I have seen strategic plans where there is a people component baked into it, which is amazing, so fun to see. But even if there's not, there's probably something in there that's going to require something different of your people. And if that's the case, there is always room for skill development.


Carol Hamilton
Oftentimes the people piece is -- We want to have a thriving, healthy organizational culture. But really getting into what people need to be able to know how to do to make this a reality. Oftentimes another goal might be something around fundraising or working on board development and all of those things end up clarifying roles and responsibilities depending on what the stage of the organization is. where they are in the lifecycle of the nonprofit can all be different. But I love the piece about really honing in and probably because I came out of a learning background before I did this work, one of the things that I always have people do is make sure that we cannot have an action step without an action verb. It's like doing learning objectives.


Heather Burright
Yes, absolutely, I agree there.


Carol Hamilton
When have you seen organizations take that next step of doing that analysis of the skills and what are the competencies that we have now and what do we need to be able to move folks forward to be able to actually get this plan done?


Heather Burright
I love it when an organization brings me in at that point in the process because it really does set you up for success. Like you said, they're coming out of a strategic planning process where they've been really collaborative, hopefully, and they've been hearing from people and they've been taking a different approach to their work in some cases and then coming right behind that and saying, now let's do the same thing for your people. 

It's just a nice flow and it sets people up for success in the very beginning. So I have seen organizations do that and I love that. I think a lot of times it's a little bit later down the line when they realize they're ready to scale a program or a service or launch something new and they realize there's going to be a gap in their people being able to implement that thing. So it's a little bit later in the process, it's a little bit harder to go back and really capture that analysis and the energy that's already coming out of that strategic planning process. So I've seen it both ways. It's still doable the other way. If it's a little bit later in the process, definitely still doable. It just might feel a little bit like you're taking a couple of steps back before you can move forward.


Carol Hamilton
And I feel like, for me, as I think about projects moving forward, as I help organizations map out that implementation plan, certainly coming out of this conversation, one of the things that I'll be adding is what are the skills that are needed to move this forward and help people even think start to think about it. Because I think it's not necessarily a top of mind conversation for most folks.


Heather Burright
Absolutely. And one of the things we're talking about training today, but one of the things that I do is custom competency models. And that's a great time when you're getting ready to implement a new strategic plan. That's a great time to either create or revisit your existing competency model because you are able to say, okay, this is where we're headed and these are the skills that we need people to have in order to achieve that. And this is what that looks like. That one skill, right? One skill can look different to different people or in different roles. And so a competency model allows you to define what that skill is going to look like at various levels in the organization. And then you can build your entire learning strategy around that competency model, which is built around where you're headed as an organization.


Carol Hamilton
And I've seen those on the association side built for the field, but I've rarely seen them built for the people inside the organization.


Heather Burright
They work well in both scenarios.


Carol Hamilton
And for smaller organizations, what are some ways that they could tackle this, that there's a level of sophistication and resources that you need to be able to do some of those things? Are there some smaller chunks that they could bite off to get started?


Heather Burright
And this might be contrary to what other people would recommend, but I actually would recommend a competency model for a smaller, smaller organization as long as they have staff in place or a set of volunteers in place, because it does define the skills. You can always go and look for off the shelf training to help develop a particular skill. But if you don't know which skills you need, then buying a particular training isn't going to be all that helpful. So while a larger organization might say we want the custom competency model and we want the custom training because we're going to be training hundreds of staff over the next year or whatever, the case is a smaller organization. Taking the time to identify what those skills are that are going to be needed will allow them to be more particular, more strategic in what professional development they invest in in the future.


Carol Hamilton
If you want to start without having to start with a blank page, what comes to mind for me is the Standards of Excellence for nonprofit organizations, where you have an entire comprehensive set of standards. A few organizations go through the full accreditation process. A lot of other organizations use it as an assessment of where they are and would help them pull out those competencies so that you're not having to figure it out. Especially for smaller organizations, there's very little that hasn't been done before, so don't feel like you have to go it alone or start from scratch.


Heather Burright
Absolutely.


Carol Hamilton
What final words of advice for nonprofits creating training to support strategic planning implementation do you have?


Heather Burright
I think the first, and we've talked about it a little bit already, is to listen to your people. If you're going to be creating training to support strategic plan implementation, you have to know where your people are and where they need to go. Talking to senior leaders, asking supervisors, holding focus groups with the staff that are going to be impacted by the change. And really listening is a great way to understand what the gap is that you're going to need to fill. And then the second piece is, remember the change component of this. 

If you are doing anything different, there is a change and there's always something to fit in the strategic plan. Right. So tap into people's motivations. Why do they care? Why would they even want to make this change behavior, change, whatever it is, make sure they have the skills, which is where the training helps, and then surround them with the resources that they need to be successful.


Carol Hamilton
There’s so many parallels to the actual planning process of not starting small, starting larger, where you're really listening and hearing from, mapping out that map of stakeholders and constituents that you have and then getting that input from them. Feel it, figuring out how to pull their voices together so that you can make some decisions about what you need to do moving forward. 

I think people hesitate around change or at the top can feel like they've communicated enough times around the thing. And then I think there's a lot of it that can become a little bit of us and the people who want the thing, the people who are quote-unquote, resistors. And it goes back to listening to hearing really what is getting in their way, what hesitancies do they have so that that can be integrated into how you're supporting them with the resources that you were talking about?


Heather Burright
Absolutely. Part of surrounding them with resources is absolutely removing barriers. So you have to understand what they're experiencing in order to really make those changes happen. But Carol, I'm curious, any words of advice from you? Any final words, I guess, of advice for nonprofits undergoing the strategic planning process?


Carol Hamilton
I think starting with the whole organization and really thinking about how the whole organization is contributing to the planning process. And I think that also supports implementation because when people have been part of the process, they see themselves in it. They understand why decisions were made a certain way. They're more ready to roll up their sleeves and get ready to put the plan into action. And so while leaders might feel a little intimidated by, well, if it's just this huge cacophony of voices, how are we going to actually make decisions? But there are ways through a good facilitated process to ensure that you have a succinct plan at the end and folks know what they need to do.


Heather Burright
Absolutely. And I definitely see that in the needs analysis side on competency models and training as well. So, like you said, there's just so much overlap in the way that we work the process that we use and then so many good complementary pieces to it as well. Starting with that strategic plan and then moving into what do our people need to be able to implement?

Heather Burright
Carol, it's been so fun to have this conversation with you. Thank you.


Carol Hamilton
Definitely and talk about change. You're going to be helping me tweak my practice in terms of working with organizations in that implementation planning phase.


Heather Burright
I love it.


Carol Hamilton
I appreciate that. Well, thank you.


Heather Burright
Thanks, Carol.

Carol Hamilton
Thank you for listening to this episode. I really appreciate the time you spend with me and my guests. You can find out how to connect with Heather, her full bio, the full transcript of our conversation, as well as any links and resources mentioned during the show in the show notes at missionimpactpodcast.com/shownotes. I want to thank Isabelle Strauss-Riggs for her support in editing and production as well as Cindy Rivera Grazer of 100 Ninjas for her production support. Mission: Impact is brought to you by Grace Social Sector Consulting. Grace Social Sector brings you whole-brain strategic planning, mapping for impact, & mission alignment audits for nonprofits and associations. We combine Left-brain strategy and analytics + right-brain wisdom about human complexities for a proven, whole-brain, whole-organization process through which every stakeholder thrives. Reach out to us for support and facilitation of strategic planning, mapping your impact, auditing your services and getting an organizational assessment.
We especially love working with staffed nonprofits and associations with human-centered missions.

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