Strategic planning that works

Strategic Planning That Works

Part One: Overview

“Most of our problems upon this
planet .. Have been met and solved
either partially or as a whole by
experiment based on common
sense and carried out with
courage.”
Frances Perkins, Secretary of Labor
under Franklin Delano Roosevelt,
1st woman appointed to a US presidential
cabinet

2 Cause & Effect Inc. www.ceffect.com

Topics
What it is
What’s involved
The five elements of
strategic thinking
A look at a few cases

Cause & Effect Inc.
3 www.ceffect.com

Other

 This is a taste, not the
whole meal
 Ask questions


What is Strategic Planning?

 Strategic planning is a disciplined effort to
produce fundamental decisions and actions
that shape and guide what an organization
is, what it does, and why it does it, with a
focus on the future.

(From Alliance for Nonprofit Management adapted from Bryson's Strategic
Planning in Public and Nonprofit Organizations)


Classic Strategic Plan

 Mission: Purpose
 Vision: Transformational aspiration
 Values: Guidelines for behavior and decisions
 Organizational Profile & History
 Critical Issues and Strategies
 Service/program Goals and Objectives
 Management Goals and Objectives
 Critical Benchmarks
 Budget and Revenue Forecasts


Classic Planning Process

1. Get Ready
2. Articulate the Mission, Vision and Values
3. Assess your current situation
4. Develop Strategies, Goals and Objectives
5. Create the Written Plan


Another way to view the process

1. Get ready
2. Identify starting assumptions
3. Conduct research
4. Digest and Analyze
5. Make decisions
6. Plan for implementation
7. Analyze and adjust


Strategic vs. Long Range Planning
What’s the difference?

 Long Range Planning
– Future is sufficiently reliable to develop a
methodical plan of action
 Strategic Planning
– Future is dynamic and often unpredictable
– Need to grasp an understanding of the changes
and create the flexibility to respond


But what is “strategy?”

 A strategy is typically an idea
that distinguishes a course of
action by its hypothesis that
a certain future position
offers an advantage for
acquiring some designated
gain. -- wikipedia


At the heart of strategic planning is
STRATEGIC THINKING


What is Strategic Thinking?

A way of thinking that includes five elements:
1. Systems Perspective
2. Intent Focus
3. Intelligent Opportunism
4. Thinking in time
5. Hypothesis driven

Jeanne Liedtka, Executive Director, Batten Institute, University of Virginia,
Darden School of Business, formerly with Boston Consulting Group


1. Systems Perspective

Used with permission of its creator, Thomas Mandle

 Think “ecosystem”
 Consider Mental
Models
 What are your
Interdependencies?
 Look inside and without
 Where do you
Cooperate? Compete?
 Geographic


What’s in your system?


Systems Analysis (research)

 Gather data: community, clients, demographics
 History
 Focus groups, surveys, etc
 Key informant interviews
 SWOT, Assets/Needs, internal and external
 Environment: e.g. social & cultural, legal & political,
environmental, competitive, technological
 Benchmark


2. Intent-focused & intent driven

 Direction, discovery, destiny
 VISION
– Directional
– Aspirational
– Emotional
– Sizeable stretch


Two-sides of a Nonprofit’s Vision

 Societal Vision:
– Clean and healthy bay that people cherish and
enjoy
 Organizational Vision
– Dynamic, responsive environmental advocacy
organization, with the political clout and financial
vibrancy that comes from widespread community
support


3. Intelligent Opportunism

 Openness to new experience
 Requires input from all levels
 Emergent strategy
 Evolving


From Margaret Wheatly Leadership
and the New Science

“Innovation is fostered by information gathered from
new connections; from insights gained by journeys
into other disciplines or places; from active, collegial
networks and fluid open boundaries.
“Innovation arises from ongoing circles of exchange,
where information is not just accumulated or stored,
but created. Knowledge is generated anew from
connections that weren’t there before.”


4. Thinking in Time

“Having seen the future that we want to
create, what must we keep from the past,
lose from the past and create in the
present to get there?”

Charles Handy, author of Age of Unreason and Age of Paradox


5. Hypothesis Driven

 Hypothesis Generation
– What if...?
 Hypothesis Testing
– If ... Then
 Includes inductive, deductive
and abductive reasoning
 Creative and critical


Ultimately, Strategic Thinking is a
desired way of being

 Embedded throughout
the organization
 Next actions captured
in strategic planning


Strategic plans are guaranteed to sit
on the shelf when they fail to
integrate ongoing strategic thinking


Strategy Making: Liedtka

Strategic Thinking:
Disrupting Alignment

Current Desired
Reality Future

Strategic Planning:
Creating Alignment


Leaders and Strategists see

BIG PICTURE

OPERATIONAL IMPLICATIONS


Making mindful change

 Focus is power
 Expectation shapes
reality
 Change is painful


What strategic planning is not

 An attempt to make future decisions
– All decisions are made in the present
– They are the best action at this point in time &
under these circumstances
 Linear & Fixed
– Systemic, circles back, may feel like a roller
coaster
– Constantly in need of reevaluation


CASES


Land Trust: 1999 plan

In first 10 years: Strategic Plan Decisions
 Slowly preserved 300 acres of  Set real objectives for acres of
land land saved
 Strategy to hire Executive
 Success measured in members
Director who could raise
and community awareness significant funds and get
 Volunteers & 2 part time staff properties saved
 Given large grant & told “to do
something” TODAY
 1,855 acres under their
protection, 4,424 total acres
among all agencies
 Highly respected, professional
land trust providing support to
other local trusts


Community Development Corporation:
2005

Situation Strategic Planning
 27 years old  Process mattered –
 Shifting focus from housing to lead  Created alignment on mission, vision,
paint removal to microenterprise to constituents, programs, values, critical
assumptions, livable neighborhood
housing, driven by funding criteria
 Most recent Executive Director had  Created measurable goals & objectives
alienated many of the key players in  Executive director left
community – unable to access Results
needed capital funds for housing  New ex. director + new staff
 Significant property acquisition  Dramatic shift community perceptions
without funding to pay for it  Completed phase one of neighborhood
 About five board members project to community accolades
remaining  Expanded include neighborhood
organizing
 Grew the board
 Discussing strategic partnerships and
possible mergers


Latino Service Organization
Situation Strategic Plan Process
 Grew from small neighborhood  Engaged key audiences: staff,
advocacy organization to $1.1 board, funders, providers, clients
million social service provider in  Created community outcomes:
literacy, health, child care, youth direct services, behavioral change
programming – state funding and systems change
dependent  Built ownership by getting feedback
 Executive Director led, uninvolved & next steps with stakeholders
board  Approved by Board & embraced
 Experienced funding ups and with excitement by community
downs, major community foundation
foundation grant for Executive  Started gap analysis to begin
Director position running out internal alignment

WHEN...


Latino Service Organization
(continued)

 Executive Director resigned
 Board faced with large funding gap, by emergency furnace
replacement, loss of some state funding
 Led to major staff layoffs
 New Executive Director hired
 Strategic Plan abandoned


Moral

For strategic planning to work,
 You need a compelling vision of change
 The way
 The will
 AND the leadership to make it happen


Courage

The moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence
moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision,
raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents,
meetings and material assistance, which no man could have
dreamt would have come his way. I learned a deep respect for
one of Goethe's couplets:
Whatever you can do or dream you can,
begin it. Boldness has genius, power and
magic in it!
By W.H. Murray, The Scottish Himalayan Expedition (1951):


QUESTIONS?


Thank you

Part Two:
Tools, Tips and Solutions


Gayle L. Gifford, ACFRE

 President of Cause & Effect Inc, Gayle is a respected consultant, provocative
writer, and creative strategist with a lifetime of experience working,
volunteering, & consulting in the nonprofit sector.
 Gayle is the author How to make your board dramatically more effective,
starting today and, Meaningful Participation, an activist’s guide to
collaborative policy making and co-author of Bringing a Development Director
on Board.
 Gayle holds the advanced fundraising credential ACFRE. She has an M.S. in
organization and management from Antioch University New England. She has
taught at Simmons College in the Masters in Communications Management
and teaches at Brown University in the Masters in Public Humanities and
Cultural Studies program.


Cause & Effect Inc. can help you make a difference in the world by creating the
internal change that will strengthen your governance, improve your
programming, build stronger relationships with your constituencies, or boost
your revenues. We’ll work with you on Board development and training,
organizational development, strategic planning, group facilitation, public
engagement, program development, organizational communications or
fundraising.

Contact us at: 401.331.2272, gayle@ceffect.com or jon@ceffect.com
www.CEffect.com
Gayle L. Gifford, ACFRE or Jonathan W. Howard


Strategic planning that works

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