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The Strategist’s Questions

July 1, 2012 in Leadership, Mission, Strategy with 0 Comments

In her book, The Strategist, Cynthia A. Montgomery identifies four basic questions leaders must ask as they engage in the process of strategic thinking and development:
1. What does my organization bring to the world?
2. Does that difference matter?
3. Is something about it scarce and difficult to imitate?
4. Are we doing today what we need to do in order to matter tomorrow?

Leaders must take the time to answer these key questions. Only then will you be able to begin the process of  strategically crafting the future!

How will you answer these questions for your organization?

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Strategic Planning is Personal

February 9, 2011 in Leadership, Strategy with 1 Comment

I was asked recently by an Executive Director of another nonprofit organization what I thought was the key to strategic planning in nonprofit organizations?

He was visiting ChildServe to learn about how we have used strategic planning to systematically expand the impact of the mission between 1992 and 2010 from 125 children with special health care needs to more than 2,000.

I pondered a minute and thought about how I could answer his question.This is what I said;

“As the CEO, you have to make Strategic Planning personal…Make the strategic plan yours…commit to it…own it… live it. If you don’t own the strategic plan, it will just sit on the shelf”.

By making it personal you will avoid the biggest complaint about strategic plans…the plan just sits on the shelf…collecting dust.

As the board chair or chief executive, fill-in the missing piece. Own the plan and change the trajectory of of your nonprofit organization and make a difference in your community!

5 Strategic Planning Tips for Nonprofit Board and Organizational Leaders

February 5, 2011 in Leadership, Strategy with 0 Comments

Here are five tips for nonprofit board and organizational leaders who want to ensure their organization continues to be relevant and sustainable in the future.

1. Strategic planning is partnership. All organizational stakeholders must be included in the strategic conversation. Involvement creates ownership and trust which are the basis of partnership.

2. Strategic planning is process. A defined process will help address the strategic hows.

  • How will stakeholders will be engaged?
  • How will the leaders sort through the stakeholder’s strategic conversations and other shared content?
  • How will the leaders translate all of the content into coherent strategies?
  • How will the approved strategies be implemented?

3. Strategic planning is content. Defined questions will help address the strategic whats.

  • What is our vision for the future of the organization?
  • What is our mission and does it describe our reason for continued existence?
  • What values define and drive the organization’s culture?
  • What strategies do you think will help the organization get to the future?

4. Strategic Planning as permission. A strategic planning will not be successful unless the stakeholders,the board of directors, and the organization have given permission to use the plan to guide the organization into the future.

5. Strategic Planning as leadership. If the two Board Chair and the Chief Executive lead the development and implementation of the strategic plan, they will be exercising the leadership needed to ensure the strategic plan will guide the organization into the future.

These five tips will enable governance and organizational leaders not only develop a great strategic plan, it will also ensure the strategic plan will guide the organization to be relevant and sustainable as it makes a mission-directed difference in the community!

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Nonprofit Board of Directors & Organizational Reality

October 11, 2010 in Leadership, Mission, Nonprofit Board of Directors, Strategy with 0 Comments

It is the responsibility of the leader to define reality.

— Max De Pree

When I first came across this statement in Max De Pree’s book Leadership as an Art, I  thought he was speaking to the CEO and reminding him or her that to lead is think about the future of the organization. In fact, much of the literature on leadership today points to the importance of the leader, the CEO, being inspirational and rallying the troops to achieve his or her vision for the company.

Recently, however,  I was reminded  that it is the chief responsibility of the board of directors to define reality. The board of directors, as the trustees and stewards of the organization must be looking to the future. The Board must ensure that the organization knows the reality of its situation and that it is guided and informed by a shared sense of what is true. That shared sense of organizational truth is speaks about reality today and in the future. The board of directors expresses this organizational truth in three key statements:

  • The mission statement is the board’s description of the current reality of the organization. The board has the responsibility to ensure the mission statement continues to reflect the organization’s essential purpose in the community.
  • The vision statement describes the board’s view of the organization’s future reality. The vision is a shared expression of what the board believes to be true for the organization in three to five years.
  • The strategic plan is a statement of organizational priorities and strategies that the board believes are necessary to make the future reality true. The strategic plan is the road map that guides the collective work of the board and the chief executive as they seek to achieve the vision and the mission.

It is the responsibility of the Board of Directors to regularly review and update these three statements of organizational truth to ensure that the organization continues to define its reality.

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Good Strategy requires Good Intelligence

April 26, 2010 in Leadership, Strategy with 0 Comments

The first phase in the development of any strategic plan is all about the gathering information and good intelligence. There are two key things that you need to think about as you design this first phase:

1. Who do you want to talk to and where are you going to get good intelligence?

2. How are you going to gather that intelligence?

The answer to the Who question is really about the nature of your nonprofit organization. Are you a brand new organization? Or are you a legacy organization that has been around for a long time? This is a key question because helps you think about the organizational stakeholders.

Every organization has stakeholders…the board and the staff, volunteers and donors, consumers and customers that benefit from the organization, community members and  business, public agencies and other nonprofit organizations . As a young organization, this collective group is likely to be very small and homogeneous. As an older organization, this group could be very large and diverse. All of these individuals and groups have a stake in your organization and likely have  opinions about what the mission and vision. They are likely to express their voice about the nature of the organization’s values and what areas of focus should be considered strategically as the organization moves forward.

The strategic plan development design should address The Who — Who do we talk to as part of the information and intelligence gathering process.

The second question focuses on The How.  The How question is a methodological question. What methods are we going to use to collect the intelligence and how will these methods ensure that the information collected is good intelligence.

Let me offer several methods for your consideration:

  1. Individual and group interviews
  2. Focus groups
  3. Future search conferences
  4. Open space conversations
  5. Individual Questionnaires — mailed or emailed
  6. Telephone surveys
  7. Retreats
  8. SWOT analysis
  9. Town hall meetings

While list of methods can be quite long, your strategic plan development design should address how you want to collect information and how you can use that process to engage your stakeholders as you are gathering that information.

Remember….good strategy requires good intelligence. If you choose effective methods, you can engage your stakeholders. This engagement process not only helps you gather good intelligence, it also is the first step in eventual implementation of your new strategic plan.

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Strategy as Permission

March 18, 2010 in Leadership, Strategy with 1 Comment

Strategy as permission. That phrase may sound kind of strange. However in my experience as a Chief Executive for the past 18 years at ChildServe, the strategic plan has given me  permission to pursue the expansion of the mission. Approved strategy is permission-giving.

Of course, strategy and the strategic plan can only be permission-giving if the organizational stakeholders have participated in the development process and the governing authority has given approval.  Once approved, the  Strategic Plan functions as a strategic road map for the organization.  It is the Chief Executive’s  responsibility to ensure that the Strategic Plan does not just sit on a shelf gathering dust. Instead, the Strategic Plan should be a dynamic document that clarifies what the  priorities will be for the next three years. No longer does the Chief Executive have to guess what the Board is thinking, wonder if a particular strategy is supported, or if an initiative is important. Those discussions and decisions have already happened.  It is the  role of the Chief Executive to lead the organization and engage the Board of Directors to make sure those things happen.

I can look forward to the future of ChildServe. I have permission to do what what we collectively agree needs to be done to advance the mission.  The  partnership with the Board affirms a  mutual purpose and commitment as the Strategic Plan is unfolding.

Strategy as permission….what a great reason to pursue effective strategic planning!

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Four Key Strategic Questions

March 3, 2010 in Governance, Leadership, Organization, Strategy with 0 Comments

There are four key questions that must be addressed as a nonprofit organization begins the strategic planning process.

  1. The Vision question — What are we going to look like in 3 to 5 years?
  2. The Mission question — Why do we exist today?
  3. The Values question — What defines and drives our culture?
  4. The Focus question — What should we be focusing at to get to our future?

The Vision question is all about defining the future of the organization. The role of leadership — governance in partnership with organizational leadership — is to define the future. Without this picture, the strategic plan will not have a point of arrival.

The Mission question focuses on the role and purpose of the organization today. Mission statements should be compelling. Mission statements should be describe the scope of the organization. Mission statements should be short enough so that all stakeholders can say it in one single breath.

The Values question is about the cultural fabric of the nonprofit organization. Every organization has a culture that is shaped by the staff, volunteers and governance. What values describe that culture? Do those values also drive the culture? If the culture needs to change, what values need to be adopted to drive and lead that change?

The Focus question gets to the heart of strategic planning. In order to get from hear to your preferred future as described in the Vision statement, what do you need to do? Since most nonprofit organizations do not have the resources to do everything, Governance and organization leaders will need to  identify the three to five critical areas that need strategic focus for the length of the strategic plan. When those areas are identified, strategic goals and initiatives can be developed to provide the guidance on how to operationalize the Strategic Plan.

All great strategic plans begin with these four questions. In answering these four questions you are developing a framework for your strategic plan. Once this framework is developed, the next step in the strategic plan design process is the plan content. That next step will be the subject of another governance partnership post.

If you begin your strategic planning development process with these 4 questions, you are ensuring that your strategic plan will be relevant to your organization. Your new strategic plan will serve as a strategic road map for governance and organizational leaders.

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