Make it Count (looking back)
A version of this article was written in the spring of 2015, just after returning to New York having conducted a series of organizational alignment workshops with the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington D.C.
I was on the 7:00 PM train out of Washington on Tuesday, May 12th. The 7:10 PM train, which could just as easily have been mine, derailed killing seven and injuring scores of others. For details on one of the worst rail accidents in recent decades, see the New York Times Magazine article The Wreck of Amtrak 188.
On hearing the news that we were unharmed I got an email from the museum director with the sign-off “carpe diem.”
Indeed.
My proximity to this terrible accident that day created a space to think about the big picture. About life, but also about work—which is undeniably a huge chunk of “life”—and the aspirations we set for ourselves in the work that we do.
What are you doing today that connects to your envisioned ten-year achievements?
Earlier that day during the organizational alignment workshops, I had asked participants this question: “When you look back ten years from now, what do you want to say that you have been able to achieve as an organization?”
Those 10 years have since passed and they have accomplished much, including a brand and reputation transformation, and more recently, a massive top-to-bottom renovation. The National Museum of Women in the Arts spent these ten years with a strategic focus on what was most important. It has been an honor to work along side with them and to see the strategic vision set down then live so vibrantly now.
So, I pose this question for you and your nonprofit or your business: “What are you doing today that connects to your envisioned ten-year achievements?”
For most organizations this should not in any way be rhetorical, it’s an urgent question that is often lost in the whirlwind. A strategic plan is a tool to help you keep free of the whirlwind and keep focus on what is truly important. To paraphrase Peter Drucker, there are an organization’s first priorities and then all the other stuff that does not get done.
There are an organization’s first priorities and then all the other stuff that does not get done.
Vision (looking ahead)
Individual and organizational destiny are intimately intertwined. Most of us spend the bulk of our waking lives dedicated to help fulfill the purpose of the organization we work for. Organizational purpose is critically important and it should be deliberate and clear to all who work there.
Clarifying that purpose so everyone supporting the organization knows what it is and can actively get behind it is a key function of a strategic plan.
Individual and organizational destiny are intimately intertwined.
There is also a kind of magic in a well defined vision—a clear statement of organizational purpose—a vision for the future that the organization is seeking to bring into being. There is a reason we call it vision. It is necessary to see what you seek to achieve. Envisioning something makes it possible. It does not make it happen, but it does open a kind of rift in the future—a possibility that would otherwise be closed.
Whatever you set out to achieve, whatever you establish as your organizational vision, it should be both aspirational and inspirational. It should also be true. By true I mean that it is backed up by a plan and by actions. By true I mean that the vision should be actively employed to encourage behaviors throughout the organization that are voluntary, heartfelt, and productive toward the results that you seek.
A Strategic Plan
The above is all arguably just an emphatic case for a good strategic plan.
While the aspirational and inspirational aspects of a strategic plan may feel soft, they are not. They are essential for its success.
The prioritized actions—aid out in your strategic plan—make possible the achievements you want to be able to look back on with satisfaction. Your strategic plan should guide the means by which you seize the day and with that day in hand, the next, and eventually all the rest.
A strategic plan is best when it is simple, clear, useful and inspirational. It is a plan for the achievement of your vision.
Pitfalls Found in Many Nonprofit Strategic Plans
Some of the pitfalls we see in strategic plans.
- Too many priorities. It is so easy to put too much in a strategic plan. It is critical therefore to remember that the first element of a good plan is what you are not going to do. If your strategic plan does not help you with the essential task of abandonment, it easily devolves into a laundry list.
- Too much separation between the plan and its execution. The execution is the plan. There should not be any separation between the planners and executors for the plan. The plan’s execution is everyone’s responsibility.
- Excessive rigidity with respect to how you achieve the vision. The plan is only any good if it can produce results—progress toward the vision. Whatever the plan lays out—on whatever timeline—should be rigorously assessed to see what parts are working and what is not. All those things that do not exceed expectations in terms of real world results must be jettisoned and replaced with other viable candidates to further the work. This systematic abandonment of the ineffective is essential for success. The danger of a strategic plan is that it can serve to protect the “good idea” that does not yield results. This is a grave misapplication of a strategic plan.
A Better Model for a Nonprofit Strategic Plan
- One key strategic priority that must be achieved in the timeframe set by the plan. This strategic priority must be simply described, clear, and universally understood by everyone in the organization.
- No more than three key areas of strategic focus. Having more than three will result in low awareness of the strategic priorities and poor results.
- Clear and meaningful connections between each strategic priority and the organizational budget as well as team resource allocation. All functional units should be able to align their contributions to the strategic focus areas and be able to show how they will contribute to the key strategic priority.
- A rigorous annual reevaluation of all strategic initiatives and all the supporting activities and resources to make sure that the activities are generating the desired results. When the activities are not working they need to be analyzed and the ones that are not overachieving, jettisoned to make way for other approaches.
- Avoid seeking to fix low performing activities. It’s far better to drop any under performer and then reallocate those resources to try something else.
A strategic plan is best when it is simple, clear, useful, and inspirational. It is a plan for the achievement of your vision. It is a plan that lays out your “how” for all to see and for all to use in their shared effort to make real your organizational vision. It is not the many things you could do, but the few critically important things that you must do to achieve your goals.
A strategic plan should also encapsulate the shared vision of your organization and, as such, it should be held in high esteem by all of your employees and stakeholders.
A strategic plan should help to motivate and inspire creative contributions from every employee and every stakeholder in the organization.
If no one is referencing and actively using your strategic plan in decision making, then you don’t have a strategic plan. You have instead a strategic door stop and it is probably holding the door closed. (See “Pitfalls” above.)
Core Values
Supporting and enhancing your strategic plan are your organizational Core Values. These values are the essential building blocks of your organizational culture, the inviolable guardrails all members of the team can rely on to help them make difficult decisions autonomously.
It is through your employees that your institutional vision comes alive, it is they that shape it through their day-to-day choices, actions and behavior.
A culture, when supported by well defined and universally understood Core Values, can unlock the autonomous creativity of employees and harness it for the benefit of all. It is through your employees and stakeholders that your institutional vision comes alive, it is they that shape it through their day-to-day choices, actions, and behavior.
Just imagine if it was your strategic plan with its clear statement of purpose and priorities that came to people’s minds and lips when asked, “Why did you come to work today?”
Imagine that.
This is not fantasy. It’s best practice.
“A goal without a plan is just a wish.” —Le Petit Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Your strategic plan, if concise, true, and operationally supported gives you the key to unlock the steps toward your goal today, to find the path to unlock them for tomorrow, and to make the next ten years of your organizational toil something you will be able to look back on with pride. You can do much with a strategic plan if it is both a practical tool and an inspiration.
What are you waiting for?
Ask for help.
We are kind, thorough and ready when you are. You just need to ask.