Planning for Community Benefit Creates A Culture Where Strategy Thrives
I doubt anyone would argue that to succeed successfully and sustainably one needs a plan.
In fact, we hear the words throughout our sector all the time. We set time aside to develop a strategic plan with goals, benchmarks, time-frames, new mission statements AND then we go to work. Unfortunately, we often go to work doing exactly what we have always been doing, often getting frustrated as we cannot seem to get those strategic goals underway.
Guess what, you are not alone. McKinsey & Company conducted a survey in 2006 and found that nearly 90% of organizations failed to implement their strategy, as identified through the goals of their strategic plan.* Kudos to the 10%, but what about the rest of us…
What would make it possible for the rest of us, that overwhelming 90%, to really feel as though our strategy and plan was alive and well?
Rob Sheehan recently touched on this in his blog post about strategy and culture.** The key to strategy success is actually not the plan, but the people.
Why the people? Because they are the ones that need to see the pathway, understand it, and make hundreds of decisions every day about how to advance it.
A written plan - you know the kind that comes out of a strategic planning process - is often focused on the organization (programmatic goals, financial goals, infrastructure goals, amorphous “sustainability” goals). The thing is, our organizations are really only just a collection of people. So if the people - board members, staff, volunteers, partners, funders, donors - aren't aligned we end up in McKinsey’s 90%.
The secret of the 10% … it’s not really the plan, but what the planning can make possible. It’s the process that connects people to the work. But not just any process.
We have found that it is a process which connects people to the thing that really matters, that truly engages people and creates the culture that makes strategy thrive. That thing that really matters – it’s the community they live in and their role in making it what they want it to be.
When a group of people can connect their values, their work, their money, and/or their time to community benefit, they are aligned. Once they are aligned, organizational strategy and alignment follows and, with some intentionality, flourishes.
By focusing on community-benefit, not only do we focus our outcomes on what matters most – healthy, vibrant communities - but we also increase the potential for people to deeply engage and connect with what we do. These become the minds that will refine our theory of change, test our assumptions, figure out ways to accomplish our goals, and ensure that we are effective in doing so. That is a culture where strategy AND execution thrive.
* McKinsey & Company, Improving Strategic Planning: A McKinsey Survey, September 2006
**http://strategyleadershipmissionimpact.blogspot.com/2014/10/tug-of-war-strategy-vs-culture-part-1.html
In fact, we hear the words throughout our sector all the time. We set time aside to develop a strategic plan with goals, benchmarks, time-frames, new mission statements AND then we go to work. Unfortunately, we often go to work doing exactly what we have always been doing, often getting frustrated as we cannot seem to get those strategic goals underway.
Guess what, you are not alone. McKinsey & Company conducted a survey in 2006 and found that nearly 90% of organizations failed to implement their strategy, as identified through the goals of their strategic plan.* Kudos to the 10%, but what about the rest of us…
What would make it possible for the rest of us, that overwhelming 90%, to really feel as though our strategy and plan was alive and well?
Rob Sheehan recently touched on this in his blog post about strategy and culture.** The key to strategy success is actually not the plan, but the people.
Why the people? Because they are the ones that need to see the pathway, understand it, and make hundreds of decisions every day about how to advance it.
A written plan - you know the kind that comes out of a strategic planning process - is often focused on the organization (programmatic goals, financial goals, infrastructure goals, amorphous “sustainability” goals). The thing is, our organizations are really only just a collection of people. So if the people - board members, staff, volunteers, partners, funders, donors - aren't aligned we end up in McKinsey’s 90%.
The secret of the 10% … it’s not really the plan, but what the planning can make possible. It’s the process that connects people to the work. But not just any process.
We have found that it is a process which connects people to the thing that really matters, that truly engages people and creates the culture that makes strategy thrive. That thing that really matters – it’s the community they live in and their role in making it what they want it to be.
When a group of people can connect their values, their work, their money, and/or their time to community benefit, they are aligned. Once they are aligned, organizational strategy and alignment follows and, with some intentionality, flourishes.
By focusing on community-benefit, not only do we focus our outcomes on what matters most – healthy, vibrant communities - but we also increase the potential for people to deeply engage and connect with what we do. These become the minds that will refine our theory of change, test our assumptions, figure out ways to accomplish our goals, and ensure that we are effective in doing so. That is a culture where strategy AND execution thrive.
* McKinsey & Company, Improving Strategic Planning: A McKinsey Survey, September 2006
**http://strategyleadershipmissionimpact.blogspot.com/2014/10/tug-of-war-strategy-vs-culture-part-1.html
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