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Ski Racing and Strategic Planning

March 20, 2018 by Douglas Meyer

Thinking back to the coverage of the 2018 Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, I remain impressed by the outsized success of the team from Norway. Winning 38 medals as a country of only five million people, they were definitely ‘punching above their weight,’ as my colleague David Williamson likes to say.

I had not, however, connected the team’s success at the Olympics to lessons for those of us in the social sectors until I read an article in The New York Times about the “five time-honored, if unconventional, team dictums” that guide the men’s alpine team in Norway.  I read and reread the article, struck by the way that these dictums seemed to apply not only to my own broad experience on work teams, but also to my specific experience helping our clients form successful strategic-planning teams.

  1. “A prohibition on jerks,” which, as noted in the article, is a variation on what Robert Sutton famously referenced with some stronger language. Not everyone on a strategic-planning team needs to be the picture of positive and polite, but we’ve certainly seen how including someone who is overtly negative or rude, often with the hope of ‘winning them over,’ can backfire and delay if not derail the process.
  2. “No class structure on the team.” As one of the team’s leaders noted, “There are no rookies and no champions on the team – we’re all equals.” On this point, what stood out is that we’ve certainly seen the benefit of having a mix of staff, from senior executives down to an occasional intern, participate as equals in a planning process. Some of the best ideas come from newer voices.
  3. “The social fabric of the team is paramount.” My own work experience aligns exactly with what one of their veterans said about his team experience: “There is almost no skill or ability you can have that is so good it allows you to ruin the social qualities of the team.”
  4. “Talk to each other, not about each other.” Translate this into an organizational planning process and you get two interpretations: talk about the plan or process, not the people; and if you really feel you must make a well-intentioned comment to someone that could be seen as critical, make it directly and quietly to that person.
  5. “Friday night is taco night.” Tacos or beer or big bowls of pasta – your call. Sharing a meal or a drink at the end of a long planning session is perfect for reinforcing points one through four.

I don’t know if following these rules will lead everyone to the same level of success that Norway had at the Olympics. They certainly are, however, a sound foundation on which to build any team, including a strategic planning team.

Filed Under: News

A Nobel Nudge

October 9, 2017 by Douglas Meyer

Profession Richard H ThalerKudos to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for their selection of Richard Thaler for the 2017 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences.

In making the selection, the chairman of the prize committee cited Thaler’s broad “contributions and discoveries” in behavioral economics, and how he helped take the field from “being sort of a fringe and somewhat controversial part of economics to being a mainstream area of contemporary economic research.”

While that is undeniably important, we would, however, point to the more actionable aspects of his work.  Many of our clients have come to us with a hope of informing and improving public policy, for example, and on that topic Thaler’s work has been a revelation. In his book, Nudge, Thaler brings to life the way in which people make decisions, and the role of policy in shaping those decisions.

Click here to view a “Big Think” interview with Dr. Thaler explaining nudges,  or visit nudges.org for more examples.

So congratulations Dr. Thaler, and thank you for your insights and advice.

 

 

Filed Under: Ideas for non-profits

Starting in the Middle: Step One in Strategic Planning

October 3, 2017 by Thomas Brendler

In the nonprofit world, few props can induce more panic than blank flipcharts, especially when the task ahead is mapping out the future. While a crisp new pad and scented markers might seem like green fields and blue skies to some, this setup belies the messy reality that organizations are in perpetual flux, layered with histories, personalities, worries about the future—not to mention all the “real” work waiting for you back at your desk. Retreats and other engineered spaces for reflecting and regrouping have material value, but they can overlook the fact that, as the poet John Ashbery wrote, “all stories begin in the middle.”

In our work, we’ve found that gathering information and insights ahead of a strategy session—from staff, stakeholders, peers, and the board—sets the planning process up for success in several ways. It provides something to put on the flipcharts, making the intangible tangible and providing everyone in the room with a common frame of reference in the form of qualitative and quantitative data. At the same time, the process of collecting information helps involve people at all levels of the organization in the planning process as it gets underway—and can even serve as an informal professional development opportunity for junior staff. And asking fans and critics alike for their candid perspectives not only signals that the organization is striving to do its best, but can also spark or revive relationships that are critical to mission—or funding—success.

Once gathered, the weight of these insights can create opportunities to address urgent but delicate issues. The research can help galvanize languishing change or growth by connecting the dots in a way that cannot happen through episodic staff satisfaction surveys, management-team meetings, or board visioning sessions alone.

Most importantly, building a planning process around information is the closest an organization can come to appraising itself objectively. Painting a picture of how an organization looks from the outside—warts and all—and a clear-eyed sense of its place in the world, is critical to charting a safe and true course.

 

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: Ideas for non-profits

When Mission Matters

August 22, 2017 by Thomas Brendler

Over the past week several charities called off fundraising events at the President’s Florida estate over concerns about his response to the recent violence in Charlottesville. Some expressed concern that the locale would create distraction and controversy. There is a real logic in this rationale, as in the lives of nonprofits few pursuits are more delicate than asking people for money.

Others took a bolder stance, claiming that holding an event at Mar-a-Lago would be at odds with their mission. In explaining its decision, the American Red Cross proclaimed, “we must be clear and unequivocal in defense of [our principles].” Nancy G. Brinker, founder of Susan G. Komen, was even more direct, saying “There are no excuses, parsing or moral relativism when it comes to racism, bigotry and violence.”

There are risks to any public-facing decision, especially for large and visible nonprofits like the Red Cross, Komen, and the American Cancer Society, which took a similar tack. Backlash can be swift and vicious: there is already a campaign to boycott companies that withdrew from the President’s business advisory councils last week on similar grounds. Behind even the clearest and boldest statement lies plenty of deliberation, however vast the swell of public support.

There are times when an organization’s mission—especially its commitment to it—is publicly tested. Relief groups during natural disasters are one obvious example. At these moments, organizations we ordinarily may not think of every day are thrust into the glare of public attention and scrutiny.

Reverberations from Charlottesville provide a particularly interesting public test because the organizations speaking up are interpreting their missions in broad, humanistic terms—in the spirit of their programmatic work, but reaching well beyond it. Charlottesville had nothing directly to do with breast cancer or disaster relief, but the leaders of those organizations saw a deeper, urgent relevance, rooted in ethics and morality. No doubt they also had their donors in mind.

Mission and vision statements, however aspirational and enshrined, are no more than strings of words assembled by people. They are crafted with care and precision, with the intent to focus and inspire an organization. But to be effective, the people of the organization must put the mission and vision to work every day. And continuously interpret them with candor and vigilance, with an appreciation of an organization’s broader role and responsibility in the world.

Filed Under: Ideas for non-profits, Management Tagged With: mission, nonprofits, strategic planning, strategy, vision

“Why are we doing strategic planning?”

March 13, 2017 by Betsy Garside

Bernuth & Williamson strategic planning for nonprofitsWe kicked off a strategic planning effort with a new client recently. A staff member, curious about why he was in the room and on the strategic planning team, asked a familiar question: “Why are we doing strategic planning?” Behind the question was the tension of an overcommitted worker wondering what this big new chunk of extra work would actually do for his organization.

Nonprofit organizations undertake strategic plans for many reasons, positive and negative. We see new leaders come through our door eager to change their organizations for the better…and leaders who have lost funding and need to retrench strategically. Calls come from board chairs who want faster results, or top staff who feel their effort is becoming less relevant in the changing world around them. The genesis for every strategic planning effort has some level of both pain and opportunity wrapped into it.

No matter what the genesis for the process, there is a universal answer to that “why?”: If you don’t drive, someone or something else will do so. If you don’t set a course — imperfect though it may be — you will not get to where you want to be. As all-consuming as an organization’s day-to-day activities may be, leadership must make the effort to periodically look over the horizon. I won’t get too sailorly, but that look over the horizon helps an organization see what change is happening in their operating environment (the good and the bad), where they are in reaching their organizational goals, and how they might want to adjust course to get there more efficiently or effectively.

As to the “how” of approaching strategic planning? At the end of that meeting, the same person pointed out an excellent approach to any strategic planning process: “We should have courage, you know, courage to say yes and to say no. And we should take some risks.”

Point taken.

Filed Under: Ideas for non-profits Tagged With: nonprofits, strategic planning, strategy

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