Tough Times, Tough Questions

What should we do? How can we deal with the budget crunch? Where can we find new opportunities? Who else is going to cut us? Likely these are among the questions you have asked yourself in the last while. And unfortunately, we are still in uncertain times for who knows how long.

While senior leaders share a lot of the same questions, most also have experienced tough times before. We understand that nearly everything comes in cycles – from good times to bad times to the good again. It’s that way in our professional and personal lives, and we typically meet the challenges, don’t we? We do that by making tough choices while seeking new and different ways to strengthen our organizations and keep moving forward.

Is this the time to think about strategy?
Now may be the time to ensure sufficient time and energy are spent on strategy and innovation. It’s hard, I know. I have been a CEO of a social service agency and consulted to many that were facing difficult times. Funding cuts, decreased fundraising results, and uncertain tomorrows have preoccupied my thinking, too, as a senior leader in the non profit sector. But I have found and I am sure you have, that even during the bad times, there are organizations that succeed, that grow, that somehow are able to create and act on opportunities.  

You know as well as I do that during hard times, funders seek out organizations that offer new or innovative approaches to producing results. They want to ensure their shrinking pot of money is honed in on top quality organizations producing demonstrable results in ways that are optimally efficient.

While funders tend to narrow their focus or scope during downturns, often they increase their willingness to forge new or changed partnerships that mutually benefit all concerned, especially the most important stakeholder: your clients.  

Maybe we can help
Given this environment, is it the right time to think about your strategic framework, your vision, your opportunities for change?  If so, give a thought in our direction. Over the years, Mark Holmgren has  worked with many non profits (social service, health, educational, religious) as well as government entities to not only faciliate the development of strategies and plans, but also to support CEOs in the change-making that typically accompanies a plan’s implementation.  

If this isn’t the right time or you have the benefit of in house people to help you, I encourage you to take a look at some postings (below) on this blog about visioning, mission, and why planning goes wrong. At the very least, I hope what you find there offers you some assistance and support.

Best as always to you and your organization.

Why Planning Goes Wrong

The biggest reason plan’s fail is that people don’t do the plan. They don’t do it because they have not collectively embraced it, have not structured their work to do it, and are not spending the time and effort to make changes in behavior to do it. This is why all strategic planning consultants and writers will tell you that a plan’s success depends on the unwavering leadership and involvement of the CEO. If that is absent, the change required to bring plans to life will not happen.

A second reason why plans fail is that organizations (i.e. the people within them) fail to make tough decisions during and after the planning process. Strategy is about making choices and decisions in order to succeed. During what I call the “strategic dialog” aspects of planning, we need diverse perspectives at the table, which means people do not always see things the same way or come to the same conclusions about what direction to go in.

Such diversity should create strategic options that the organization can look at and then make decisions about. The very nature of dialog and of identifying options is such that not everyone’s individual perspective will prevail. The hope is the diverse perspectives will amalgamate into strategies and common aspirations that are more effective than anyone could produce on their own.  The tough decision part is recognizing that for every YES an organization states, there is at least an implied NO.  While dialog involves compromise, it can’t result in conclusions that please everyone by watering things down to the point where there are at best weak strategies striving for a vague vision of the future.

Another reason why planning can fail is when organizations do not involve the right people in the process.

About Visioning

This is a second posting in the series about Mission, Visioning and Values. See our first posting on “Mission” here.

Vision. Without it, we bump into things; we stumble and fall and ultimately can’t be certain if where we end up is where we want to be.

It’s a powerful and sometimes provocative word. It has numerous meanings. Being able to see what is before you AND being able to conjure up an image of the future are among the definitions or connotations of “vision.”

Picturing your future reality
From an organizational perspective, a vision statement is about picturing a future reality based on your mission statement. In other words, it is about what your purpose (i.e. mission) has accomplished five years or so down the road. In a sense, mission frames your work now to achieve your desired future.

Some are wary of visioning
Some people are wary of vision statements because they fear either that they will be little more than fantasy that no one really pays attention to or create unrealistic objectives that prime the organization for failure. It is easier and safer just to say what your purpose is than it is to announce what you will accomplish five years hence.