I recently blogged about the importance of being strategic as an organization and one technique for being so modeled after Paul Covey’s insight about effective people focusing on important tasks and not just urgent (e.g. time-sensitive) tasks.
Another technique I’ve found useful in being strategic is based on an insight from Jim Collins, author of Good to Great and the Social Sectors.
In it, he posits that great organizations find the sweet spot in a Venn diagram consisting of three circles:
- What the organization can be the best at?
- What the organization is passionate about?
- What serves as the organization’s resource engine?
In explaining this, think about the three scenarios where two of these are true and the third is false.
If you’re passionate and can generate dollars, but not excellent, you’ll usually be outcompeted. Over time, even the dollars will fade because donors will figure out your work isn’t excellent.
If you’re excellent and can generate dollars, but not passionate about what you’re doing, your best intent will peter out over the long haul.
If you’re passionate and excellent, but there’s no path to generate resources, you won’t have funds to accomplish what you desire.
Of course, things get even bleaker if you’re only in one of the three circles.
One challenge in implementing this tool is groups are often not self-aware of their own limitations when it comes to excellence. Finding a way to get candid feedback on this front from those in a position to evaluate the organization is really valuable.
Likewise, a challenge I’ve experienced on the passion front is the exercise is usually about what the most vocal person is passionate about, or the Executive Director/Board Chair. I’ve had success using confidential interviews as part of strategic planning in a way that generates a more candid sense of where the overall team has its passion.
Lastly, figuring out an organization’s resource engine means taking a hard look at its revenue strategies (whether traditional fundraising or earned revenue) and whether those line up well with the programs being evaluated.
So how does this tool help you choose among various activities? For each, you can generate ratings on the team’s level of passion for it, the team’s excellence at it, and the likelihood of the activity generating dollars.
You’re not looking for the sum of these ratings, but rather those activities that score well across all three.