Jonathan Poisner Strategic Consulting

I was recently talking to an organizational Executive Director who’s thinking about a strategic planning process.

He wants the planning process to get his board more engaged.

But he doesn’t think the board will take time to participate in a real planning retreat.

This becomes a bit of a chicken and egg problem — if they won’t participate fully in a robust process, how do you get an outcome that increases their engagement?

I wish I had a simple answer.

One technique is to “trick” them into greater engagement by engaging them one on one with a consultant.  And then have the consultant fold them into additional conversations culminating in a short, but productive retreat.

In the end, though, no trick can replace leadership — either from the Executive Director, a board chair, or some other board champion who can rally board members to participate in a planning process.

Short of that, I worry about organizations that go through the motions of planning, without a real investment, and then expect a transformation in the organization.

More realistically, a strategic planning process that lacks serious board engagement can still be valuable as a tool for an Executive Director to get some real planning done, with buy-in from the board.  But buy-in and engagement are not the same.

I’ve recently had a chance to read some strategic plans that seem to be missing a critical piece: strategy.

They have mission statements, vision, goals, and tactics.  But what’s missing is anything in writing making the case that the tactics or programs they’re projecting to do will lead to accomplishing the goals (or outcomes) they hope to achieve .

To be sure, my guess is that if you queried these organizations, staff and board members could probably make explicit the implicit assumptions in their plans.

But I say “write it down.”  Make it explicit and put it into the plan, if only for the benefit of future board members and staff members who were not part of the “retreat” where decisions were made.

Aside from the benefit to future organizational leaders, my experience is that in some cases, many of the disagreements organizations face during planning retreats stem from underlying disagreements about these strategic assumptions that lay behind the thinking of individual retreat participants.

Without making these assumptions explicit, it’s easier for people to talk past each other.   You wind up getting stuck and resorting to dots on a butcher block paper or some other exercise (many of which are useful in some contexts) to get people to vote, but without achieve a true consensus about what you’re going to do and, perhaps as importantly, why you’re going to do it.

If you don’t achieve consensus on the “why” part, you’re much more likely to have disagreements down the road when things don’t go as planned and your staff and board must adjust their work plans.

I’ve spent some time today thinking about the “lay of the land” and what goes into it in an effective strategic planning process.

The “lay of the land” is a term of art used by some to describe a series of statements about the world that forms the context for the strategic plan.   I actually personally prefer the language “strategic assumptions” to describe these statements.

They may be statements of fact, predictors of the future, or statements that constitute a theory of change about why the activities you pursue lead to the goals or outcomes you desire.

An example of a fact would be: the population of Oregon is 3,825,657 as of July 2009.  Or: The U.S. Senate currently is controlled by a Democratic majority and the House by a Republican majority.

An example of a predictor would be:  The proportion of the population older than 65 is slated to rise from X% to Y% over the next 10 years.  Or: The U.S. Congress will remain highly polarized along partisan lines over the next 5 years.

An example of a theory of change statement would be:  Members of Congress are more likely to vote as an organization desires if they feel it can help them win their next reelection or if they fear it may target them for defeat.  Or: Lobbyists with long-time relationships with members of the state legislature are better positioned to get legislators to cast tough votes.

I have seen strategic plans that boil down this section to a couple of paragraphs.  And I’ve seen a strategic plan that contained 6 pages of very dense demographic information.

As is often the case, I’m not a fan of either extreme.

The importance of including strategic assumptions is that making assumptions explicit almost always help people get on the same page.  I often find that when two people are arguing “past each other,” it’s usually because they have different underlying assumptions and don’t realize it.

Making your assumptions explicit also provides a very useful tool to determine when, if ever, you should revisit your plan.  The answer — when one of your key assumptions proves to not be true.

If folks have examples of lay of the land sections from their strategic plan they’d be willing to share with me, I’m interested in seeing more.

And if you have thoughts about what has or has not worked in your own strategic planning processes, please share them.