Why do strategic plans fail? I’ve both heard and asked this question many times throughout my 25 years in nonprofit strategic leadership and consulting. In Ciara Ungar’s recent Forbes article, she states: “Some would say it’s because of leadership; others might say it’s because of strategy. Perhaps the real issue is that we consider the two to be binary in our strategic planning process.”
I remember my first introduction to a strategic plan. I was in my mid-twenties and in my first “real job”. We were all called into an All Staff meeting where one of the VPs, let’s call him Dave, presented the strategic plan. It had great graphics, was filled with important sounding acronyms, and my colleagues at the Director level and above nodded their heads seriously as Dave shared our new strategy for the next three years. It felt important.
Dave’s presence alone conveyed the importance of this new strategic plan. I was afraid of and intimidated by Dave. Part of this intimidation was because I was young, in an entry level position, female, and I didn’t grow up with parents who worked in a professional office setting and who could normalize things like All Staff meetings and strategic plans with me. We didn’t have Daves around our dinner table. The other part of the intimidation was because Dave sat in a big office at the end of the hall and never asked me about my work, how people in the community responded when I engaged them about our work, or the bright spots and obstacles I encountered every day as a frontline messenger for the organization. Yet, this new strategic plan seemed to make assumptions about why the current strategy wasn’t working… and how the new strategy would.
After the All Staff, we went back to our day-to-day work. And basically, nothing changed. There were no new resources or processes to help us implement the strategic plan, we weren’t quite sure what to do, and we ran into many of the same obstacles and roadblocks we did in the past, and some new ones too. When we asked questions, we were told that we had to think bigger and were often criticized for thinking “too tactically”. But we needed the tactical things, things like new processes and different resources, to make the strategy work. I got frustrated, as did many of my colleagues, and we moved on to new organizations.
This was my first experience observing the gap between strategy and culture. And unfortunately, it wouldn’t be my last. My 25-years intimately involved with and impacted by strategic planning (including my first experience with Dave above), as well as conversations with numerous social impact and nonprofit leaders and professionals doing the work, inspired me to launch Just Possibilities.
After seeing, heartbreakingly, too many strategic plans sit on shelves and collect dust and very well-meaning organizations fall short on their promises to the communities they serve, their employees, their values, and their missions, I want more. I believe many of us do. And with the multitude of challenges facing our world today, we can’t accept less.
Ms. Ungar’s Forbes article goes on to say, “When companies fail to meet their targets, the first thing they look to analyze and course-correct is strategy. The issue is not strategy. Nor is it leadership. Instead, it’s the relationship between the two that is often the issue, which can have a positive or grave effect on execution.”
Strategic plans are critically important. They provide a roadmap for long-term success and when the science of strategy and vision comes together with the art of leadership and values-led decision-making, they can transform organizations and communities in a meaningful and sustainable way. However, where strategic plans fail is when they don’t integrate the two. The integration is the glue that makes strategic plans come to life; the integration is what translates the strategic plan into an actionable and realistic roadmap that employees can not only implement, but want to implement.
“Trying to affect positive change is rarely if ever a solo endeavor, whatever the mission, we’re more likely to achieve it if we can bring people along with us”. ~ Ginni RomettyThis is the “what and how” or the "science and art" of organizational leadership. The what (or the science) is your strategic plan, mission vision, products, services, goals, ROIs, and metrics. The how (or the art) are your values, decision making processes, leadership, and your ability to not just listen to, but to actually hear and implement, the lived experience of those most impacted by your work. The how ensures the collective talents, knowledge, experiences, and skills of those most intimately impacted by and charged with the delivery of your work is included and sufficiently resourced.
This is the magic of strategy and leadership in action.
In order for this magic to take place, organizations must work differently. A symbiotic relationship between the what and the how requires shared leadership and a change in culture. It requires new definitions, skills, and ways of thinking, which can be scary for many who grew up under the old paradigm of top-down hierarchy and where traditional titles and degrees were valued over the lived experience of those impacted by and performing the day-to-day work.
But it doesn’t need to be scary. At Just Possibilities, we offer the following guiding principles for organizations who want to embrace the what and the how and ensure their strategic planning integrates the science of strategy with the art of leadership:
Authentically engage your stakeholders, especially those most directly impacted by your work and those implementing your work, early on in your strategic planning process. This is a critical step in change management. Doing so helps identify pitfalls and gaps in processes and resources that may exist between the vision and the realities of implementation early on. This will save you valuable resources. It also provides you with important data about the key themes and values most important to your immediate stakeholders, which is crucial for buy-in.
Share the problem. Ask those most intimately impacted by or involved in the day-to-day delivery of the work for their ideas and solutions. By doing so, you demonstrate you value lived experience and build shared leadership and ownership.
Ensure you are not just asking for input, but actually hearing it… and acting on it. Be brave and listen without defensiveness, even if the feedback is hard to hear. Your stakeholders will only share their ideas and experiences with you if they trust you. It’s not the feedback you need to be afraid of, but rather the silence and unequivocal agreement that indicates there is a problem.
Ask those directly charged with implementing and/or impacted by the strategy where they are experiencing both bright spots and pain points in implementing the vision. Redesign processes and systems to address this. By doing so, you demonstrate you’re listening and this creates further trust and opportunities for innovation, shared leadership, and buy-in. It also streamlines the work, ensuring resources go directly toward achieving impact rather than putting out fires and internal politics.
Understand what it takes to resource the strategy. If you don’t have the resources, adjust your goals. Doing so demonstrates leadership and organizational accountability. It also prevents burn-out, increases employee retention and engagement, and creates a dynamic workplace culture. Lastly, it generates loyalty, trust, and confidence with external stakeholders because you deliver what you promise.
Don’t wait to operationalize the above principles once every three years when a new strategic plan is needed or when problems occur. Build and implement an engagement and problem solving infrastructure that allows for these principles to take place on an ongoing basis and ensure this strategy is embedded in your strategic plan. NonProfit Quarterly offers a flowchart on resilient organizational change cycles to use as a guide. By doing so, you’re creating opportunities for innovation, social change, and meaningful impact. And that’s what the world needs!
Just Possibilities provides values and equity-based strategic planning, assessments and recommendations, decision-making processes, and leadership and change management consulting services to organizations dedicated to the social good.
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