What to Do Before Your Next Strategic Plan

There's a strategy secret I share during every board and executive team retreat I facilitate.

It's this truth → strategy is only right in retrospect.

Which means there's no guaranteed win. No single right answer.

Can we use data to inform our strategy? Absolutely.
Can we learn from other successful organizations and models? You bet.
Can we focus on what we do best? We can and should.

But a big part of nonprofit leadership is understanding that you will have to make decisions without having all the information - or the guaranteed "right answer" - you wish you did.

Strategy is a series of interconnected choices about what we will - and won't - do to achieve our goals. At its core, strategy requires us to make decisions - including tough tradeoffs - about what we will and won't do so that we can achieve our aims.

When we try to shoehorn in all the ideas, combine unrelated concepts, or adopt fundamentally different approaches (that require different types of business or operating models), we're essentially choosing to stand still, or possibly regress.

In facilitations, I remind and reaffirm for participants that making these decisions can be quite challenging, but it's a critical part of your role as a board member or leader.

It's a lot easier to talk about "what we're going to do" than to wrestle with the fundamental question of "who are we?" as an organization and what that means for our work.

Taking the time during an upcoming retreat to define your strategic identity & ethos enables you to make better, more strategically aligned choices - not just one right answer, but a consistent set of decisions you can apply today and as new opportunities and challenges arise.

The boards and executive teams who are ready to grapple with this - who see that impact and identity are inextricably linked - can’t predict the future. But by doing this essential work, they are creating environments and strategies that enable their teams, communities, and the people they serve to succeed.

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Before your board or leadership team jumps into your next strategic planning cycle, let's first help you clarify your organization's strategic identity & ethos - so you can build a more relevant, aligned, and strategic plan. Reach out to learn more.