You announce that it's time to do strategic
planning, and you get resistance. Board member rolls their eyes or even verbally say, "I hate
strategic planning." Or the resistance may come from you. You may be thinking. We have to do it.
A funder requires it. Or it's time. The old plan is done, and it's a waste. If this is you—you
may be surprised to find that as someone who helps nonprofits create dynamic strategies,
I may concur with some of the nay-sayings. Because the resistance may
be re
alistic and well-placed, it depends a lot on what you expect and
what you mean by strategic planning. What you need at your organization when you
face this resistance is a strategy to get clear on strategic planning. I have
a three-step process to help you out. The first step is to define what you're talking
about. Laura Way with Arts Greensboro inspired this video when she said to me, "I don't
believe in strategic planning." And I said I may not either. Tell me what you mean.
Usually, pe
ople have three responses to that question. They're thinking of the process. They
have "been there, done that." It was boring, and it wasn't very informative. Perhaps they've
used SWAT one time, too many. Or they've just it's not just a bad group dynamics. It's boring. It's
slow. Nothing happens. Nothing comes out of it. The second area is the document.
They're thinking, "Oh yeah, we're going to create this thing that's going
to gather dust. It's going to be beautiful. We're going to spend
hours on it, and it's
going to be dated the minute we finish it. And the third piece is they hope and believe
and need and know you need a strategy, but they don't believe you're going to get
there. Strategy is like how we're going to win, how we're going to align. How we're going to solve
our financial problems and other things facing us, and they're they're resistant because they
just see it happen so rarely in nonprofits. So getting clear that you're looking for
number three, mixed with
good processes, and a document that really reflects
that strategy in the third section, and that strategy is like how the
document is going and how we will do this the first year. Normally in
a good strategy and dynamic strategy, you're already doing it because it's like
so clear that it's what you should be doing. Step Two is to ask, do we need a strategy or
a strategic plan at this point in time? Many organizations don't, and you may be one of them.
You may need some time to spend think
ing about what you're doing from the 30000-foot view, what
to continue, what to eliminate, evaluation--those kinds of things, and you may be able to paste it
back into a current strategy and just update it. But if you are feeling like you're not getting
anywhere and you're just putting out fires, if you have major questions unsolved, if
you have people who want to go different directions and everyone's confused about
what the best way to move forward is—those are signs that strategy is prob
ably
needed and that's the conversation to be very valuable to have with your
naysayer, even if it's yourself. For those organizations who decide they do need
a strategic plan and a new strategy, Step Three follows naturally. When we do the strategic
plan, what do we want to do? We need how will we know we've succeeded. What do we need in the
process? What do we need in a document, if any, and then most important, what key questions do
we want to explore and do we need answers to? Those th
ree elements will allow you to
work with the facilitator-consultant to create the strategy you need to
move your organization forward and, in the fall of time, move strategic
planning skeptics into believers. If you have strategic planning resistance,
share this video with those people and have a conversation about these three questions. If
you need more about nonprofit strategic planning, check out my website. There's an article called
Nonprofit Strategy Planning 101: Your Guide.
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