by Susan Detwiler | Nov 21, 2016 | Strategic Planning
Sometimes in life, we have a really full plate of things that we’re focusing on and need to deal with. And it’s at that moment, that something happens that demands that we switch focus, so that we need to move things around. From this we learn that the items on the plate are always movable–we just need to realize that we can move them. Rabbi Elisa Koppel
Although Rabbi Koppel was writing about life events, the lesson is also pretty valid for work. The lesson is even valid for things we view as solidly in place for the next 3 years, like a strategic plan. Circumstances change as the world changes, and we have to rearrange the things on our plate to accommodate these changes.
A lot of talk right now focuses on how a single election can change the trajectory of the country. But changes abound in the world regardless of whether it’s an election year. We see it in the rapidly changing social media landscape, which transforms how people take in information and make decisions. We see it in the swiftly changing transportation industry, in which car ownership is no longer a non-negotiable rite of passage, and people share rides with strangers instead of warning against hitchhiking. We see it in the gig economy becoming the norm for a generation.
The cascade effect of all these changes is real.
What does that mean for your organization? That’s up to you. The world may have changed, but that doesn’t mean that your vision has changed.
Your vision remains how you want the world to be because you exist.
But the world moves too quickly, and things change too rapidly, for a five year strategic plan to be viable. Even 3 years may be too long.
That’s why we build expansion joints into the plans; specific times to reevaluate. Circumstances change all the time, but we don’t always pay attention. Or our plates are so full of the ˜stuff’ that has to get done, that we don’t pick up our heads to look around at what might be different now.
Putting calculated milestones into our plans make us stop and reevaluate the progress. These are specified times when we check to see whether the plans and assumptions are still valid.
Yet even with the calculated milestones, it may feel as if you’re in a groove and you just want to keep going, despite the new information.
That’s when it’s important to remember that the items on the plate are always movable “ we just need to realize that we can move them.
5 Questions for making decisions
How do you get out of the groove? Here are five questions to ask yourself and the others around the table.
- What is our vision? Do we all still agree on the vision of where we’re heading?”
Now that we have new circumstances:
- What does staying in our current groove make possible, in our quest toward that vision?
- What does changing our direction make possible, in our quest toward that vision?
- What is the downside if we stay in our groove, relative to our vision?
- What is the downside if we change our direction, relative to our vision?
These five questions are the beginning of looking objectively at the effect of new circumstances on our current plans. Instead of appealing to legacy or history or prior investments or a single person’s passion, these questions allow you to evaluate the proposals relative to the same point”the vision you are aiming for.
And isn’t your vision really why you exist?
The things on your plate are movable. All you need is the will to move them.
by Susan Detwiler | Jun 6, 2014 | governance, leadership, mission, nonprofit, Uncategorized
What could you do with an Innovation Committee?
In their post How Boards Can Innovate, Michael Useem, Dennis Carey, and Ram Charan make the case that in corporations, while product innovation is not the purview of the Board of Directors, strategies and structure clearly are.
That division of labor is not so different from nonprofit organizations, where rendering services is the job of the staff, and the structure and strategies remain the job of the board. So how does a for-profit board incorporate innovation?
A very quick look at major corporations show that corporate boards frequently have innovation committees. From to Acxiom, corporations have instituted innovation committees that are generally charged with oversight of innovations and new product development. They act as advisors to staff in reviewing innovations, and act as advisors to the rest of the board, helping them to understand the new innovations being proposed.
Wellpoint Corporation has an interesting variation. Wellpoint renamed the planning committee of the board. It’s now the Strategic Innovation Committee,
to assist the Board in discharging its responsibilities relating to various strategic issues identified by the Board from time to time, including the Company’s long-term plans and its ongoing investment in technology and targeted areas strategic to the Company’s interests.
Fascinating! The formerly titled planning committee is charged with innovation.
What might this mean for a nonprofit board? 
According to Merriam-Webster:
Innovation is: 1) the introduction of something new; 2) a new idea, method, or device
Planning is: the act or process of making or carrying out plans; specifically: the establishment of goals, policies, and procedures for a social or economic entity.
In other words, we might conceive of planning as figuring out how to execute an idea or a concept, whereas innovation is seeking out new ideas or strategies, and bringing something new to the table. Of course, an innovation committee will also plan, but a planning committee doesn’t automatically imply innovation. The word innovation itself implies searching out new, possibly disruptive ideas, and considering whether they may be applicable to the organization.
If, as Hildy Gottleib maintains, language matters, then the name of a committee can influence how the members view themselves. Just as potently, it can influence how the rest of the organization views the work of that committee.
It is exciting. It is forward-looking. It is ˜out-of-the-box.’
We’ve already changed the name of the Fundraising Committee to Development Committee, because raising resources is a process of developing relationships.
How about changing planning to innovation?
What might that make possible for your organization?
Have some thoughts to share on this subject? Get in touch with me at sdetwiler@detwiler.com.
by Susan Detwiler | Mar 20, 2012 | governance, management, nonprofit, Uncategorized
Niccolo Machiavelli was right, when he said. There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.
Wow. He sure nailed it on the head. If you’ve ever come into an organization and tried to change its course, you know just how right he was. Change is hard, change is risky, and change is resisted.
And even when people claim to be willing to change, almost to a person, they will tell you that their peers will resist it.
In February, Julia Kirby wrote an analysis of the downfall of a change agent. As I read her blog on Harvard Business Review, most of her analysis boils down to arrogance. Coming in as a white knight that will rescue a situation, creating an ˜us’ vs ˜them’ mentality, presuming that everyone agrees that change is necessary “ any one of these will create resentment in an organization. Doing all of them is sure to make change even harder.
An organization is made of people who have invested time and their lives in building something good. To be told that it has to change implies that they have wasted their time, or that what they have built is not good.
Instead, engaging every level in the organization in making the already good even better creates a team more willing to work on change. And change is important, to keep up with society, and to ensure that you’re delivering your mission in the best way possible.
It’s not a panacea “ change IS hard “ but a willing attitude goes a long way toward making those difficult transitions easier to take. Instead of imposing change, inspire the team to aspire to greatness. Change will follow.
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