So, now you have agreed to produce a strategic plan. As we discussed in our “Planning to Plan” article, your organization should work through the first four of the five steps presented there as preparation for the strategic plan development process.

Your strategic plan will establish your organization’s goals, objectives, strategies and importantly the roadmap to get there. Included will be a review of the mission, vision and values of the organization and, of course, a way to assess success. You will consider issues such as how to retain and grow your membership, increase revenues, add needed programming, eliminate “what elephant” programs, leadership and staff succession, changes in governance, collaborations, mergers and emerging needs of your members and constituents along with organizational financial issues.

When done well, the plan outcomes will be meaningful to the future success of the organization. But plan outcomes are just that—thoughtful words on paper or in a computer file. Completing and adopting the plan is the beginning, not the end. Let’s visit the Seven Truths in light of what we have learned during the plan development activities.

Truth No. 1: The Key is Communication

The planning process should be communicated as it unfolds. The plan itself needs to be communicated to staff, volunteer leadership membership and constituents credibly and repeatedly along with the budget impact. It must then be backed up with a documented implementation program and timetable. Unfortunately, many organizations operate with a strategic plan that is never communicated to nor accepted by the group. Consequently, it never becomes operational. Without the credibility that effective communication can bring, the adopted strategies and programming suffer and ultimately fail.

I was engaged to review the newly developed plan of a very well-funded organization. The organization had engaged a highly credentialed experienced planning organization which in turn generated a plan bound in a beautiful hunter green leather binder with gold embossed lettering on the cover, “Especially prepared for XYZ Organization by The ABC Consulting Group.” (Those names are fictional.)

I discovered a perfectly rational, well-prepared plan. But it had been developed with virtually no input from the organization, no interviews, no discussions and no progress reports—nothing. This was confirmed to me by an interview with the chief staff officer. The plan was being ignored by everyone.

After further discussions, I began to meet with key members of staff and leadership and walked them through a series of discussions as if there were no plan. We took the results of the discussions and compared them to the plan and found virtual consensus.

We repackaged the material in a notebook with the organization’s name and logo on the cover and distributed it to the group. Positive comments began to flow. It was now communicated as “their plan” not the consultants’. It was successfully implemented.

Take the most important portions of the plan and structure them as short bites of information. Create an “elevator speech.” Include those “short bites” in your newsletters and in a series of letters from the president, the chief staff officer and the board. Put a planning item on your stationery, invoices and anything else that you use to communicate. Create a revolving app on your website so that each time someone reaches your home page and “most visited pages,” a key item of the plan appears. Overcommunication is not as negative as noncommunication. Invite feedback. Work to create dialogues.

Make sure that you say the same thing in the same way each time. You want to reinforce, not confuse and gather support along the way. Think of each strategic goal as a message that must be sent to each member and constituent and understood by all to mean the same thing. If the message is confusing, unclear or not communicated well, you will lose the impact and support you must have to make it work.

Truth No. 2: Beyond the Plan

Realize that you not only need “buy-in” and communication. You must take further action to gain the benefits offered by the plan. You must address the actions to be taken and the resources required by creating an implementation plan for the strategies, especially these seven critical components:

• Prioritization of programs and actions
• Assignment of responsibilities of both staff and volunteers
• Timelines for the programs and actions
• Budget must be available and allocated
• Outcome measurement process, assessment and method to modify when necessary
• Changes required in governance structure with an understanding and agreement as to how and when they will take place
• Commitment of staff and leadership, both current and future, to the plan

Truth No. 3: Planning is Not an Event – It’s a Process

Understanding the discipline of the planning process—recognizing that it is not an  event, but an iterative process—will put your group on a path to improved  results. It will help you move the process down into the operations of your  organization, where actual deployment takes place.

One trade group’s planning process consisted of an annual, long-weekend retreat at a comfortable resort. Spouses and the children were invited. The planning took place in two formal sessions of two and a half hours each. Actually, not much happened from year to year. No programs added, none eliminated and dues were constant. The programming, staff and leadership succession process continued unchanged for many years.

Members did well by just being in the business. Then the economy changed, the competitive environment changed and the group quickly realized that it had to change as well. Strategic planning became a 12-month activity with some step in the process taking place almost every month. Communications increased in content and frequency with information coming both from the staff officers and the volunteer leadership. A feedback loop was installed so that membership communications could be frequent with immediate responses. Programs were retained only when they contributed to the well-being of the members’ business interests, not because a past officer or benefactor wished it to continue. The group began to thrived right through the challenging economic period.

The evolution of the planning process from a retreat weekend to a 12-month process resulted in increased communications among the leadership, which allowed the group to consider change to handle issues prospectively rather than play catch-up.

They embraced concepts embodied in the style of General Electric’s well-known former chairman, Jack Welch. He led GE’s strategic planning efforts to shift from strategic planning (words on paper) to Total Quality Management (outcomes) and improved productivity. Welch offered six rules:

1. Control your destiny, or someone else will.
2. Face reality as it is, not as you wish it were.
3. Be candid with everyone.
4. Don’t manage, lead
5. Change before you have to
6. If you don’t have a competitive advantage, don’t compete

From Control Your Destiny or Someone Else Will  by Noel M. Tichy and Stratford Sherman

In the midst of the worst economic conditions since the Great Depression, organizations are struggling to refashion their behavior and develop appropriate strategies. Keep Welch’s six rules in mind.

Truth No. 4: Here are More “Truths”

Develop and follow a modular 12-month planning calendar. Tie it to ongoing in-person, online and phone meetings so that adherence to the plan becomes part of  your day-to-day core activities.

Leadership should understand what strategic planning will and won’t do for your organization. At best, it is a roadmap, not a panacea for what may be wrong.

Truth No. 5: A Major Truth

Strategic planning is critically important once again. It has transitioned from a process of trying to focus on the future to one of greater emphasis on examining “what’s worked” and how to apply those successes to the current realities as the world economy continues to shift. The goal is to build survival strategies using lessons learned in the past while open-minded enough to further develop building blocks of differentiation based on the realities of today.

If your group contemplates a training facility, distribution center or aggressive government affairs program, plan for it early. Create a section of your annual strategic plan review that speaks to programs and services you don’t have, but need and want. Know what you have to do to initiate the desired activity. Keep Welch’s first point in mind, “Control your destiny, or someone else will.” A well-formed strategic plan should include ways to move forward, accommodate change and identify desired outcomes that are wanted and achievable.

The critical factor, however, is to ensure the development of a roadmap of how the strategic plan actually will work—its implementation—and how accountability for its execution will be monitored. When executed, the plan should result in providing your organization’s competitive advantage.

Truth No. 6: The Four Questions

For strategic planning to yield a ompetitive advantage, it must address four questions:

1. “Why do business with us?”
2. “Who are our customers?”
3. “What programming and services do we offer that set us apart?”
4. “What don’t we do that we must do?”

Why do business with us?

If your organization cannot explain quickly and clearly what it does, how will members and prospective members understand it? How will constituents know that your programs and services will deal with their issues? The cornerstone of your future success is your ability to explain and convince your membership that they need to remain members and bring others to join. Simply stated, we are talking about “benefits.” Of what benefit to me is this organization?

Who are our customers?

Having a clear-cut customer profile is mandatory. You want to know what programs,  products and services are important to them. Why are our members still members?  Is there a critical program or service that must be added, or are there any that can  be eliminated?

What sets us apart?

How do we do what we do better than our competitors? What do we have that others don’t? How do we differentiate ourselves from the others? This “setting apart” is often characterized as “competitive advantage.”

For an organization to understand its own competitive advantage, it must first examine its programs and services and compare them to what compels members to be members and constituents to enroll for programming and services.

Here are 10 possibilities that can contribute to the development of competitive advantage for your organization:

• Unique education programs customized to your industry or profession that are not otherwise available
• Professional certification programs for the skill sets in your industry or profession
• Industry market research for your members
• Acting as a buying office for items that many in the group use regularly
• Helping members get or retain customers (when the members don’t compete against each other)
• Building a shopping mall on your website and then marketing it to attract new members or potential customers
• Supporting a safety net clinic
• Consulting directories for your members
• Creating community or national fund-raisers or recognition programs
• Offering internships to children of members

What additional programs and services must we provide?

Your plan should identify the “must-have” programming and services that must be added to achieve your plan goals. Determine the budgeting issues at the same time. Evaluate which programs and services can be eliminated. Add a timetable for the additions and closing out of programs and services. Adopt a zero-sum philosophy. Each program or service to be added must have a funding, source even if that be savings from the elimination of other programs and services.

Truth No. 7 – Contingency Planning

You can plan that something unexpected will happen. Contingency planning should be included in your strategic plan. Contingency plans include specific strategies and actions to combat changes in your ability to deliver successfully your programs and services.

Each contingency plan should include a monitoring process to alert executives of “triggers” for initiating planned contingency actions.

Putting It All Together

Truth No. 1 states that “The Key is Communication,” and it is. For strategic planning to work well, the plan results must be communicated and repeated throughout the organization frequently. Your communications must be consistent, frequent and align with key goals and your mission, vision and values.

Ask yourself and each of your leaders, members and staff who participated in the formulation of your plan these two questions every time the plan is discussed.

• When successful, what will this do for our organization?
• What one thing must we change to assure success with our plan?

At the beginning of your next board meeting, pass out a blank sheet of paper and pencil, and ask the people in the room to write their answers to these two questions. Then compare and discuss the answers for 15 or 20 minutes. Is there consensus?

When the communication of your plan is clear, consistent and persuasive, when the need for change is acknowledged and there is an understanding of what success will do for the organization, you have made a significant step toward gathering the solid support of the group. In turn, that promotes the accomplishment of your strategic plan goals, which opens the door to your organization’s success.