Strategic Planning in a Nutshell

by Seth Sinclair, Member

One of the services Sinclair Advisory Group is most often called upon to perform is to help our clients develop strategic plans that enable them to fulfill their organizational mission, vision, values and goals.  Many organizations, however, don’t have overall strategic plans, and seem to be doing just fine.  Why, then, is developing a realistic and actionable strategic plan the right thing for every company—from the smallest LLC to the Department of Defense—to do? 

Well, to begin with, let’s offer an excerpt from Chapter VI of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll.  Alice is speaking to the Cheshire Cat:

“’Would you tell me, please, (said Alice) which way I ought to go from here?’

‘That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,’ said the cat.’

‘I don’t much care where--’ said Alice.

‘Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,’ said the cat.

--‘So long as I get somewhere,’ Alice added as an explanation.

‘Oh, you’re sure to do that,’ said the cat, ‘if you only walk long enough!’”

This dialog, which is often summarized as “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there” is perhaps the best reason every organization needs a strategic plan.  Who, today, goes to an unfamiliar place without a GPS device, or at least a printed-out set of directions from the Internet?  Who builds a house without a blueprint?  Such foolhardy souls may, in fact, still exist—but they have a whole lot more trouble getting to where they are going, or realizing the vision they see in their mind’s eye, without having taken the time to plan ahead. 

Everything in life goes more smoothly with a plan.  In its simplest form, a plan answers three questions: where are we now, where are we going, and how will we get there?  By answering those questions, a strategic plan provides an important service for any organization: it helps identify the right things to do to enable the organization to progress and improve.

Most leaders know that strategic planning is important, and that their organization should have a solid plan; but many shy away from the strategic planning process, because they feel it’s time consuming, and just too much work for the return.  Others have no idea how to get started.  Still others begin the process, but get frustrated along the way and give up.

Actually, like most things in life, developing a strategic plan is not difficult if you know what to do.  When Sinclair works with organizations to build a new plan, we follow a simple outline:

First, we help organize the process, and work with the organization to make sure everyone—not only top management--understand what’s going on: that we are building a framework to help them fulfill their mission, their vision and their goals.

Second, we take a detailed look at the environment in which the company operates, by reviewing any existing plans the organization has; summarizing the company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats; analyzing the current environment, and identifying key issues and risks on the organization’s horizon.

Third, we facilitate sessions that develop and capture specific and measurable goals for the organization to attain, and tasks that they should accomplish in order to reach those goals.

Fourth, we help define measures that the organization can use to measure the organization’s progress towards meeting its goals.

And fifth, we help write and distribute the actual plan and then, if we’re asked, provide follow up support to make sure the plan is doing what it’s supposed to do.

Organizations working with SAG get the benefit of our Associates’ experience and skills as planners, and some proprietary aspects of our process that add significant value to the product we help develop.  But any company or organization can follow the same five steps we follow, and make better progress towards reaching their goals than they are making now.  Having a strategic plan works—and it’s not hard to make one.  And if you’d like SAG’s help to make your process easier and better, don’t hesitate to call!

Communication in Change Management

by Everett A. (Ev) Chasen, Associate

One of the tasks Sinclair Advisory Group associates are frequently called upon to accomplish is to support organizations as they manage significant changes to their organization’s mission or functions.  Managing change is a difficult process—in fact, statistics estimate that up to two-thirds of all change efforts fail to achieve their objectives.  In studies of those failed efforts, the overwhelming majority of people blamed “poor communication,” not bad ideas, as the principal reason for failure.  Without a strong communication plan for change management, even the best and most workable new programs and ideas are doomed to failure.

Businesses and government agencies can avoid this trap by developing communication plans for change management that:

·      Make employees understand not only what is going to change, but why the need for change is urgent, what the context of the change is, and what the purpose of the change will be;

·      Communicate the change vision—that is, the way in which the organization’s function will be improved once the changes are complete—using all of the communications methods available to the organization, including meetings between employees and front-line supervisors; speeches; posters; focus groups; blog posts; videos; newsletters and other creative ideas.

·      Give people opportunities to ask questions about the changes that are coming, and make sure those questions are heard and acted upon when necessary.  Town hall meetings are a great way for leaders to not only explain their vision, but to listen to what people have to say about it.  (In other words, don’t show up for a meeting, give your presentation, announce you only have time for one or two questions, and then leave.  Stick around and take part in the discussion—and take good notes!)

·      Offer those who are not part of the change process the opportunity to not only discuss it with those who are part of the process, but with each other.  Internet forums are a great way to accomplish this in far-flung organizations.

·      Publicize measurements demonstrating the value of the changes being made, so everyone in the organization can understand how much progress has been made, and how those changes are improving operations.

·      Hold regular ceremonies and other recognition events to reward and thank those employees who have contributed to change, or who have taken actions that helped the change process to show results.  Even small steps should be recognized and celebrated.

Leading change is not easy, as any visionary leader can tell you. Despite the relatively high failure rate of change efforts, if senior leaders are committed to change, education, and communication; if planning is thorough and complete; and if employees are given as much opportunity as possible to understand what’s going on and how it affects them, to provide meaningful input, and to see how the changes are improving the organization’s ability to accomplish its mission; then success is virtually certain.  If your organization is contemplating major changes, and you’d like expert support for the process, why not call on Sinclair’s roster of experienced leaders for advice and support?  We’d be glad to help!

Why Experience Counts

By Sanford M. (Sandy) Garfunkel, Associate

On April 7, the New York Times published an op-ed article entitled “When Blame Isn’t Enough,” by Olivia A. Golden, a child welfare advocate.  (You can read the article here.)  In her article, Ms. Golden discusses the difficulties child welfare agencies have in finding children who are receiving substandard care—and explains that when children are hurt or killed, members of an agency she once led reacted defensively, afraid of a public reaction that could stop the progress they were measurably making.

Ms. Golden suggested a solution to the problem that comes from airlines and hospitals that have reduced deaths or injuries.  “Through rigorous data analysis,” she wrote, “they have developed systematic approaches to safety, focusing on clear communication, minimum-staffing requirements and fail-safe strategies to reduce the consequences of inevitable human error.”  These strategies, she argues persuasively, “can (also) be applied to protecting children.”

One of the agencies she mentions approvingly in her article, for their adoption of outstanding patient safety standards, is the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.  In 1999, VA established its National Center for Patient Safety to develop and nurture a culture of safety throughout the Veterans Health Administration.  The Center’s goal is the nationwide reduction and prevention of inadvertent harm to patients as a result of their care. 

VA knows that the key to patient safety is to reduce or eliminate harm to patients—and that efforts focusing exclusively on eliminating errors are doomed to failure, because individual errors will never be eliminated.  According to the center’s web site, the goal is to design systems that are “fault tolerant,” so that when individual errors occur, they don’t result in harm to the patient.

Several of Sinclair Advisory Group’s Associates come from the Department of Veterans Affairs, and were “present at the creation” of the Center for Patient Safety.  They know the ins and outs of this revolutionary approach to improving service and reducing harm to patients.  They also know the level of initial resistance such a system faces among employees and stakeholders, and how that resistance was overcome at VA. As Ms. Golden persuasively argues, that knowledge is useful in many areas other than health care, including her own area of specialization.

The great advantage of hiring experienced and successful executives to provide expert advisory services is that, over the course of long careers, they have seen and implemented many programs similar to VA’s Patient Safety program.  They know what has worked, and what doesn’t.  They know where pitfalls are and how to create a climate that will enable employees to accept major change.

Sinclair’s business model enables clients and potential clients to obtain the services of some of the most knowledgeable and effective leaders in government and private industry.  We believe strongly that when a client is deciding whether to hire expert advisory services, and which group to hire, they should not only consider whether they can find a “perfect fit” with thorough knowledge of the services their company or agency provides; they should also consider the past successes of the people they are considering.  Great leaders, with decades of innovation behind them, can often call on their experiences to find approaches that will work in new settings—and, many times, their fresh perspective will result in unique and successful solutions.   

In her article, Ms. Golden successfully explains how “out of the box” thinking can benefit her profession: if you’re a manager looking for advisory help, we’d welcome the opportunity to discuss how our Associates can benefit your agency or business as well.

Leadership Development is Essential, Especially When Budgets are Bad

by Stan Sinclair, Managing Member

As this post is written, the debate over the Federal Budget for 2011 and beyond continues to rage in the House and the Senate.  What is certain is that most Federal agencies, especially those dealing with domestic affairs, will be cut: the only question now, according to news reports, is the extent of those cuts.

I would not presume to tell any organization how those cuts should be allocated.  However, I suggest there is one area Federal agencies should protect as much as possible—leadership development programs.  Significant cuts in government agencies are nearly always accompanied by reductions-in-force, or RIF’s.  RIF’s have all kinds of consequences for agencies, but the bottom line is that when the process is completed fewer people will be available to do the same amount of work—or even more work.

This situation means that those employees surviving the RIF will have to take on the responsibilities of others.  Some will need to assume supervisory responsibilities for the first time: others will find that their span of control has increased, in some cases by a very large amount.  The employees they supervise will be traumatized by the loss of their friends, and in many cases, by the fear that they themselves will be the next to go.

Only strong leadership skills can improve the level of production and motivation among such employees, or even to enable them to continue to produce work at the levels they achieved before the RIF process began.  New supervisors, or supervisors who have had their responsibilities greatly expanded, are not born with the skills their new positions require; nor do many of them know how to properly execute organizational strategy, especially when the organization has had to change strategies due to budget cuts.  Only classroom training, hands-on exercises and, where possible, one-on-one coaching sessions with skilled coaches can give them the abilities they and the organizations they represent will need.

Leadership development, therefore, should not be considered a “frill” that can be dispensed with or downsized when compared to other programs that might be reduced or eliminated.  Instead, it must be thought of as an integral part of an agency’s survival strategy, helping to ensure that the cuts the agency receives will impact its customers as little as possible.  Agencies wishing to succeed in this new environment will need to invest, not cut back, in leadership training because of their diminished resources—not in spite of them.