It’s a paper weight – No!
It’s a wedge to balance a table leg that’s too short – No!
It’s a dust collector on my book shelf – No!
What is it? It’s your Strategic Plan.

If you’ve ever attended a Strategic Planning session you can identify with the above. The thought of Strategic Planning sends chills down the spine of many executives and board members who cringe at the thought of engaging in this annual ritual of “Write It Down and Put It Away.”  Often times the only time the plan is opened is when we’re about to have our annual session and we want to at least make sure we change some of language.

Contrary to popular belief and conventional wisdom, planning is not the problem. Think of it this way: if you join the gym and hire a personal trainer who gives you a workout routine, but you don’t work out, is it the gym’s fault or the trainer’s fault when you don’t lose weight?  Of course not – they gave you access to the tools but you still have to use them.

A strategic plan is a tool, and like any other tool if you leave it in the box and don’t use it, it won’t do you any good.

While working with clients during the past two decades - from small grassroots organizations with budgets of  less than $15,000 per year to international not-for-profits and faith-based groups with multi-million dollar budgets there is one consistent challenge we’ve observed: execution.  They hire consultants, develop goals and objectives, engage in the obligatory S.W.O.T. analysis, and even throw in a timeline for good measure – yet when it’s all said and done and we return home from the weekend retreat nothing gets done.

The plan is only as good as the execution.  We’ve developed a formula that we believe you’ll appreciate: 

P-E = WoT or Planning – Execution = Waste of Time

In the last decade, we have surveyed hundreds of faith-based, grassroots, and non-profit board members and executives who were embarking on strategic plans.  This research served as a distillation process as we sought to discover why plans fail. We’re happy to share this information with you in hopes that you can increase the effectiveness of your strategic planning. 

1. Lack of Input
   Far too often the only people involved in the strategic planning session are the board members.  Think about it for a second – you don’t serve the board, the board doesn’t have oversight of daily activities, the board is not the primary source of funding, and the board does not represent your core of volunteers on the front line.  If this is the case, why is the board the only input sought?  Engage a variety of stakeholders in your planning efforts.  The Strategic Plan is not the time for the board to relish in their authority and sneak away for an exclusive weekend of “Us planning for Them.” Without the proper input the plan is useless.

2. Lack of Ownership
   This is a direct result of number 1.  If stakeholders don’t have input, then they don’t have ownership, and if they don’t have ownership you know how they’ll treat the plan.  Think about – when was the last time you washed a rental car?  That’s right, you didn’t. Why?  Because you didn’t own it.  You can’t expect people to care for, adhere to, and put all their dedication and effort into something they don’t own.  Ownership is not only required on the front-end of the plan it’s required on the tail-end.  In other words, if your goals and objectives are not directly tied to a person who will assume responsibility they will not get done.  Don’t assign them to a committee or the board – committees and boards are famous for diffusing responsibility.  They must be assigned to a person. 

3. Unrealistic Expectations
   Planning should not focus on what you want to do:  it must focus on what you can do.  Assess your capacity and resources early-on in the planning process so you can determine what it is you can do.  By the way, if you involve staff and volunteers they can shed some light on what can really be done.

4. It’s a Moment as Opposed to a Movement.
   Strategic planning is not an event.  It should not be viewed as a magical moment in time that concludes after a 2-3 day retreat.  The drafting of the plan is just the beginning.  Real strategic planning is movement through time.  The plan becomes a management tool.  Program plans and action plans are aligned with the strategic plan. Organizational decisions are made based on the plan.  If what we’re doing does not line up with our plan then we either stop doing what we’re doing or modify the plan. Remember a plan is a living document and modification is not only acceptable – it’s expected.

5. The Plan is Calendar-Driven
   When planning is viewed as an annual ritual it is doomed for failure.  We recently received  a phone call from an organization seeking strategic planning assistance.  Through the course of our interview with the potential client I asked to see a copy of the last strategic plan.  After receiving it I asked how many of the goals/objectives had been achieved.  Suffice it to say – not many.  When I asked if the unmet goals and objectives were still relevant they replied absolutely and we still need to do it. So why are you developing another plan when you haven’t finished the last plan? We call this finishing your plate (thanks for the wisdom, grandma). Planning should not be done just because it’s that time of the year.  It needs to be purposeful and necessary.

6. We’ve Been Successful
   Believe it or not success can breed contempt for planning. We’re getting grants, our clients appear satisfied, donors are writing checks, and staff still show up.  We must be doing it right.  This is great.  And all is well as long as all is well – but the minute things begin to fall to the wayside and problems/challenges arise and the false façade of success crashes in on you no one will know what to do.  This makes me raise a question – who says you’ve been successful?  Don’t be fooled by success or the variety of facsimiles thereof.  The truth be told, many organizations that fall into this category haven’t really been successful, they’ve been lucky because no one has questioned their viability.  They have enough money, enough clout, and enough branding to cover a multitude of irregularities – including their lack of planning execution. They live by the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” philosophy and at the end of the day they’re really not making what we call a proportional difference.  The proportional difference is determined by the real impact and outcomes you have on the community based upon three criteria:  Financial Capital, Human Capital, and Programmatic Capital. In other words the greater your financial, human, and programmatic capital the greater the positive impact you should have on the community.