Author: Carter McNamara

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How to Start Strategic Planning: Plan for a Plan – Part 2 of 5

Man mapping out a strategic plan on a board

In Part 1, we reviewed the first 3 of the 15 questions that should be addressed during the “plan for a plan” phase of strategic planning. In this Part 2, we review questions 4-6.

4. What is the Scope of Our Plan?

It’s not uncommon that leaders believe that a long-term plan will somehow guarantee that they won’t be surprised over that long term – that the plan will somehow lock-in a version of the future. Wrong.

  • If the organization is fairly new, has many current issues or the external environment is changing a lot, then consider a shorter term plan, for example, a 2- to 3-year plan.
  • If the organization is in this situation and still wants a longer term plan, then consider clarifying the misson, vision and values and some goals for the longer term, but do action plans for the next year. (The action plan is about who is going to do what and by what date.)

5. What Planning Model Should We Use?

Here’s where planners often make a big mistake – they do vision-based planning when they should have been doing issues-based planning.

  • If your organization has a lot of resources, few current issues and a history of being able to implement plans, then do vision-based planning. Vision-based planning is working from the future to the present.
  • If your organization has very limited resources, several major and current issues, and struggles even to implement a plan, then do issues-based planning. Issues-based planning is identifying current issues and what to do about them. A year or so after implementing this plan, then the organization might be healthy enough to do vision-based planning.

See the article Basic Overview of Various Strategic Planning Models.

6. How Might That Model Be Implemented?

  • If the organization has frequent turnover of staff, a well-informed Board and upper level of management, and the culture does not value participative decision-making, then a top-down planning approach might be most suitable — although highly participative decision-making almost always results in more buy-in to the Plan.
  • Otherwise, if Board members and executives are not well-informed about the organization and its environment or are weak leaders (an extremely unfortunate situation), then a bottom-up planning process might be most suitable.
  • A concurrent approach to planning — participation from all levels of the organization — is probably best if the culture of the organization highly values participative decision-making.

The next post (Part 3) will address questions 7-9 in the plan for a plan.

Your thoughts about the plan for a plan?

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10 Myths of Management and Organizational Consulting – Part 2

A manager talking to an employee

In Part 1, we reviewed myths 1-5. In this Part 2, we review myths 6-10.

6. Myth That All Consultants See the Same Problem the Same Way

Each consultant brings his or her own particular view, or “lens,” through which they view organizations. Also each has his or her particular biases and assumptions about how organizations should operate. The unique nature of each consultant often results in a unique perspective on problems and the approaches to solving those problems, as well.

7. Myth That There Is One Way to Solve Each Problem

Organizational change is a complex and dynamic process. Each organization is highly unique, depending on the nature of its environment, products and services, leadership, age and size. That is why there are no “cookie cutter” or one-size-fits-all solutions that work for every problem in all organizations. Similarly, experts in organizational and management development have realized that there is no one perfect way to lead, manage or change organizations.

8. Myth of Best Practices

Best practices are activities associated with organizations that are recognized as high-performing. Performance is the achievement of results and best practices are activities that indicate a high likelihood of achieving those results. The practices often become standards by which we measure if an organization is effective or not. Many of the standard management practices that we mention as capacity building activities are forms of best practices. For example, to discern if an organization is high-performing, we investigate whether and how the organization is conducting Board development, strategic planning, financial management or marketing. However, research suggests that the presence of best practices alone is insufficient to guarantee organizational effectiveness. Of more importance is how those practices are applied. The application should be in accordance with the unique nature and needs of the organization and should maintain continued focus on successfully serving specific needs in the community.

9. Myth of the “Isolated Solution”

Many consulting projects focus on one aspect of an organization, for example, financial management, team building or marketing. It is not uncommon that shortly after a project is completed, the client realizes that another major and related problem has arisen in the organization. Your client might contact you to report that your first “solution” did not take care of all related problems in the organization. In this case, your client is displeased.

A familiar example of this problem occurs when an organization hires a financial analyst to somehow generate more revenue for the organization. However, if the organization does not have a strong Strategic Plan, the analysis might not be successful. The organization might end up hiring a strategic planning facilitator. However, if the Board of Directors and top leadership is not ready for strategic planning, the Strategic Plan might not be strategic or get implemented at all.

10. Myth of the “Final” Project Plan

Usually, after your first meeting with your client, you develop a written proposal that includes a project plan that specifies the goals of the project and the activities that must be conducted to achieve those goals. Often, you are hired based on your client’s perception of the quality of your project plan. However, in the vast majority of successful projects, the initial project plan is changed as you and your client work together to address the issues in your client’s organization. An experienced consultant learns to present the project plan as preliminary in nature and open to change. The consultant helps the client to realize that plans often change and that change is natural.

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For more resources, see the Library topics Consulting and Organizational Development.

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Carter McNamara, MBA, PhD – Authenticity Consulting, LLC – 800-971-2250
Read my weekly blogs: Boards, Consulting and OD, Nonprofits and Strategic Planning.

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How Many Members Should Be On a Board? Really?

A meeting board room

(Much of this blog post was published in April of 2010. This post is republished now with additional information from guest blogger, Alan Hough, whose valuable comments are added later on below.)

A common question about Boards is “How many members should we have?” Usually that question spawns a range of answers.

For for-profits, some answers might be “The less members you have, the less the Board will be a pain for the CEO” or for publicly listed corporations, “It depends on requirements of Sarbanes Oxley.”

For nonprofits, “Get people with a passion for the mission” or “Get members who’ll raise money.”

These answers miss the point.

The number of members depends on the approach for staffing your Board. Board members should consider the different approaches and decide which one(s) they’ll use.

Functional Approach

In this approach, members are selected for the skills they bring to the Board to address current strategic priorities. For example, if the organization wants to add many products or programs, then get members who understand product development and marketing. So the number of Board members you have depends on the number of strategic priorities.

Diversification Approach

Members are selected to represent different racial, ethnic, gender or other groups. This is a popular approach on nonprofit Boards. The number of Board members depends on the number of diverse groups you want represented.

Representative (Stakeholder) Approach

Members are selected to represent different major stakeholder groups, for example, different groups of customers/clients, collaborators or geographic regions. The number of Board members depends on the number of different stakeholders you want represented.

Hybrid Approach

This approach combines one or more of the other approaches. For example, a Board might have 20-25 members because it uses a representative approach to include members from various stakeholder groups and also members who have strong contacts with investors or funders. However, that same Board might have an Executive Committee that is staffed with a functional approach — with members who bring skills to address current strategic priorities of the organization.

Group Dynamics Approach

Many organizational development consultants consider groups larger than 10-12 members to have another level of complexity not apparent in small groups. For example, the nature and needs of larger groups are often similar to those of entire ongoing organizations. They have their own various subcultures, distinct subsystems (or cliques), diversity of leadership styles and levels of communication. Thus, many people assert that the size of a Board should not be larger than 10-12 people.

“What Others Are Doing” Approach

Governance experts assert that Boards seem to be getting smaller, for example, Ward (2000) asserts that corporate (for-profit) Boards are getting smaller, from 10-12. Thus, Board members might consider this advice when determining the number of members to have on their Boards.

Passion Approach

This is a popular approach for nonprofit Boards — members are selected who have a passion for the mission. Unfortunately, it usually just results in passionate Board meetings.

Regulatory Approach

Some investors or funders might require certain Board members or skill sets on the Board. For example, public for-profit corporations must conform to rules of Sarbanes Oxley (SOX) legislation, especially regarding inclusion of independent Board members. (Some SOX regulations affect nonprofit corporations, too, and SOX is very likely to affect nonprofit corporations even more in the future.) Nonprofit associations might have bylaws governed by the membership, which dictates the number of members to have on the Board.

Additional Comments About Nonprofit Boards

(The following additional comments are added by guest blogger, Alan Hough.)

In relation to board monitoring (or at least the number of reports that a board receives) O’Regan and Oster (2002) found that there was a strong negative relationship between the number of reports received and board size (>30 directors) and also if the CEO nominated directors to the board.

In relation to board influence, when I last looked at this issue (2007) the results are quite mixed. There was a negative relationship between board size and board involvement in strategic decision-making found in one study (Judge and Zeithaml 1992), no significant relationship found in another (Ruigrok, Peck and Keller 2006), and a curvilinear (inverted-U) relationship found in a third study (Golden and Zajac 2001). Board size was a strong predictor of funding levels in U.S. human service nonprofits, although not of funding increases (Provan 1980). Directors of large boards of New York City nonprofits were more likely to give personally to their organisation, even after controlling for organisational size and subsector of operation, but were less likely to attend board meetings (O’Regan and Oster 2002). However, there was no relationship found between board size and director activity in another group of U.S. nonprofit organisations (Miller, Wiess and MacLead 1988). There was a negative relationship between board size and organisational reputation in Canadian nonprofits (Bradshaw, Murray and Wolpin 1992).

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So be careful when asserting that a Board must have a certain number of Board members. It depends.

There is a vast range of free, online resources about Boards in the Free Management Library in the topic
Boards.

What do you think?

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Carter McNamara, MBA, PhD – Authenticity Consulting, LLC – 800-971-2250
Read my weekly blogs: Boards, Consulting and OD, Nonprofits and Strategic Planning.

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How to Start Strategic Planning: Plan for a Plan – Part 1 of 5

Strategy planning concept illustrated with chess pieces

In this post, we’ll discuss one of the most important phases in strategic planning – a phase that far too often is forgotten, resulting in plans that sit untouched on shelves. The plan for a plan should be developed by a Planning Committee and should answer 15 important questions — do this before the planners start identifying goals to go in the strategic plan. This post (Part 1) is part of a 5-Part series and each Part will review 3 questions. Part 1 reviews questions 1-3.

Not doing a plan for a plan is like going on a trip without a map and then complaining that you didn’t get where you wanted to go. Planners have the illusion that the sooner they imagine some goals and get those goals on paper, the sooner they’ll achieve those goals, as well. So that’s where they start – fantasizing goals. Wrong.

Or, far too often, inexperienced facilitators and planners will start planning by fantasizing words on a mission or vision statement. While that can be creative and exhilarating, it rarely results in a useful plan. (But it does stimulate the creative juices – and it can make Board members, who otherwise are usually detached from the organization, to quickly feel useful in the planning process 🙂

Here are the first three questions the plan for a plan should address:

1. Are We Really Ready for Strategic Planning?

  • Does our organization have enough money to pay bills for at least the next 3 months? Don’t use strategic planning to generate quick revenue. It won’t do that. Instead focus on cash flows.
  • Does our organization have a history of not implementing plans? If so, you need leadership development more than planning. Learn how to build in performance management to do what you say you’re going to do.
  • Are our Board members willing to be involved in planning sessions? If they want only a one-meeting retreat, then don’t consider it strategic planning. It’s a brainstorming session.
  • Can our Board members and other leaders make decisions together? If not, planning could be a nightmare. Do Board development, not planning.

2. Who’s in Our Planning Committee?

The job of this Committee is to ensure a high-quality planning process, not to do the planning. Its members might hire a facilitator, do the plan for a plan and review various tangible results from planning, such as the drafted Plan. The Committee should at least include:

  • Chair of the Board
  • Chief Executive Officer
  • Leader of each of the major products or program
  • Someone who’s been in a well-done strategic planning process before

3. Why Are We Doing Strategic Planning?

There are different reasons for doing planning and each of those reasons could require a different approach to planning. Typical reasons include:

  • It’s just that time of year. (The best time to do planning is the middle of the fiscal year in time to produce a Board-approved budget for next year.)
  • Our organization has had recurring major issues among Board members or employees. Often, this is the result of their not being on the same page – planning can get them all on the same page.
  • Our organization wants to add a new division or major product line.
  • Our investors or funders want a plan. Be careful – don’t just burp out a stack of paper and call it a “plan.” Investors and funders are smarter than that.

The next post (Part 2) will address questions 4-6 in the plan for a plan.

Your thoughts about the plan for a plan?

Here’s many more resources about strategic planning.

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Carter McNamara, MBA, PhD – Authenticity Consulting, LLC – 800-971-2250
Read my weekly blogs: Boards, Consulting and OD, Nonprofits and Strategic Planning.

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10 Myths of Management and Organizational Consulting – Part 1

In Part 1, we’ll review myths 1-5. In the upcoming Part 2, we’ll review myths 6-10.

#1. Myth of the “One-Way Expert” Consultant

It is not uncommon that clients work from the assumption that there are consulting “experts” who can visit a client and promptly tell the client exactly what problems exist within the organization and then exactly what should be done to solve these situations. Experienced consultants and clients have realized that the “truth” in a process of organizational change emerges as you and your client work together, always sharing your perceptions, conclusions and learning. Successful organizational change is indeed a process – a journey – that you and your client take together. The accuracy of the recommendations often is not as important as your client’s commitment to – participation in – and learning from – implementing those recommendations.

This is not to say that consultants do not have expertise in how organizations function, why issues arise or what might be the range of solutions to address a given issue. As important as having this expertise is for the consultant to verify their impressions by working collaboratively with the client, as much as possible, to explore the inner workings of their client’s organization.

2. Myth That the Client’s Best Consultant Has “Been There, Done That”

Clients who have never worked with management and organizational consultants before often seek consultants who have successfully addressed the same problem in the same type of organization as the client’s. The client’s belief is that those consultants are experts at solving that situation in the client’s organization, as well. While that belief seems valid, it is extremely difficult to apply in real life. Each organization and its culture are highly unique as are the types of problems experienced by those organizations. The most important skills required by these consultants often do not include a strong understanding of the particular products, services or programs offered by the organization. The most important skills often are the ability to work with clients to apply principles of systems thinking, performance management and organizational change to address issues and goals.

3. Myth of the “Savior” Consultant

Some clients prefer that consultants somehow descend into the client’s organization, make several quick changes and then leave, having fixed the organization’s problems. Although these clients know better, they sometimes still act as if there are those kinds of “savior” consultants out there. Few, if any, management and organizational projects are really that simple. Consequently, many consulting projects end up not being useful, for example, strategic plans that collect dust on shelves.

4. Myth of the Detached, Objective Consultant

Recent innovations in organizational and management development, such as systems theory and chaos theory, have helped us realize that, as soon as you begin to interact with members of your client’s organization, you become part of the overall “system” of your client’s organization. You affect the organization and the organization affects you and your client. Experienced consultants have learned that the success of consulting rests, in large part, on how well the consultant and client work together to share their discovery, feedback, actions and learning.

5. Myth of “Diagnosis”

Similar to the myth of the detached, objective consultant are the beliefs of the consultant and client that the client’s situation can be “diagnosed” — as if the situation is a static, mechanical device with a problem that can be solved permanently by fixing one flawed component. Instead, organizations are ever-changing, dynamic systems whose changes are caused by a myriad of subsystems, each integrated with each other. Attention to one subsystem often changes the others, resulting in yet new issues and priorities as the system progresses through its life cycles, whether the system is an organization, department, team, product or person … and so it goes. It’s not a diagnostic event — it’s a process of discovery.

Tune in for Part 2 where we review myths 6-10.

What do you think?

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For more resources, see the Library topics Consulting and Organizational Development.

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Carter McNamara, MBA, PhD – Authenticity Consulting, LLC – 800-971-2250
Read my weekly blogs: Boards, Consulting and OD, Nonprofits and Strategic Planning.

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Introduction — Relevant, Realistic and Flexible Strategic Planning

Business growth strategy graph

Simply put, strategic planning is about clarifying the purpose and most important priorities of an organization, and also about how the organization will address those priorities. Sometimes the priorities are about major issues and sometimes about exciting overall goals.

The strategic planning process has to suit the nature and needs of the organization in order to produce a useful strategic plan. Especially for small- to medium-sized organizations, the strategic planning process has to be realistic and flexible. Otherwise the plan ends up sitting on a shelf, collecting dust.

This blog is about doing strategic planning in a manner that is always relevant, realistic and flexible for the organization. We’ll discuss different models of planning, typical phases in a strategic planning process and some guidelines to conduct each phase. We’ll also touch on common pitfalls in planning and how to avoid those.

There are many books about the content that should end up being in a strategic plan, but there are few resources about actually facilitating strategic planning. So we’ll also cover some useful techniques in facilitating planning.

This detailed list of topics gives more detail about the types of topics we’ll be likely to cover and their likely order, as well. However, it’s not uncommon that the topics in a blog tend to follow the wishes of the readers — a blog should be about the readers at least as much as about the blogger’s opinions.

What topics would you like to read? What questions do you have about strategic planning?

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Introduction — Removing the Mystique About Boards

People having a board meeting in a conference room

Many people have the impression that a Board of Directors is a group of very wise people who sit in a very special room and make very complex deliberations and decisions. Actually, most Board members are people just like us who are trying their best to understand what’s going on and what to do about it. However, recent history has shown that some Board members are not doing their fiduciary duties — they’re merely doing whatever the CEO tells them to do. The irony is that the law expects the CEO to work for the Board, not the other way around.

In this blog, we’ll discuss the role of a Board of a for-profit and nonprofit corporation. We’ll discuss Board members’ roles and responsibilities, how members are selected and trained, how they make decisions and how they are supposed to ensure their operations are always high-quality. We’ll discuss how the members and CEO can best work together. We’ll also review how members can accomplish strong governance of each of the most important functions in an organization.

There is an increasing number of laws and regulations about Boards and for a variety of reasons. Recent and very public scandals have resulted in massive layoffs and losses in investments, along with some executives going to prison. Also, there is public outrage at the sizes of CEO compensation. We don’t know all of these laws and regulations, so I’m hoping readers with that knowledge will chip in to enlighten the rest of us.

This list of topics gives more detail about the types of topics we’ll likely cover and their order. However, it’s not uncommon that the topics in a blog tend to follow the wishes of the readers — a blog should be about the readers at least as much as about the blogger’s opinions.

What topics would you like to read? What questions do you have about Boards?

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Introduction — This Blog is About Actually Doing Consulting

A businessman consulting with a young professional

There’s a lot of resources to help people think about whether to go into consulting and also about how to market a consulting business. However, there are very few resources about actually doing consulting — about how to work with clients to:

  • Identify and understand a) true causes of problems or b) how to achieve exciting goals.
  • Effectively solve those problems or achieve those goals.
  • Teach clients to address those situations themselves well into the future.
  • Learn about themselves and their organizations during the consulting process.

So this blog is about doing that. In this blog, I’ll be drawing heavily from my book “Field Guide to Consulting and Organizational Development.” Much of what I’ll write about will be relevant to any kind of consulting, whether technical, management or organizational consulting.

Here’s a detailed list of the kinds of topics we’ll cover and their likely order in this blog.

I’ve learned many times over the years that the deepest learning comes from sharing feedback with others, while also applying new information, materials and perspectives to current, important priorities. I’m hoping that this blog can contribute to deep learning for all of us. So join in!

What else would you like to read?

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For more resources, see the Library topics Consulting and Organizational Development.

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Welcome to the Spirituality blog!

Spirituality: Uneven stones arranged on each other.

We’re Janae Bower and Linda Ferguson and we’re the co-hosts of this blog. You can read more about each of us next to our pictures in the sidebar. This blog will be about various aspects of spirituality in the workplace, and will focus especially on practical tips and tools, and will include posts from guest writers. You can learn more about this blog by clicking on the About link just under the header.

  • Before using the blog, please take a few minutes now to read about the policies. Go to Policies under the header.
  • Feel free to share a comment about a post. Just click on the link “Leave a response” under the post in the body of the blog.
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  • You can get a lot of visibility to your work by being a guest writer. Many of the Library’s topics consistently rank in the top 10 of Google search results. Go to Guest Writer Submissions under the header.
  • See the many Related Library Topics listed on the sidebar. They contain 100s of free online, articles related to the topic of this blog.
  • Read the many other useful blogs in the Library. Go to Library’s Blogs in the sidebar.
  • Search for any topics you’re interested in. Use the Search box at the top of the header.
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If you have any questions, just use the Contact Us form at the bottom of each page.

Welcome!

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For more resources, see our Library topic Spirituality in the Workplace.

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Welcome to the Strategic Planning blog!

Work colleagues trying to come up with a business strategy

I’m Carter McNamara and I’m the host of this blog. You can read more about me next to my picture in the sidebar. This blog will be about various aspects of strategic planning, will focus especially on practical tips and tools, and will include posts from guest writers. You can learn more about this blog by clicking on the About link just under the header.

  • Before using the blog, please take a few minutes now to read about the policies. Go to Policies under the header.
  • Feel free to share a comment about a post. Just click on the link “Leave a response” under the post in the body of the blog.
  • You can use RSS or email to get copied on any new posts in the blog. Go to To Subscribe under the header to select RSS subscription or email subscription to get updates.
  • You can also use email to get notified when there are new comments to a post. When you click on “Leave a response” under the post, check the box to be notified of any follow-up comments.
  • You can get a lot of visibility to your work by being a guest writer. Many of the Library’s topics consistently rank in the top 10 of Google search results. Go to Guest Writer Submissions under the header.
  • See the many Related Library Topics listed on the sidebar. They contain 100s of free online, articles related to the topic of this blog.
  • Read the many other useful blogs in the Library. Go to Library’s Blogs in the sidebar.
  • Search for any topics you’re interested in. Use the Search box at the top of the header.
  • If larger text would be easier for you to read, just click on the 3 “A”s above the header until the text is large enough for you to easily read.

If you have any questions, just use the Contact Us form at the bottom of each page.

Welcome!