Just what the world needs, another consultant, right? I hear you. And this from a guy who spent most of his career with a healthy disdain for consultants! In this case, however, I believe there is an underserved need for what I’m proposing to do with Association Acuity.
First, let’s start with what I’m not proposing to do. I’m not crazy enough to try to go head to head with the strategy consultants who are out there helping trade associations and professional societies develop strategic plans. There are a lot of them, and to be fair, many of them are quite good at it. Nope, my career has led me to a much more practical part of the organizational process. You see, I'm an operations guy. Always have been.
What I’m proposing is to help these organizations implement their strategic plans. Possibly even execute them, but that’s different and the topic for a future blog post. You see, it’s been my experience that organizations are more than willing to commit significant resources in the form of time, manpower and money to the development of a strategic plan. Senior management, working with the Board of Directors and often one of the aforementioned strategy consultants, develop a beautifully crafted document that speaks to, you guessed it, strategy. When it’s complete, there is usually a celebration followed by the Board Members heading back to their day jobs and the consultant happily moving on to the next client. What happens next? Well, the CEO and the senior staff are tasked with fulfilling the goals and objectives of the plan and reporting back to the Board regularly on the progress. This is when the struggle begins. Everyone’s intentions are certainly pure and for a while, the focus remains on the plan. More often than not, however, the real world intrudes in the form of unexpected member requests (demands?), unexpected budgetary constraints, unplanned organizational change or any one of a list of other day-to-day challenges that occur in every organization.
When this happens the best case is that the strategic plan is revisited in Board meetings when the CEO is asked to report on progress. The less desirable outcome is that the plan ends up in a desk drawer, or an electronic file these days, and is all but forgotten while the organization strives to put out fires, respond to member needs and keep afloat financially.
Sound familiar? I hope not, but just in case it does, there are ways to get your day-to-day operations back in alignment with your strategic plan and, more importantly, keep it there. I know some of you may be thinking that plans aren’t static and need to morph and evolve as the external factors impacting the operation change. I couldn’t agree more! Don’t worry, this process allows for the flexibility to adjust on the fly.
In part two of this blog, I’ll talk about some of the key elements that need to be in place to achieve this type of alignment and why they are critical.
First, let’s start with what I’m not proposing to do. I’m not crazy enough to try to go head to head with the strategy consultants who are out there helping trade associations and professional societies develop strategic plans. There are a lot of them, and to be fair, many of them are quite good at it. Nope, my career has led me to a much more practical part of the organizational process. You see, I'm an operations guy. Always have been. What I’m proposing is to help these organizations implement their strategic plans. Possibly even execute them, but that’s different and the topic for a future blog post. You see, it’s been my experience that organizations are more than willing to commit significant resources in the form of time, manpower and money to the development of a strategic plan. Senior management, working with the Board of Directors and often one of the aforementioned strategy consultants, develop a beautifully crafted document that speaks to, you guessed it, strategy. When it’s complete, there is usually a celebration followed by the Board Members heading back to their day jobs and the consultant happily moving on to the next client. What happens next? Well, the CEO and the senior staff are tasked with fulfilling the goals and objectives of the plan and reporting back to the Board regularly on the progress. This is when the struggle begins. Everyone’s intentions are certainly pure and for a while, the focus remains on the plan. More often than not, however, the real world intrudes in the form of unexpected member requests (demands?), unexpected budgetary constraints, unplanned organizational change or any one of a list of other day-to-day challenges that occur in every organization.
When this happens the best case is that the strategic plan is revisited in Board meetings when the CEO is asked to report on progress. The less desirable outcome is that the plan ends up in a desk drawer, or an electronic file these days, and is all but forgotten while the organization strives to put out fires, respond to member needs and keep afloat financially.
Sound familiar? I hope not, but just in case it does, there are ways to get your day-to-day operations back in alignment with your strategic plan and, more importantly, keep it there. I know some of you may be thinking that plans aren’t static and need to morph and evolve as the external factors impacting the operation change. I couldn’t agree more! Don’t worry, this process allows for the flexibility to adjust on the fly.
In part two of this blog, I’ll talk about some of the key elements that need to be in place to achieve this type of alignment and why they are critical.
