The Association Renewal Blog

Easier Done Than You Think

Thanks to Jeff Cobb for pointing to a couple of our posts on his Mission to Learn blog. He was applying what we've been saying about strategy to the issue of experimenting with Social Media (since that's been the topic of the month over on the Acronym blog). Here's what he said about us:

Notter and De Cagna’s approach to strategy, at least as far as I understand it, is a much more iterative approach than has been used traditionally by associations or most other organizations. For organizations that want to successfully embrace social media, an iterative approach is essential. Start with a clear set of strategic assumptions and a commitment to learn, dive in and experiment with the social media tactics that seem to make most sense strategically, and then adapt strategy, tactics, or both as needed.

(I know--easy to write, much harder to do)

Amen, Jeff, except that I disagree with the last line. Okay, most things worth doing are easier said than done, but I don't think doing what you are saying is as hard to do as people think it is, particularly among associations.

That's why I have been trying to broaden what our "approach to strategy" is, because I think where associations get derailed is in where strategy and implementation overlap. They typically have not designed their organizations in ways that empower the kind of experimenting and (most importantly) learning you are talking about. My last post about the "empowered association" talks about that.

You will have to make changes in processes, roles, expectations, etc. if you want to have your people both run with new ideas AND tie the results back into ongoing conversations about strategy. But once you make those shifts, I think it's actually pretty easy to do. When people are not limited by the way things have always been done, I think you'll be surprised at how willing and able they are to have experiments and better learning conversations as part of strategy development and execution.

The Empowered Association

On my other blog I linked to Maddie Grant’s great quote about a strategic plan perhaps getting in the way of thinking and acting strategically. I said I would write more about it here. Really what I want to write about is some thinking I have been doing about the whole "strategic planning is dead" debate. I've been frustrated with it for some time now, even though I've been an active proponent of "dead!" Jeff and I have been trying to get our thoughts down on paper about it—beyond the Strategic Capacity article that we wrote two years ago. We're making progress, but it hasn't completely come together yet.

I am now thinking that perhaps the whole dead/alive debate is more part of the problem than the solution. The following is a brief piece I wrote as part of the book that Jeff and I are working on. As such, it's not written in typical blog style. It's also longer than most blog posts, so you may have to click through to read the whole thing.

The Myth of Limited Options

One of our complaints about strategic planning is that it generates weak strategy. How many associations out there could sum up their current strategy as “last year plus three percent.” Too many.

Of course, we’ve also actually heard an association exec say “Yeah, but how much innovation do we need in the association community? We know what our work is: meetings, education, advocacy, etc.”

This lack of creativity is criminal!

I was reminded of this in reading a post on the Signals v. Noise blog. Their post was about web design, and the frustration they have with people who copy their designs (and then give a similar excuse: “well, there are only so many ways to design a web page.”).

They debunk that myth with the following image.

View this photo

The wristwatch is a very simple thing to design, with very specific limitations and parameters. But design flourishes. As Jason says in the post:

As a web designer you have a lot more options and variables and possibilities than a watch designer. Build something that’s yours. Make something you can call your own. Make your own mark. Cut the excuses and be a designer.

Feel free to substitute the word “leader” for “designer” in that last sentence.

Why do associations still embrace strategic planning? (COMMENT THREAD)

This is an open comment thread on a fundamental question:  why do associations still embrace strategic planning? 

Is the profound disconnect between strategic planning's flawed assumptions and the world in which associations operate today unclear?

Has it escaped our attention that few, if any, associations have achieved breakthrough success as a consequence of their strategic planning work?

Why are some leaders still committed to defending an approach that so many find ordinary at best, and painfully frustrating and useless at worst? 

Please share your insights and help us shed some light on this critical issue for our community.

Three reasons why strategic planning is killing us

Let me follow up on Jamie's post from Monday, with a few reasons why I believe strategic planning is killing our organizations, and doing serious damage to our community in the process:

1. It induces us to believe that the form and process of planning are more important than the content of strategy.

One of my great frustrations with strategic planning is how much time is involved in laying out very elaborate processes to create more flexible and adaptable plans, without devoting anywhere near as much attention to deep strategic thought around the content of those documents, and whether they embrace bold and intelligent choices backed by appropriate investments.  The problem for knowledge-creating, synthesizing and brokering enterprises such as associations is that today, strategy is no longer simply the means by which we manage and measure disparate organizational activities.  In the hypercompetitive, Web-enabled world, strategy is about something truly non-trivial:  the ability to leverage the full range of available and accessible resources and relationships to create new and distinctive value for members and customers.  So while process does matter, it is what our strategy proposes to achieve and what we can learn from it that will make the critical difference for our organizations in the long run.

2. It does not encourage us to carefully examine the sustainability of current business models. 

It is a rare strategic plan that actually codifies the elements of a sustainable association business model for the future.  In fact, I don't think I've ever seen such a document!  Instead, we use strategic planning to dutifully go about the business of developing goals, objectives, strategies and tactics without stepping back and asking difficult questions, such as when we will exhaust our current strategy and business model, what will replace it and what capabilities will we require in order to make that shift and how will we develop them?  Strategic planning values continuity over creativity, hindsight over foresight and the ordinary over the radical.  It is small wonder, then, that so few strategic plans actually stretch organizations in our community to reach their full potential.

3.  It does not challenge leaders to accept personal responsibility for creating organizations of the future

Right now, I suspect that many people under the age of 35 (and certainly under the age of 30) view associations as organizations better suited to meeting the needs of their parents' or grandparents' generations than their own.  Among many people, young and old alike, associations enjoy a reputation for being rigid, highly centralized bureaucracies with a deeper commitment to defending the past and preserving the status quo than to creating the future.  Strategic planning doesn't help the situation.  Indeed, it exacerbates it by virtually eliminating the possibility of intelligent risk taking and genuine innovation, in favor of "doing what we've always done, because that's what the members want!"  Sadly, too many senior volunteer leaders buy in to this way of thinking, and operate unapologetically yet myopically as obstacles to meaningful progress.  Strategic planning offers nothing to either incent or require such leaders to accept personal responsibility for creating organizations that will thrive in a new world already in its early stages of formation.

Associations must break free of strategic planning's death grip on our community.  We need a new approach to the work of strategy and, as Jamie pointed out in his post, we are working on one that we look forward to sharing here in the near future.

Strategic Planning is Killing Us

About two years ago, Jeff and I wrote an article about building strategic capacity in Executive Update. This article was our own declaration of the “strategic planning is dead” mantra that has been circulating in the association community, although we didn’t use those exact words.

There are many, of course, who disagree with the notion that strategic planning is dead. Many of them are now writing about or attempting “new and improved” versions of strategic planning that address some of the problems with traditional strategic planning that we (and others) were mentioning.

So I don’t think we were clear enough in our original article. We’re working on a follow up document (probably an e-book) that we hope will more clearly explain our thesis. But in the meantime, let me share a critical epiphany. We still think strategic planning is dead, but that really isn’t as important point as the following point:

Strategic planning is killing us.

No matter how you do it, strategic planning consistently creates inadequate strategies. Its focus on process and plans—even if they are “living” documents—fundamentally misunderstands how organizations and systems really work, and it draws our attention away from the areas where we could be creating truly effective strategy. Strategic planning is killing us because it gives us the illusion that we are being strategic, when in fact we are merely creating structures that justify a path that feels safe because it is similar to what we have done in the past.

Our “Building Strategic Capacity” thesis was not intended to be a better way to do strategic planning. Trying to find a better way to do strategic planning is futile. That ship is sinking no matter how you dress it up. Building strategic capacity is about integrating strategy, leadership, and action in an entirely new way. It challenges the thinking behind strategic planning that so many simply take for granted, but it opens the door to new growth and potential.

More to come.

Strategy and Leadership

I posted on my blog about a great definition of leadership that Peter Senge shared at a conference last week (a capacity in the human community to shape its future). One of my reactions when I heard that definition was “Hmmm. That sounds like strategy.” So I decided to look up the definition of strategy at dictionary.com. Here’s what I found:

the science or art of combining and employing the means of war in planning and directing large military movements and operations.

a plan, method, or series of maneuvers or stratagems for obtaining a specific goal or result:

Yuck. No wonder we’re so focused on the plan in strategic planning. Strategy is, by dictionary definition at least, a plan (and a command-and-control one at that). I suppose this makes sense: the word itself comes from a Greek word pertaining to “general.”

Interestingly, if you keep scrolling on dictionary.com you get to the medical dictionary definition of the word:

an adaptation or complex of adaptations (as of behavior, metabolism, or structure) that serves or appears to serve an important function in achieving evolutionary success

I like that one better. So here are some conclusions to think about.

First, strategy is a living thing. For organizations, it makes more sense to think about the medical definition of strategy than the military one.

Second, there is very little distinction between “leadership” and “strategy.” Both are capacities. Both are distributed throughout an organization. If you’re developing one (i.e., a strategic planning process, or a leadership development program) in isolation of the other, you’re wasting energy.

Leadership Renewal

There is yet another good leadership article in HBR this month. This one, by David Nadler, talks about the CEO’s “second act.” CEOs in the corporate world are often brought in to fix a problem or save a sinking ship (Act I). Successful ones do just that, but after a while,

…the experiences, skills, and temperament that yielded triumph in Act I turn out to be unequal to Act II’s difficulties. In fact, the approaches that worked so brilliantly in Act I may be the very opposite of what is needed to bring Act II to a happy resolution.

This is true of both leadership and strategy. When Jeff and I talk about strategy, we consistently warn clients NOT to wait until the strategy is an utter failure before trying to change it. If you want to keep the organization on its most productive growth curve, you need to think about changing strategy when you are succeeding, not when you are failing (when it will take so much energy to turn things around).

Of course, organizations are resistant to this. It took a lot of hard work to achieve success, so it feels wrong, somehow, to change it. But that is just what this article is talking about. Refusing to change, frankly, assumes the world is not changing. If you assume the world is changing, then it becomes obvious that your particular style or your particular set of strengths (or your particular strategy) will work for a period of time, and then become less effective. Your choice then is to change yourself, change the structure of the organization (so others can pick up the leadership slack), or move on.

Humility and Diversity

This month’s HBR has a section of brief pieces written by business leaders on topics like humility, energy, and intuition. Nokia’s CEO has this to say about humility:

In a management team, humility is a product of diversity—managers must humbly accept that their own perspectives need to be broadened by others.

Could you say the same thing about your senior management team? Better yet, could you say this about your board?

Beyond Efficient

Bill Taylor has a great article in the Volunteer Leadership issue of Association’s Now. I commented on it on the Always Done it That Way blog, but I wanted to raise some points here as well.

Toward the beginning of the article, Taylor asserts that “being different makes all the difference.”

Today, the most effective leaders don’t just strive to build efficient organizations. They champion high stakes agendas. They create a strategic edge around an edgy critique of their field. They understand that the only sustainable form of market leadership is thought leadership.

This makes great sense to me, and Jeff and I have been making precisely this point to our clients. Although I do wonder: would most association executives agree with this statement? Efficient organizations deliver value to the members, they might argue. Critiquing the field will alienate our base. Our members don’t want “thought leadership.”

And I guess I agree, to some extent, with these points (although obviously it would depend on the specific context). But remember that Taylor is talking about the “most effective” leaders. There is a different between competent leadership (efficient) and excellent leadership (edge). You should achieve the efficient stage, but as Taylor says, that is not what you should strive for.