|
Home Page
Governance
Policy Governance® Services
Articles and White Papers
Values & Ethics
Performance
Improvement
Clinical Office High Performance
Safety
Strategy
System Dynamics & Modeling
Measurement
& Analysis
Our Analytical Tools
Organizational
Development
Training
and Seminars
About
Us
Contact us
|
|

Strategy
& Strategic Planning
The Foundation:
All things start from values.
From values flow organizational purpose (i.e., vision or
Ends), and in terms of accountability and authority, board
governance becomes the initial source of accountability and
authority, (and, therefore, must own and support the values
and ends).
Values:
We believe that an organization
must first identify and articulate its values. (see
Values) We can provide an organization a values/ethics
construct or framework from which an organization can
identify its key values. We work not only with for-profits
and non-profits, but with faith-based ministries and have
considerable experience with a wide range of ministries,
including international missions.
Our approach
to ethics and values is to develop the values model
interactively with attendees and assure that there is
understanding (if not buy-in). Our belief is that values or
virtues and ethics are, fundamentally, not a list but a
system of core values from which all other virtues and
ethics emerge. The virtues are, in fact, interdependent;
they depend on one another for support. They strengthen each
other. The model is powerful and comprehensive and has been
taught in a wide variety of settings.
Purpose:
After values, no strategy for an
organization can even begin without a clear view of the very
purpose of the organization, its ends - why it exists and
what it is to accomplish in its community. Many call this
vision (although the word vision varies, depending on the
user, which is why we prefer the more precise term, ends).
Many organizations create mission statements that express
what the organization does, but that is still at the
level of means. All good strategy begins, however, with a
clear view of what ends or results are to be
accomplished. Ends and their measurement become the aligning
and guiding star for the organization.
Governance:
The role of Board governance is
vital because it includes the establishment and support of
the organization's purpose which is stated as such in terms
of board policy. The board must then support the
organization and management as it plans the means to achieve
the ends and position the organization for strength and
sustainability.
Competencies:
The three competencies (above)
are necessary for the work of strategic thinking (and
planning) and are interdependent. Strategy cannot be successful unless the
organizational fundamentals can support it. Strategy, in turn, may
point to areas of need for improvement in fundamentals, improvement
cannot occur without competence in quality, and quality improvement
science can be used to continue to improve approaches to strategy.
Customer or
client-focused:
We also believe that
understanding the organization’s customers or clients, as well as the nature of
the larger market, is a vital part of strategy. This deeper
understanding of the customer or client is termed the Voice of the Customer (VOC).
Listening to the voice the customer (be they clients, church members, patients, or
citizen-customers, as in a governmental context) leads to “customer
driven strategy.” When organizations look at prioritizing their
strategic competencies and array truly strategic competencies by “drivers”
versus effects, they discover that understanding the customer or client will rise
to the level of being at or near the top in any ranking.
Method:
This construct, set out above,
provides a framework for thinking about strategy. In terms of method, we
have adopted a visual approach for arriving at wise
strategy.
Value of
Visual Thinking:
We
particularly use, in the actual process of working with the
client, pictorial and graphic means to assist in developing
insight and strategy. This powerful approach to process is
increasingly recognized for its ability to produce insight
while being efficient. (See, for example, Dan Roam,
Back of the Napkin)
Information
relevant to development of the strategy needed by the
organization to succeed (defined as successfully
accomplishing and sustaining the ends) must be brought
together and synthesized and a strategy “mapped.” We believe
in the power of visual thinking to do that. Visual thinking
permits a group of people to effectively and quickly
synthesize the large amount of information and then see
one’s “path” to what is required to succeed. Using visual
thinking in the context of the planning group permits the
digestion of an immense amount of information that is
relevant to the strategic planning process - features of the
organization itself and its current “position,” (e.g.,
strengths and weaknesses), features of the competition (or
those components having the same effect as competition), and
barriers to growth or achieving the vision, features and
trajectories of the economy or other topographically
important considerations, social, legal,
regulatory/governmental, etc. The visual thinking evidence
and our experience shows that digesting this information is
done much faster and comprehensively when the data is
converted to simple pictures (drawings). (The theoretical
basis is that our brains have more visual processing power
(by many times) than linguistic power. Pictures trump
words.) To the extent possible we use those principles,
which is probably still a bit rare among those facilitating
strategy.
The
Strategy Map:
The
startling thing is that a group can, in fact, more quickly
digest, and fruitfully discuss and think about complex
issues and relationships when dealing with pictures of those
things, even if very simple drawings. Key operational
dimensions emerge which can be mapped - usually
multidimensionally. People have no problem understanding the
strategy maps and explaining them to others. We facilitate
the group’s search for the key dimensions vital for the
strategy and find a way to map those dimensions, (usually
3-4 dimensions). This entire process, in our experience, can
take place in less than a day.
The product
is a multidimensional strategy map that all can understand
and can be used to convey to others, such as employees,
funders or investors, the strategies the organization will
pursue and how they fit together.
Development of key themes:
From the
strategy map will emerge the key actions or "thematic goals"
(if you’ve read Lencioni’s Silos, Politics, and Turf Wars)
or, in Hoshin planning terms, "Hoshins," action themes that
affect the organization multidimensionally - both in terms
of positioning and in creating ends. Examples would be gains
in to be achieved in certain key competencies or
efficiencies, results-based metrics, product changes or
adjustments, speed of service. Sufficient information may
not be known (usually isn’t) to continue this process
knowingly without doing research. For example, customer
research is almost always required. Systems thinking (and
possibly modeling) may be useful to really understand what
is going on. Process studied for inefficiencies, poor
quality, employee turnover, etc.
Action
steps, ownership and execution:
Proceeding
from key themes are the actions (processes and projects)
required to accomplish the themes or Hoshins. A method of
assigning accountability/ownership must be developed or
adopted to allow leadership to track process and project
progress, even if it is a simple Hoshin matrix which we can
teach, dealing with ownership of themes, projects, action
steps, dates, measures (“balanced” to assure sufficient
breadth of monitoring), etc.
Philosophically we believe in simple planning methods,
simple tools, and simple communication and tracking.
What is Hoshin Planning?
The best technique we
know for managing and tracking effective follow-through of thematic
goals (sub-strategies) is Hoshin Planning,
developed in Japan to assure ever improving strategy and its execution.
It came out of lessons learned from the quality movement. It is based on
first identifying the key needed organization-wide themes or sub-strategies (as
mentioned above) required to achieve the desired vision
(prepare for the future, strengthen weaknesses, etc.). Next
is identifying the key action steps or projects to be
achieved from that list of thematic goals or sub-strategies and then cascading the strategic
“theme,” or Hoshin, down through the organization with each level
crafting a complementary set of sub-strategies that will advance the
corporate-wide strategy. This is similar to the simplified planning
approach that author Patrick Lencioni suggests in his book Silos,
Politics and Turf Wars.
The beauty and power of this
approach is its flexibility and applicability to all types of
organizations, for-profit, non-profit and governmental.
An added ability the BroadBaker
Group can bring to the client’s approach to strategic thinking is the
use of systems dynamics and dynamic modeling to test assumptions and
mental models. (See our insert on systems dynamics.)
Complexity in our
systems, economics, and human relations threatens the capacity for
strategic planning. Yet within the complexity of the situation is
tremendous power that reveal opportunities for synergy buried in the
immensity of details. However, many models for simplifying
complexity, such as critical success factors thinking, mitigate or
eliminate opportunities by simplifying complexity in ways that hide or
even eliminate the richness of the reality. Systems thinking offers a
framework and a set of tools that enable simplification but retains the
essential richness - a richness that is loaded with potential for
sustained high performance.
Interested?
Contact
us.
The BroadBaker
Group can assist and facilitate in strategic thinking, including Hoshin
Planning, long view and contingency-based techniques, dynamic modeling,
and VOC-based approaches.
|Top
of Page| |