• Remind ourselves of the principles of Strategic Planning
• Understand the dynamics of Strategic Planning
• Challenge ourselves concerning our own practice of Strategic Planning
• Develop fresh skills for effective Strategic Planning
Session content
The session includes a selection of case studies and practical examples and questions to make you think and an activity for you to submit to BUD at the end of the module.
David Warren: Strategic Business Proposal
Strategic Business Proposal
Watch the presentation by David Warren on Strategic Business Proposal.
Strategic planning
Strategy comes from stratos, which means an army spread out or a large group of people and egy form the word meaning to lead.
There are numerous theories, unending models but common threads when we consider issues and challenges around strategy and strategic planning.
A quote to start us off:
“In an executive job we intellectuals are dangerous, unless we are aware of our limitations and take measures to stop our everlasting disposition to think, to listen, not to act. I made up my mind long ago, when I got my first executive job, to open my mind for a while, hear everybody who came to me with advice, information –what you will – then… some day, the day when my mind felt like deciding, to shut it up and act. My decision might be right; it might be wrong. No matter, I would take a chance and do – something”. (President Woodrow Wilson, 1959)
Strategic planning is essentially about ‘doing something’!
But let us remind ourselves at the outset: education is a people business.
Some common threads
Four points on strategic strategy
1. We must adapt to external forces that are always at work.
Environmental, technical, human.
No adaptation = failure and even the best organisation will fade.
“Effective management relies on its ability to adapt to the environmental, technical, and human forces affecting the company's position at any given moment. The company that best acclimates itself to these forces will emerge the most successful”. Gregory Steffens
2. Adaptation requires creativity.
Strategic leadership and planning is a creative process that requires time, energy and thinking to do well. It is not a science of ‘do this then this happens’ but a creative ‘art’ that imagines, dreams, paints and composes.
3. Strategic leadership is the interaction of three core areas of need.
Task, team and individual. The lack of consideration of one will impact the other two (see John Adair: Effective Strategic Leadership; Pan Books, 2010 p67, 84)
1. Achieving a COMMON TASK
2. Building and maintaining a TEAM
3. Developing and motivating INDIVIDUALS
Miss one of these and the others suffer. Together they create your organisations’ unique culture.
A strategic leader is a conductor bringing direction and cohesion (a beautiful sound) out of a gang or army of very talented people.
4. Strategic leadership involves BIG pictures which are made up of many details.
“A visionary company is like a great work of art. Think of Michelangelo’s scenes from Genesis on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel or his statue of David. Think of a great and enduring novel like Huckleberry Finn or Crime and Punishment. Think of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony or Shakespeare’s Henry V. Think of a beautifully designed building, like the masterpieces of Frank Lloyd Wright or Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. You can’t point to any one single item that makes the whole thing work; it’s the entire work – all the pieces working together to create an overall effect – that leads to enduring greatness”. (John C Maxwell, 2013)
https://www.bgateway.com/resources/strategic-planning-the-basics (Links to external site) points out that a strategic plan is not a business plan. A BP is short or medium term, it defines steps and details methodologies. It is the route map.
A strategic plan is the map. It creates a big picture and outlines how a team will get to the destination or achieve a task. It steps back, has a look and defines priorities. It answers the, ‘Where do we want to go’?
Strategic leaders sees the battle field, they oversee the whole.
Maxine Driscoll (7 essential tips Links to external site) talks of seven key things strategic leaders do when they create a strategic plan:
1. Use strategic thinking, futures thinking and systems thinking to front load your planning and go beyond your school’s current reality. You don’t want to create the school you already have, you want to continue to innovate to meet the changing needs of Generation Alpha and Generation Z
2. Focus on what is most important for your students and your school.
3. Understand that while you can’t create the future you can certainly plan for it. An agile and adaptive plan can be flexible when unforeseen challenges arise and help you to stay true to your most important goals during difficult times.
4. Make sure you use the school’s mission and vision as the foundation to guide your strategic thinking.
5. Consider 3 – 5 year plans depending on your contextual situation; include annual implementation plans and 90-day action plans with priorities, goals and responsibilities. Remember you can complete goals within an earlier time span or push out to a longer time frame if required, always focusing on what is most important (not urgent!).
6. Utilize focus groups to provide consultation with the school community, including student voice, to ensure community ownership.
7. Share the completed strategic plan with the school community and embed it into the life of the school.
What must a strategic plan do?
Three main targets for a strategic plan
1. Inspire and unite the WHOLE
It is not abstract, tick box mentality but a living plan.
2. Keeps the focus on the BIG picture
Reminds us what we are all about every day. It helps us see the challenges of a specific colour or a small plant or… are really only part of a big picture.
3. Keeps pace with a CHANGING world.
Everyone is impacted by our complex, ever changing world. Globalisation in all its forms has created a world of fast moving interaction and change. If you don’t keep up you will drop back.
Example: Kodak Links to an external site.
Founded in 1888 it became the market leader in photographic film. They created the ‘Kodak moment’. But it didn’t innovate. In 1975 they developed the first digital camera but dropped the product as they feared it would take over their film product. In 2012 Kodak filed for bankruptcy.
Question: Can a school become effectively ‘bankrupt’?
‘Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world’. (Nelson Mandela, 2003)
Why do strategic plans fail?
What can go wrong with a strategic plan
Here are some of the things that can cause a strategic plan to fail:
• A tick-box mentality
• A top down approach
• Small group effort
• Problem solving rather than creative – deficit of thinking
• Partial responsibility mindset – opens up a blame game
• Change is seen as disrupting of real work
• Pace is too slow (or too fast)
Resources
CVM Strategic Plan Links to an external site.
Why are strategic plans crucial?
Four reasons why strategic plans are crucial
1. Set your culture
“Culture eats strategy for breakfast”. Culture can’t be a piece of planning but the big picture will help support and undergird the culture. Nothing should be in the plan that is against the culture. The plan and the culture must be integrated.
2. Set your course
Following the map avoids getting lost, avoids the awkward ‘we are lost’ moments.
Leaders must be able to help people get back on the road heading in the right direction.
3. Set your confines
What you say ‘no’ to is as important as what you say ‘yes’ to.
It helps to define what is acceptable and unacceptable, what is supporting unity or what is creating di-vision.
4. Set your consistency
Avoids jumping around from one new initiative to the next. From one style to another.
Creating a great strategic plan
The three questions
There are three basic questions that form the basis of a great strategic plan. We can then ask the more complex questions that go with these basic ones!
1. Where are WE now?
This isn’t all about the leader’s point of view. We see the picture from our eyes!
This involves honest, open, non-threatening, critical, realistic discussion. It needs to be rooted in listening, watching not just facts on a piece of paper.
How are WE doing?
It is about listening to the culture!
A good SWOT analysis is a great way to do this.
Identify key drivers – internal (SW of SWOT), external (pressures, government (OT of SWOT), and opportunities (new, ideal, dreams, skills)
2. Where do WE want to go?
• What is your vision?
• What are your values?
• What do you want your culture to be like?
• What do you want to achieve?
Create a clear vision statement of where you want to be in 5 to 20 years. Detailed one year plans can be developed through delegation.
3. What do WE need to do?
• Identify the changes that will need to happen.
• How will you go about making these changes?
• Do structures need to change?
• What are the financial implications?
• What are the staff implications?
• What realistic deadlines do you need to get there?
Decide what are the key objectives with key actions and key deadlines.
Consider key resource questions such as staff, finance, premises and equipment (but not the detail).
A thought to consider: who is the best person to facilitate the strategic planning gatherings?
Three challenges
What are the three challenges to a strategic plan?
Time
Leaders get so caught up in managing people, places and paper that they leave little time for thinking, creating, planning, dreaming and developing healthy cultures. We too often try to control and micro-manage ‘just in case’.
Time management allows you to be:
• More effective: Doing the right things
• More efficient: Doing things right
This is not the place to talk about time management in any detail other than to say that bad time management leads to a lack of focus and time away from focusing on what we are trying to achieve (strategic).
We must find time for high quality strategic planning.
Distractions:
• The pull of the crisis - rush from one problem to the next - firefighting
• The pull of the current immediate task – the urgent rather than the important
• The pull of the colourless endless uninspiring tick lists = missing opportunity
‘The strategic leader who allows themselves to be overwhelmed by the sheer avalanche of demands on their time soon ceases to be a leader and resorts to being a manager, executive or administrator…..strategic thinking goes out of the window’. (John Adair, 1973)
Talent
Who do we include in developing a strategic plan? We need to make sure we have a variety of skills: creative, pastoral, analytical, operational. It is easy to pick the obvious people but what about looking around and spotting the right people? A new teacher may be ideal for a morning of strategic planning. It is also a great opportunity for their development.
‘Always choose a person of real ability and stature, not those who can be guaranteed to accept the party line, agree with what you say and never challenge you in debate before decisions. If you appoint ‘safe’ people who will do your bidding without a word, you are only advertising your own weakness and insecurity’. (John Adair, 1973)
Trust
Allow people to share, talk, ask questions, challenge, suggest ‘crazy’ things, listen.
‘Remember those words, ‘slow in deliberation and quick in execution’. Don’t rush in where the proverbial angels fear to tread. Take your time. Listen and observe, give your mind time to weigh things up in its own way; test out your provisional decisions on those whom you can trust before you go public’. (John Adair, 1973)
If you build trust you will be able to move faster!
Creating and implementing a strategic plan
How to implement a strategic plan
Clarity
Decide on the sort of questions that need answering rather than simply see how the process goes. At the end of the day be really clear and constantly communicate the
vision and the values. Be as creative as possible. Drop them in at every opportunity.
Flexibility
An old Chinese proverb says:
‘It matters not if a cat is black or white as long as it catches mice’
Be flexible enough to adapt your thinking, to allow different people to use their strengths rather than impose your methodologies. A good strategic plan is big enough to cope with a wide range of characters, skills, backgrounds and styles. It is multi-coloured.
Responsibility
A great plan is clear about who is responsible for what. It delegates areas of responsibility. Good plans release senior leadership to lead not provide a necessity to control and micro-manage.
Delegated assignments will have freedom to develop their own business / detailed plan.
Accountability
Create a natural, easy accountability system. Not so much tick boxes and management but talking, sharing, safety and trust. High natural accountability will help to develop low control management.
Measurability
Make sure the whole team know when you can rejoice over success and be challenged by lack of progress. But it is about team! We are accountable to one another. The best measures are collaborative not imposed. A good question is, ‘How are we going to make sure we are making progress’?
The importance of people
Team morale
Know your team! What are their strengths not just what is their subject knowledge.
Invest your time in people as people not just as producers of lessons, KPIs and plans.
Invest resources in developing people. It doesn’t take a lot to demonstrate the value of the team. Texts, emails, birthday cards…..
Resources
CliftonStrengths Links to an external site.
The personal challenge for leaders
Personal challenges
1. Your self
You are the most difficult person to lead. Make sure you are leading yourself well. Consider physical, emotional, spiritual, developmental health.
“Those who make the worst use of their time are the first to complain of its brevity” (Jean de la Bruyere - 17th century moralist)
“You’ve got to do your own growing, no matter how tall your grandfather was”.
Old Irish proverb
2. Your role
You may need to change your role. Give away tasks you enjoy. Give away responsibility and control.
3. Your team
And so, we return to where we began! It is all about people. Your team are the most important resource you have. Look after them. Nurture them. Care for them. Challenge them. Communicate with them. Listen to them. Without them on board your best strategic plans will fail. Don’t forget that ‘culture eats strategy for breakfast’.
Strategic business proposal – task
One of the keys to successful strategic plans is to know your team. This task is designed to help you reflect on the makeup of your team and perhaps challenge you to think about if any additions of changes may need to be made (please do not use any names – initials will be fine!)
1. Who is on your core strategic team?
2. What strength do each bring to this team?
3. Adair stated, ‘If you appoint ‘safe’ people who will do your bidding without a word, you are only advertising you own weakness and insecurity’. How ‘safe’ is your team when it comes to developing a strategic plan? Explain.
4. How effective do you think your strategic team is? How might you improve effectiveness? Think about time, talent and trust.
