designing effective strategic planning retreats

Sponsored by:

Designing Effective Strategic Planning Retreats

Rick Lent and Sam Frank

August 7, 2013

Twitter Hashtag - #npweb

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Of:

Sponsored by:

Advising nonprofits in:

• Strategy

• Planning

• Organizational Development

www.synthesispartnership.com

(617) 969-1881

[email protected]

INTEGRATED PLANNING

Part

Of:

Sponsored by: Part

Of:

Coming Soon

Sponsored by:

Today’s Speakers

Sam Frank Principal, Synthesis Partnership

Founding Director, Nonprofit Webinars

Assisting with chat questions: Jamie Maloney, 4Good

Part

Of:

Rick Lent Principal

Meeting for Results

Designing Effective Strategy Sessions: Planning to Achieve Results

Rick Lent, Ph.D. Sam Frank

www.meetingforresults.com

Strategy, planning & organizational development

for nonprofits

www.synthesispartnership.com

Take-Aways

1. Critical role of engagement in a strategic planning.

2. How to choose tools to help you structure an

effective, engaging session in your situation.

3. How to use selected tools for implementing

effective structures regarding…

• Whom you invite to participate.

• How you design the discussion to support dialogue.

• How you plan to reach a decision.

• How you plan to follow-up.

6 www.meetingforresults.com

www.meetingforresults.com 7

What is changing in how organizations conduct strategy sessions?

1. Changes in focus: how broad or prescriptive?

2. Changes in the frequency of planning?

3. Changes in who is involved?


What is your experience? Type in your thoughts on any of these:

Changing Context for Strategic Planning?

• Planning has to be directional and flexible.

• More critical to involve various stakeholders as well as senior leaders.

• More of a dynamic process subject to ongoing input and improvement.

• Greater need to build organizational engagement and commitment quickly.


Overview: Nonprofit Strategic Planning Process


Preparation

Assessment

Implementation

Engagement

Plan Development

Engagement

Preparation

Assessment

Implementation

Plan Development

Examples 1) A major foundation wants to revamp the strategy that has

shaped its direction for decades • 200 people, from front desk to board participate

• Video of interviews with beneficiaries

• 2 ½ days


2) National social action organization wants to develop aligned strategy to coordinate multi-state efforts. • 30 presidents and board members from state affiliates

• 2 days

3) State nonprofit needs to redefine how it serves its clients • 6 executive board members and 20 regional representatives • 6 hours

Challenges

• More people involved in planning with different stakes and levels of authority.

• Widespread understanding and support essential to fast and flexible implementation.

• Need to avoid overly lengthy implementation process, multiple re-dos, cascades and so on.

In large, complex, and potentially contentious sessions, you need to pay critical attention to meeting structure to be successful.



Unseen Structures Affect What We Do …

This work by Rick Lent, Ph.D. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/




Unseen Structures of Meetings

• Physical, temporal, procedural aspects of meetings.

• With an (unrecognized) impact on how we interact with each other and the work of the meeting.

www.meetingforresults.com 14 This work by Rick Lent, Ph.D. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.






Which Strategic Planning Meeting Would You Rather Attend?

12 Structural Choices Across the Three Phases of Any Meeting


Planning

1. How you define the work of the meeting.

2. Whom you invite.

3. How you design the discussion.

4. How you plan to reach a decision.

5. How time will be “spent.”

6. How you will arrange the meeting space.

Conducting

1. How you share responsibility.

2. How you support dialogue.

3. How you manage time

4. How you work with any conflict.

Achieving Results

1. How you build decisions.

2. How you plan to follow-up.






Key Choices for Structuring for Effective Strategic Planning Meetings


• Whom you invite to participate.

• How you design the discussion to support dialogue.

• How you plan to reach a decision.

• How you plan to follow-up.

Whom You Invite


• Include (representatives of) the whole system.

• Not just the “usual suspects”

• Tool for identifying diverse stakeholders:

– “ARE IN.”






ARE IN: Identifying Who Should Be Present

• Be clear about the work of the meeting and what a successful result will entail. Then plan to include those who represent: – Authority to act on meeting conclusions.

– Resources to apply in implementing meeting conclusions.

– Expertise on critical aspects of the discussion or decision.

– Information on some aspect of the discussion.

– Need for an effective outcome of this meeting. This tool was first defined by Weisbord and Janoff (2010)







How You Design the Discussion


Plan to maintain a productive discussion given:

– Numbers of participants and if they know each other

– Differences in status or perspective

– Role of presentations

– Tools to support your structure: 1-2-All

PALPaR (Present, Ask, Listen, Pause and Reflect)

• Three Reaction Questions






1-2-All: Effective Engagement for Groups of Any Size

After introducing a subject or question to be addressed by the group, complete the following steps. 1: Individual Reflection. Check to make sure everyone

understands the question or topic for consideration, and then give individuals a moment to gather their thoughts.

2: Small Group Discussion. Next ask participants to turn to their neighbors to form small, 2-3 person groups to share their ideas. Explain the time they have for their discussion and ask them to make sure everyone in their small group can share his/her thoughts in that time.

All: Whole Group Report. Ask each group for a brief report (typically 1-3 minutes) summarizing their small group discussion for everyone.






PALPaR: Creating a Respectful Exchange of Reactions

Before presenting a plan or proposal, outline the following steps to participants, and then implement as described.

Present: You present the proposal (report or other information).

Ask: Then you ask participants to talk with each other (in small groups) to answer three “reaction” questions:

1. What did you like about this proposal?

2. Where do you need more information?

3. What don’t you like?

Listen: Take reports from each small group, one question at a time. That is, take everyone’s comments on the first question about “likes” first, before going to the second question. As you hear replies, record key points where all can see.

Pause: Then take a break to incorporate what you have heard before continuing. Use this pause to reflect on feedback received and decide how to respond. You do not have to change your proposal in response to the feedback. And…

Reply: Come back to the group and summarize what you heard as key points, and then how you have taken that feedback into account (or not) in the final proposal.






Three Reaction Questions: Gathering Balanced Feedback

After you present a proposal, ask participants to reflect on their own or (even better) to talk in small groups to answer the questions below. Try not to take any questions at first, as this will open up the discussion before you give them all a chance to reflect on their reactions.

1. What do you like about [the proposal]? 2. Where do you need further information? 3. Where do you have concerns?

After a few minutes, take reports (from individuals or small groups), one question at a time beginning with the first. Make sure you get all replies to the first question before proceeding to the second. Once all the reactions have been shared, ask the group, “What are we learning about this proposal/decision?” to help everyone integrate all that s/he heard and arrive at overall conclusions.






How You Plan to Reach a Decision


• Productive engagement requires being clear how you want to reach decisions on strategy.

• Five ways to reach decisions with a group, “5Cs” – Consensus

– Consent

– Compromise

– Counting

– Consulting






How You Plan to Follow-Up


• Strategy can be implemented more effectively when people have a chance to reflect on their actions in an appropriately structured and timed follow-up...

• Tools to structure effective follow-up:

– Three Follow-Up Questions

– Follow-Up Timing






Three Follow-Up Questions Learning from a balanced review of progress

Bring the group together and focus the discussion around these three questions:

1. What has been accomplished as planned?

2. What hasn’t been accomplished as planned?

3. What can we learn about making progress in this area from our answers to both questions?

Use all three questions one at a time in this order. You can modify the questions to fit the circumstances, but use all three types.







Follow Up Timing Choosing an Effective Time for Learning from Actions

Announce a review of progress on agreed actions within 30-45 days of the original meeting.

• This period of time is usually long enough to have some accomplishments.

• More important, this is not so long that the only thing that is “top of mind” is why some planned action was unrealistic.






For More Information..

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