Category: planning

Making your communications successful

Every organization aspires to have successful communications efforts. Successful communications build support for your mission and attract people and resources to your organization.

But what does successful communications look like? Generally, we can think of success in terms of two basic qualities: effectiveness and efficiency. In communications, effectiveness means that our messages reach our audiences in ways that advance our programmatic goals, and efficiency means that we get the biggest impact with the least investment of resources. Communications that are effective but not efficient are unsustainable in the long run, and communications that are efficient but not effective will not get you the results you want. We want our efforts to be successful in the short-term but also sustainable in the long-term.

Unfortunately, many organizations struggle to maximize the success of their communications efforts. This is sometimes due to a lack of time and other resources, sometimes it is due to a lack of institutional understanding about the role and importance of communications, and sometimes it is due to a lack of clarity about how to utilize communications to their fullest effect.

In my experience with organizations, many fail to engage in successful planning for their communications. Good planning helps to focus your efforts, use your resources more effectively and efficiently, and establish a common understanding with others about what you will do and how it will get done. A good plan covers four areas:

  • Purpose. What is it we are trying to achieve and why?
  • Direction. What is our approach for achieving our goals?
  • Action. What will be done, by whom, and by when?
  • Evaluation. How will we monitor progress and measure success?

We sometimes don’t invest in planning because we think it takes too much time and we have an urgent need for action. However, plans need not be elaborate nor time-consuming, and failing to plan can lead to inefficiency and ineffectiveness. While a robust plan can yield strong results, even learning to simply articulate the purpose, direction, action, and evaluation of your communications effort can be used to build support and keep things moving towards success.

June 16, 2017 Add Comment

Is your strategic plan strategic?

A strategic plan is the guiding document for an organization, describing the approaches and actions the organization will take over a certain time period to achieve a set of agreed-upon goals and objectives. It provides a framework for staff to focus their annual and shorter-term work, and for the Board and leadership to measure the organization’s progress and success.

Every organization has a strategic plan, but is that plan actually strategic?

Being strategic means acting with a specific end in mind. It means take steps towards a clear destination. It means being intentional, so that every action serves a purpose.

Many of the strategic plans I’ve seen are a laundry list of activities to be done. Activities that are all thoughtful, all important or valuable, and all mission-aligned. But it isn’t clear how those activities were selected, or how they will collectively move the organization towards a specific outcome. There doesn’t seem to be any intent behind the actions, as if someone thought of things to do without thinking of why to do them.

Good strategic plans are grounded in strategy – thoughtful approaches to achieving a desired aim. What this means in practice is first deciding what you need to do in the time frame of the strategic plan to achieve your mission, before deciding on goals, objectives, and tactics. That way, every action you take is clear, focused, and purposeful.

When I work with clients on strategic planning, I usually pose the following questions:

  • What audiences do you need to reach first?
  • What geographies are your top priority? Why?
  • What is the best approach to growing or expanding your work to reach more people?
  • What barriers do you need to overcome in order to succeed?
  • What can you reasonably achieve in the next five years (or timeframe of the plan)?

There are many possible ways to approach the work, but an organization must decide what path it wants to walk. This is why strategic planning usually begins with a SWOT analysis – to first consider the organization’s competencies and the opportunities and challenges it will face.

When investing in a strategic planning process, make sure that your plan is actually strategic. It will help your organization to act with a clear understanding of the intent and thus bring greater focus to your staff and Board.

 

August 31, 2016 Add Comment

Take care of yourself first

There’s a concept in Judaism called tikkun olam that describes acts of kindness to perfect or repair the world. Though it has religious underpinnings, the idea is often more broadly applied to social policy and social justice issues. Tikkun olam is about healing the world, but the process begins with the individual: you must heal yourself first before you can heal your family, your community, your state, and eventually the world. The first step to fixing societal problems is to look inward and make sure you have the strength, well-being, and capacity to help others.

This concept is helpful for individuals (particularly those who push themselves to their limits and forget about their own self-care) but it is also useful for organizations.

When organizations look at their goals, they tend to be focused on the external ones – what sort of impact the organization wants to have on the world and the strategies needed to achieve that impact. Organizations like to think big and work hard to make a real difference and have a lasting impact.

But in order to achieve those big goals, it’s important to also look inward and think about what the organization needs in order to be successful. What capacity does the organization need to have to implement its plans and what capacity will it need to create? What are the resources – human, financial, technological, and institutional – that must be in place if the organization is to succeed and remain resilient? Are you growing the organization to meet the coming challenges or are you pushing its limits and reducing its effectiveness?

As you strategize for external change, think about strategies for organizational growth and development to achieve those goals. This is done at the strategic plan level, but also at the level of annual planning, team planning, and individual objectives. How are resources being acquired and allocated? How are teams structured and managed for greater productivity? How are individuals developing their own competencies to achieve their objectives?

The first step to helping others is to take care of yourself. Make sure your organization has the strength, resources, and resilience it needs to achieve great things.

August 16, 2016 Add Comment

Are you planning for change?

Change is a natural and even inevitable part of an organization’s life cycle. As the organization grows, learns, and adapts, it will be necessary to alter your strategies or even shift your mission. At a minimum, most organizations create new strategic plans every three to five years. 

The successful implementation of those changes and plans will require the cooperation and commitment of the whole organization – from entry-level staff to your Board. After all, everyone plays a role in the success of the organization. 

But change can be hard. Some people fear what such changes mean for their jobs. Others worry if it’s the right decision for the organization. Some like things the way they are and don’t want things to change. Some people just naturally are creatures of habit, finding comfort in the familiar, and they have a hard time with change. Change can create stress, anxiety, and dissatisfaction and disengagement. All of this resistance will make it harder for the organization to implement any change and succeed in making a shift. 

Most of the time, strategic planning happens with a focus on producing the deliverable without fully considering the process or how it affects others. Any good planning process should assess potential resistance and proactively respond to ensure successful implementation of the plan. This takes a little more effort, but done well, it makes organizational changes so much easier. 

Here are a few ways to reduce resistance and improve acceptance of and commitment to the new plan:

  • Consider potential concerns from the start. Survey the employees to get an understanding for how people are feeling and to identify both those who will resist the changes and those who can help promote them. What specific concerns do people have? How can you alleviate those concerns and send a positive message that resonates with staff?
  • Communicate a clear vision and value. If you want people to get on board with the changes, they need to understand the purpose and benefits of such changes. Why is this change so important? Why now? What will things look like with the changes? How will things be better for the organization and everyone who works there?
  • Involve people in the process. Reach out to key people in the organization who can help implement the changes and help build a coalition of support. Empower the staff to be proactive and help solve any problems that may arise in the process. Keep channels open for ideas and feedback that can improve the changes or their implementation. 
  • Provide regular updates. Keep people informed about the process, key milestones, critical decisions, and opportunities for staff to provide feedback or engage in the process. Also, updates are a good way to reinforce the vision, value, and enthusiasm for the forthcoming changes.
  • Offer support during the transition. While you want to provide opportunities for people to provide feedback and be involved in helping the organization change, you also want to make sure employees are supported by the organization. Have someone who can advise employees that are struggling with the transition, and consider making someone involved in the change process serve as a liaison to answer questions or just listen to concerns. Some organizations also offer additional time off to help people deal with stress, or allow flex-time to help them balance personal priorities when work gets too stressful.

Once the changes are in place, be sure to reinforce them with incentives and by demonstrating how such changes are leading to positive outcomes for staff and the organization. 

Change is hard, especially when it can mean venturing into the unknown. To make the transition easier, planning for change should include planning for implementation, factoring in others’ feelings about the change into the process. When you need to change an entire organization, you need the entire organization standing with you. 

April 27, 2016 Add Comment

3 steps to greater productivity

As the new year gets underway, I’ve been doing a lot of reading about how to improve my clients’ productivity – and my own. After all, we have things we need to achieve this year, and plenty of things we aspire to achieve if only we could get more done.

I’ve read plenty of articles on the subject, and most provide information that is already pretty obvious or just not for me. Sometimes the best articles are the ones where other CEOs and business leaders give more practical advice. These articles spark new ideas for me to try.

But after reading up on the subject, I’ve realized that productivity boils down to three things:

  • planning
  • prioritization
  • focus

Let’s take a look at how these three things can be practically applied to improve your productivity on a daily basis.

Planning. The most productive people plan their work and organize their time. These people set goals – long-term (yearly) as well as the short-term (daily) – and use tools like checklists, task lists, and time blocking. Without planning, people are more likely to get sucked into distractions, have deadlines sneak up on them, or lose sight of what matters. So think about what you want to achieve in the long-term and what needs to get done in the short-term to be successful. Then block your time accordingly.

I use a five-tier system. I set annual goals for myself – professional and personal – and I try to balance aspiration with pragmatism. I do this at the start of the year, setting 2-3 goals for each of the different areas of my life. Then, I look at each quarter and what I want to achieve in that time towards my annual goals. I know some quarters may be busier with travel or family time or other special events, so this helps me spot any potential bottlenecks and I adjust my plans as needed. Then I break down my quarterly goals into months, again to spot any bottlenecks and to also see if my plans can realistically be achieved in that time frame. I then plot out each week’s goals in a table sorted by category. I limit myself to 2-3 weekly goals for each category, so I have less than ten for any given week. Finally, I keep a task list for each day, using my weekly goals as a guide and adding any more immediate tasks (responding to emails, administrative tasks, running errands, etc.). And of course, I use my task list to block time in my calendar, so that I ensure I have time for all my tasks and other activities (working out, eating, writing, etc.). Each week I review my progress on my weekly goals, each month I review my progress on monthly goals, and each quarter I review my progress on quarterly goals. This keeps me moving forward and adjusting as needed to be successful. (After all, plans are just that – plans.)

Prioritization. Many leaders will warn you that there will always be more to do than you can handle. Knowing what is most important to tackle is critical, so you don’t get bogged down by things that keep you from making progress towards the big picture goals. There are lots of methods for determining something’s priority level – decision criteria and threshold measurements that quickly evaluate whether or not something deserves your time and effort. The general approach is to figure out whether or not the task before you will advance your long-term goals or add value to your business. And then all the rest should be either be delegated to someone else, set aside for when you have time, or rejected altogether. Remember: being strategic means knowing what not to do as much as it means knowing what to do.

I keep my priorities straight through planning and organization. For each week, I know what I need to achieve, and when I make my daily task lists, I highlight the things that must get done that day. Then I tackle those things first, saving less important things for later in the day. That way, if something comes up and I don’t get to the less important items on my list, I can push them to the next day or later in the week. I also front-load my week, putting all the priority objectives in the first couple of days and leaving more unplanned time later in the week, so I have spare time to achieve objectives or else extra time to either get ahead or work on side projects. When new opportunities come up, I  use the lift-risk-reward method to assess its importance and urgency. If I decide to take on something that requires more effort, I adjust my planning to make sure I stay on track and use my time to achieve my long-term goals. Some deadlines are fixed and will take priority while flexible deadlines can be shifted to accommodate new clients and projects.

Focus. All this planning and prioritization is useless if at the end of the day you don’t actually sit down and get things done. Just because you blocked time on your calendar doesn’t mean you will actually use that time as planned. You need to commit to the plan and follow through.

There are several different techniques for staying focused. The most basic one is to eliminate distractions of modern technology: leave your phone on silent in the other room, turn off your internet connection, turn off alerts from your mail application, and close any social media sites or applications. Another is to tell others that you are blocking off time and should not be disturbed, and along with this could be a change in environment – closing your office door or even moving to a quiet conference room away from your coworkers. Speaking of which, create the right conditions for focus: silence or music you can ignore, something to eat or drink (stay hydrated), a comfortable place to sit (but not too comfortable), the right temperature (do you work better in cold or warm environments), etc. Sometimes changing your environment periodically keeps you focused too. Try taking short walks every couple of hours, especially if you can get outdoors and walk around somewhere with some greenery. And pay attention to your natural circadian rhythm. Always get a good night’s rest and then see where you have more energy in the day, using those times for harder tasks and lower energy periods for more mindless tasks.

I’ll be honest: I personally struggle with focus. My brain is isn’t wired to sit still and pay attention to just one thought at a time, and I’ve struggled for years with staying focused and not multitasking. But lately I’m trying some approaches that are working for me. First of all, I make sure to get a full night’s sleep, and then my morning routine consists of a quick workout, drinking a full glass or two of water, eating a light healthy breakfast, and jumping right into my first big task of the day. I use the Pomodoro technique to keep myself engaged, and I don’t keep any social media websites or my mail application open during these periods. (It takes a lot of discipline to ignore that email or message but if you use Pomodoro then it’s no more than 25 minutes before you respond – not a long time at all.) I work at home but I sit myself at the dining room table with some tea or water and I put on some music that I usually tune out (sometimes I don’t put on any music at all and just work in silence). And after each task accomplished I will reward myself with a visit to social media, a snack, some small task that I’ve been itching to take care of, or playing with the cats (amazing what some feline companionship and purring can do for the soul). And I keep in mind how good it felt the day before to get my work done. The visualization of success – how it feels to achieve my goals and not have any work lingering when I relax at the end of the day – keeps me moving forward.

Success is not something we dream of, it’s something we do. We achieve the long-term by focusing in the short-term and accomplishing daily tasks. Planning helps us tie the immediate work before us to bigger aspirations, as well as allocating our time in a way that sets us up for achievement. Prioritization ensures that the most critical tasks get done while preventing us from expending time and energy on things that don’t matter. And focus keeps us moving forward, step by step, task by task, minute by minute, towards improving our work, our businesses, and ourselves.

So what are you waiting for? Start being more productive today!

January 12, 2016 Add Comment