Introduction:
Walking into my first all-day Strategic Planning session as the coach of a vital county non-profit, I admit I was a little nervous. Soon, learning that one of the participants had marked this day in her calendar as “Strategic Planning Misery” instead of “Strategic Planning Meeting” did not calm my nerves. I had a plan, and I had a partner, but what made me confident was that I was applying a coach approach to the process.
Even though I had not led a Strategic Planning meeting before, I had coached for hundreds of hours. I know how to lead a client through a coaching conversation like the back of my hand. A coach must connect with the client, evoke new awareness, build decisive action, and end with solid accountability.
I was confident because as I looked at the process for creating a Strategic Plan, I saw all the hallmarks of a coaching conversation. Coaching works. It works on individuals, groups, and teams, and it was going to work to get these non-profit leaders through their Strategic Planning Misery as well.
First, I set up expectations.
A group that does not know what to expect is nervous. The first thing a coach must do is shew away any unneeded anxiety. The expectations are brief and should take less than five minutes. I tell the group that I expect each of them to participate, challenge, and commit. I also add my two rules for coaching: the Las Vegas Rule and the Star Trek Rule.
Rather than tell them the Las Vegas rule, I say, “Everybody knows the Las Vegas rule, whether you are a gambler or not.” Then I say the first part of the well-known phrase, “What happens in Vegas…” Every group knows the rest, “Stays in Vegas.” I simply add, “You can say what you need to say in this room. It isn’t going to leave. You are safe.”
Then I tell them the Star Trek rule. Unfortunately, it is not as famous as the Las Vegas rule. The Star Trek rule is that “we will boldly take your thinking where it has not gone before.” In other words, you’re going to have to be creative. You’re going to have to think some new thoughts. Some people are going to love the creative part. Others will find it a drudge, but I will make it easy for them.
Second, I build trust.
For people to think well together, they have to be vulnerable with each other. No matter how much time you have, you can not skip this step. It should not take over 15 minutes, but even if it does, this step will make all the other steps possible. The normal brain desires self-protection over self-actualization. The brains need to be reset to build a strategic plan together.
There are many ways to build trust. One I often use is to give the participants three core values (taken from a Pat Lencioni book) and have them silently rank the values from best to worst as reflected in their own participation in the organization.
Hungry: Driven and self-motivated, hungry people always look for more to do, learn, and take on.
Humble: Prioritizes the team over the self and quickly recognizes others’ contributions.
Smart: Emotionally intelligent and aware of how their actions and reactions affect others.
This should take less than a minute. Once they have ranked themselves, I ask the group to focus on one person at a time and reveal how they would have ranked the individual. I ask a few discovery questions to understand better why the others may have ranked the core values for each person. Before I move to the next person, I ask the current individual to share how they ranked themselves and see what they learned from the feedback of the others.
This is helpful for them to receive praise and identify their blind spots. It also lets them know how others with different values might participate in the rest of the planning process. Once everyone has participated, the group is ready to proceed to the work.
Third, I help them discover where they want to go.
Coaching, in its most basic form, is helping people move from where they are to where they want to go. The problem is that few people, and sometimes fewer organizations, know where they want to go. This is why so much emphasis has been placed on creating an organizational mission statement. We should all know why the organization exists and see if we are fulfilling that mission. Yet most leaders have to dig their mission statement out of a drawer, and even then, they are unsure how to fulfill the mission.
The participants need to know this is a discovery phase. The group needs to be able to think outside its regular box and articulate a grand vision for its organization. I do this by helping them determine three things: their passion, their niche, and their ten-year target (taken from Gino Wickman’s book Traction).
Passion: What gets these people up in the morning? Why would they spend long, grueling days working on endless projects? They need to express their passion, or in other words, their cause.
Niche: What is the particular problem they want to solve? Their passion could cause them to solve all kinds of problems, but a focused organization needs to narrow its resources to solving one particular problem for one particular group of people.
Ten-Year Target: In one or two sentences, the group should state what they hope will be true about their organization in ten years.
Before an organization can create a strategic plan, it must be clear on what it hopes to accomplish. This is creative, discerning work; not everyone will be as good at it as the rest. You can assure those who find this part difficult that they will be significant assets in the next phase of the process.
Fourth, I help them create action steps.
This is the part most of the group has been raring to create, but just as in any coaching conversation, if you do not take time to discover and expand the topic first, then the action steps will be stale and ineffective. If I’m leading an all-day process, I try to be sure we are working on the action part right after lunch. The details will be critical for the group to make long-term progress from their finished plan.
As in many of the previous parts of this process, I divide the action into ever-tighter segments so they can see how the plan has evolved from their ten-year target. Again, borrowing from Traction, I lead the group through three goal-setting processes: a three-year picture, one-year goals, and 90-day rocks.
Three-Year Picture: The ten-year view is a target obscured from clear view but indicating a particular direction. In the three-year view, a picture starts to emerge. This picture is defined by at least one or two very specific figures that lead us toward the ten-year target.
One-Year Goals: To stay on track toward the organization’s three-year picture, this list of three to seven priorities must be completed by the end of the year.
90-Day Rocks: The idea of a rock is to avoid the urgency of the day-to-day grind. What are a few things that must be done in the next 90 days for the organization to meet its one-year goals? These rocks must be specific and assigned to one person responsible for their accomplishment.
The 90-Day Rocks become the lifeblood of weekly meetings. These actions rise above the urgent to ensure the organization continues to move forward toward its greater purpose. At this point in the process, the more specific and measurable the actions, the better.
Last, I help build accountability around their action steps.
Just as in coaching, creating the action steps can feel like the crescendo of the conversation. We must be sure to end the group’s process with a commitment to the work. Otherwise, the Strategic Plan will end up like all the rest—in a drawer, on a shelf, out of sight.
To end the process, I go around the room and ask each person for one commitment and one learning from the day. This puts a tight button on the work and puts each one in the mindset of committing to the plan.
Conclusion:
Listening to the commitments and, even more, listening to their learning, I was assured that my partner and I successfully put the group out of their misery. They enjoyed the process and felt compelled to move the organization forward! They had a strong plan and were looking forward to their next meeting.
A coach approach can be applied to many things—training, leading, and even strategic planning. Something magical happens when the participants know you are leading them through a helpful process. You can help them relax and work together to achieve something greater than themselves. Finally, the coach approach helps me relax and feel confident in helping any team work through any process.
