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a lot of boards uh volunteers when they serve on a board they they bring a lot of experience and expertise in their field in their domain so they're you know they understand the technical elements of the work that they do and they often want to really roll up their sleeves and get hands-on with kind of the the implementation and what your society needs from you as a board is not that there's staff there to do that what they need you there for is to share where are we going as an organization how do we as a society best serve our members if you're focusing on operational issues which is what your ceo is also doing who's focusing on strategy hi everyone welcome to another episode of the strategic nonprofit podcast i'm your host trista mciver and today we'll be going we're going to be talking about strategic planning including the intricacies of developing and monitoring a plan within your organization we know that now is the time for most organizations to review their strategic plans as the world has evolved fast over the past couple years and continues to evolve a plan from pre-pandemic or even during the pandemic era might not be relevant anymore so if you feel like now is the time to start looking at your strategic plan again and to start planning for your future this episode is for you to explore the topic further i'm thrilled to have with us today the ceo of amc mpo solutions tom abbott thanks for joining us on the podcast today tom well trista thanks for having me i am really excited to talk about all things strategic planning i love this topic to me this is the be-all and end-all of organization so i'm thrilled to jump right in excellent so let's just start from the very beginning whose responsibility is it to create the strategic plan yeah well the short answer is it's the board the board is responsible for developing creating thinking about articulating envisioning the strategic plan so the reason why i emphasize that is because some frameworks some models like the carver model for example actually puts the responsibility of developing the strategic plan in the hands of the chief staff officer the ceo the executive director the board delegates that task to the ceo i feel like that's a huge mistake for a few reasons number one is actually legal liability in fact the board of directors is legally responsible for both the management and the governance of the organization which means they are responsible for the direction that the organization goes thus they need to actually develop the strategic plan in the absence of that a lot of boards even feel like well what am i even doing here what's the reason for me to sit on this board if all i'm doing is reviewing reports from the ed i want to be involved in some way not in the operation or the administration but i want to be involved in formulating the plan like what are we here for draw upon my expertise and my knowledge let me give back so that's what boards need to be doing is to actually provide their insights into the direction that the organization the society needs to go so it's the responsibility of the board to develop the strategic plan not the implementation the operational plan which is very different but the big picture strategic plan yeah this is what i really like about our complementary model is the coordination and working together of the executive director ceo and the board um to get together to work on and and develop a strategic plan well i like what you say just about work together yeah right so some people say oh well wait a minute so are you suggesting that the ed has no role to play in the strat plan no seat at the table no voice no not suggesting that at all in fact the the ceo should be and senior management so not just the ceo but if it's a larger organization and your your your npo has some senior staff you know a director of this or a director of that or a manager of this service or this program invite them to contribute and participate in the discussion with the board absolutely however the ultimate decision as to what those strategic goals and objectives are lies with the board the board approves that strategic plan the buck stops with them so definitely ev we say the rules it's complementary so we need to get the the ceo to participate in that because and and senior management they have boots on the ground they know what's going on they can really provide a lot of useful information so they should be part of the discussion but the decision as to where we go as a society rests solely squarely on the shoulders of the board absolutely so with the with that how do they start how would you start what are some uh steps that they can take an organization can take to um create yeah how do we get going yeah yeah how do we start so basically how we get going is it starts with the board have making a commitment to you know what i think it's time for a strat planning session let's do this it may have been two three four maybe more years since they've looked at their strategic plan and it's about time if we've learned anything over the last two or three years is that strategic planning never planned for this right so um it's important to kind of dust off that strategic plan and you know similarly we we did a podcast on bylaws and no one wants to look at their bylaws and yet they should you know every two or three years just to make sure that they're up to date and nomenclature is current and there's not you know any terms that are um you know outdated but that's another podcast episode link in the show notes but anyhow um same thing with your strategic plan we want to make sure that um we're moving in the right direction and have our goals changed at all and they probably have in terms of how we're going to get things done or perhaps what we should be doing so there needs to be commitment on the part of the board to at least you know review revisit this plan and then carve out some time set aside some time to meet preferably in person if you can if you're comfortable with that but virtually hybrid works as well but carve out the time to actually meet to go through the work one two three days sometimes but i think two or two is just nice to really um come up with something that you all feel good about uh as a as a board and and then come up with some clear outcomes which i can talk about in a moment some clear outcomes how will we know that this strategic planning session was in fact successful absolutely now i know with an organization that i was talking with they actually achieved their goal their mission they achieved their mission done and yeah exactly and so they they needed to revisit their mission and their vision because they there's you know everything didn't they they didn't yeah yeah exactly figure something out yeah and i know that's what it is that's the first step right okay yeah okay so let's talk about kind of the the um what are the outcomes that would be achieved as a result of a strategic planning session well the first thing that you'll want to and this is how you know that the strat planning session was successful number one is you would reaffirm the mission of the organization so by reaffirm we mean is this what we're here for is this the big picture objective so you want to look at your vision and your mission for the society what's our reason for existing what's our purpose now sometimes at some strat planning sessions this could take you know 10 15 minutes where you you look at your your mission statement you know usually you check out the website because you're like oh i haven't seen this in a while and you know you check out your website and go yeah that seems about right yep we're all good you know all in favor perfect let's move on sometimes we'll work with a board that goes wait a minute let's just not move too quickly here this says empower i think it should say enable and then someone goes that's the same thing but then someone else goes you know what there's a distinction between those two let's let's flush this out for a couple of hours and sometimes that's what happens and and there's nothing wrong with that um in fact i remember working with one organization where the the ceo said can we just quickly kind of go through the mission and vision just kind of move on to the meat right the meat and potatoes let's get to the setting of the strategic goals and i said definitely and i have to see what direction your board wants to go it's not it's not my strat planning session it's not my agenda and it's and it's not yours ceo it's not yours it's the boards where do they want to go now i'll do my best to make sure that we can kind of stay on track but i have to follow the appetite of the board and what ended up happening uh was that we spent a couple of hours looking at the the mission statement which everyone the ceo included afterwards says you know what i'm glad we spent the time there because we needed everybody at the table to feel like yes this is our purpose this is who our stakeholders are this is who our community is this is what we're trying to achieve this is how we'll know we're successful at the end of the day right this is what we're aspiring towards so number one is you want to reaffirm the vision and the mission number two is you want to set some clear goals strategic goals that are consistent with that vision and mission i would recommend maybe three to five goals some groups get overly ambitious and they've come up with this huge shopping list of 10 different this is what we're gonna do in 2022 or 2023 and you're like really that's not gonna happen okay like you don't have the resources for it now i don't want to stifle creativity or you know poo poo an idea but what i'm really looking at is saying wait a minute you can't set 10 different big picture goals because how are you going to monitor them how do you make sure you've got the resources to actually achieve those things so try to be a little bit more realistic dare i say and set three to five big picture strategic goals now once you've done that then you want to set three to five smaller bite size manageable objectives that will then lead towards achieving those goals so these are the first three things every board needs to do and most boards do these really well we've hit the vision and mission we've set the goals and the objectives and we're done let's put it on the shelf right we'll see this in two years so here's where a lot of boards go wrong what we want to do is make sure that nobody leaves that room you gotta barricade the doors nobody leaves the room until you've done the next three things so the first of those last three which is number four is to identify okay so who's going to do what so make sure you've identified who is responsible for who's accountable for making sure that those um you know programs get developed that those initiatives get undertaken etc whose name gets put beside action by whom okay so that's number four number five is action by when set some timelines when do we need to achieve those goals so how do we know that we're on track that we're moving forward that we're on target and then number six is you want to establish monitoring mechanisms to oversee the work on the strategic plan so this is where we start getting into implementation so the board does the formulation of the big picture strategic plan then hands over that plan to the ceo to then flush it out and to come up with an operational plan or an implementation plan here's how i'm going to get that done here are the internal resources that i need in order to make it happen here might be a ceo working committee or two or three or four that i will strike in order to achieve those goals here's the budget board that i need in order to achieve those goals so they would have a draft budget that they would then put to the board for review and approval or disapproval it could be rejected by the board the board is responsible for establishing the strategic plan and the operational budget they approve the budget for the organization with advisement and recommendation a draft budget of course coming from the ceo they know the ins and outs and the nuts and bolts but they would come up with that operational plan and then the board would uh approve that final uh strategic plan so uh overseeing the work organizational effectiveness monitoring that is a critical role of the board which can take place in in in the form of a ceo report right so the ed report of the ceo report that could be every month every you know two months or every quarter at the discretion of the board the board determines how frequently they should get that report there could be committee reports as well which can give updates on how we're moving towards implementing the plan as well as the financial report gives us indications as to are we on budget is there a variance if so why and then finally if needed sometimes an external uh third party report to assess or audit or monitor certain programs or or policies so those are the four monitoring mechanisms available to a board to ensure um to look at modern um organizational effectiveness and to make sure that we're on track with the street strategic absolutely plan think i mumbled through teacher plan two or three times but the strategic plan yes well that's great and i really love our last three parts of our steps that we do a lot of organizations that i talk with they really appreciate that we take the time to be able to you know make make it happen not just have the wonderful goals and objectives and have them sit on the shelf but they they are the the eds really like the the monitoring part of it and so what um like whose responsibility really is it to monitor the implementation of the strategic plan right so that's a great question trista so just big picture we're looking at you know this idea of monitoring organizational performance or monitoring organizational effectiveness how are we doing as a society in terms of reaching our organizational goals being the strategic goals or implementing that strat plan who's responsible for monitoring it's a shared responsibility the board and the ceo so the board and the ceo are both responsible for monitoring um of course the ceo monitors every day right they're involved day-to-day boots on the ground they've got skin in the game they're there they know what's happening day in day out so they need to be monitoring these things as well as the board the board also has to monitor that's just part of their responsibility as director so it's a shared function and the best way to have the monitoring happen would be through the ceo report which would be provided again you know every month every every two months or every quarter right right but a shared responsibility both the board and the ed ceo have a part to play they complement each other and they have to work together on making sure that the organization is moving in the right direction yes absolutely so tom what what would you like to touch on that we haven't sort of touched on yet any final words i would say his final thoughts is final thoughts yeah just remember that your number one responsibility as as a board is to set the course for the organization that is your number one role a lot of boards uh volunteers when they serve on a board they they bring a lot of experience and expertise in their field in their domain so they're you know they understand the technical elements of the work that they do and they often want to really roll up their sleeves and get hands-on with kind of the the implementation and what your society needs from you as a board is not that there's staff there to do that what they need you there for is to share where are we going as an organization how do we as a society best serve our members what should we be doing and thinking strategically like 30 000 feet if you picture an airplane you're up there at 30 000 feet that's where your board needs to be if there's one big concern that i hear the biggest complaint for lack of a better term from ceos is they feel that their board is too much in the weeds too much on the ground getting involved in operational issues if you're focusing on operational issues which is what your ceo is also doing who's focusing on strategy that's supposed to be you board needs to focus on the strategy 30 000 feet committees 15 to 20 000 feet and leave the boots on the ground on the runway on the tarmac that is for the staff so focus on big picture strategy and that's going to provide the clarity and the direction that your society desperately needs i love the analogy of the 30 000 feet it really uh gives a good perspective of where a board needs to be looking at the big picture kind of looking down on what's going on um and yeah stay staying out of those operational yeah yeah holistic view of what's happening in the industry what's happening out there and what do we as a society need to be doing to serve our members to serve our members absolutely well thanks again tom for joining us on the podcast today my pleasure see you again thanks if your organization loses focus only a few months into the year your annual plan might be unrealistic set the course for success and engage amc to facilitate your annual planning session and give the participants a concrete statement on what the organization needs to achieve including how and when our skilled strategic planning facilitators are ready to take your organization to that next level contact us today to conduct an annual strategic planning session that creates a brighter future for your board and staff simply click the link in the description or head over to our website amc mpo solutions strategic planning to get started