A strategic plan should map out three key areas: where your organization currently is; where you want your organization to be; and how you get your organization to achieve its vision. By mapping out these three key areas, leaders and managers can then think, learn, and act strategically. All organizations, big and small, for-profit and nonprofit, face numerous and difficult challenges. Change is inevitable, and organizations will experience the roller coaster ride of facing relative stability followed by periods of dramatic and oftentimes rapid change. A strategic plan helps guide leaders and managers to make decisions that shape and guide what an organization is, what it does, and why it does it. During the most unstable times, a strategic plan can serve as the north star during the most tumultuous times.

Three Key Strategic Issues for When Creating a Strategic Plan

Where You Are

To get to point B (pun intended), you need to know where you are currently (point A). This is where the organization needs to understand and define the following items as they are today:

Mission

The organizational mission statement should be a concise explanation of the organization’s reason for existence, in essence the “why” of the organization or the organization’s purpose and intention.

Mandates

Mandates can include formal and informal mandates that are placed on the organization. The organization should review requirements, restrictions, pressures, constraints, legislations, policies, ordinances, charters, articles, and contracts.

Structure and Systems

The organization should define how certain activities are currently directed to achieve the goals of an organization. In essence this includes the 3 “Rs”: rules, roles, and responsibilities.

Some key questions to examine include:

• • Who are the key decision makers?
  • How are the teams/departments set up and how do they work together?
  • What are the current standard operating procedures?
  • What are the current service level agreements?

Communications

The organization should define its current method of communicating messages, particularly common goals, among internal and external shareholders. For example, how does the organization currently update employees about new policies or goals? What is the current communications plan?

Programs & Services

The organization needs to define the products and/or services it currently offers, which should include to whom they offer each of those products and/or services to.

People & Skills

The organization should define the people that they currently employ or retain, their roles, and the skill sets they hold. Think of this as a skillset inventory audit.

Budget

The organization should define the annual organization’s projected income and expenses for a 12-month period. A budget should be balanced, meaning that the projected expenditures are equal to the projected revenues. Budgets should not be ignored because they are a plan to control the finances of the business, ensure that the business can fund its current commitments, enable the business to meet its objectives, and make confident financial decisions.

Support

A nonprofit organization should evaluate what other organizations their organization supports or what organizations support their organization. Nonprofits are often tied to other nonprofits to fulfill a need in the community that is not currently being met. For a for profit organization, they should evaluate the business partnerships and organizations that support their organization. For example, a cardiology practice may want to consider the primary care practices and lab companies with whom they partner.

Where You Want to Be

After evaluating the status of your organization, you can now determine the direction of the organization. Define where the organization will be in 1 year, 3 years, 5 years, and so on. I encourage those who are developing a strategic plan to create a vision board. A vision board is a physical or digital manifestation of your goals. (Personally, I love using PowerPoint for this endeavor.) Collect images that represent where you want your organization to be in a year, 3 years, and even 10 years.

Each person who is participating in the strategic planning session (Strategic Planning Board or Committee), can share their vision. Once everyone shares their vision, the board or committee can evaluate what each vision has in common and recreate a vision board for the organization. Once the vision board has been created, the board or committee can now outline the mission, mandates, structure and systems, communications, programs and services, people and skills, budget, and support needed to achieve the vision of the future.

However, to identify where the organization wants to be you need to have your mission, vision, and values clearly defined.

Mission

As stated earlier, the mission statement should be a concise explanation for the organizations reason for existence, in essence the “why” of the organization.

For example, MPWRSource’s mission statement is: MPWRSource promises to earnestly serve as a strategic growth catalyst for start-up and existing small and mid-sized B2B businesses, nonprofits, and local governments as a single hub of empowerment in ever-changing and evolving business practices, technologies, and markets.

Vision

A vision statement tells the world “what” the organization wants to achieve and for what purpose it is in existence.

For example, MPWRSource’s vision statement is: To be known as an approachable, results-driven, and comprehensive change agent and growth catalyst for the people, businesses, and communities we serve.

Values

Values are the organizations’ core ethics or principles the organization will abide by no matter what.

For example, MPWRSource’s values are:

• Our clients are the center of our sphere. Everything we do is centered around serving our clients and communities well. We are obsessed with helping our clients grow, as well as addressing their concerns and business objectives. We seek to earn and keep their trust.
• We are passionate, scrappy, and fun professionals with lots of moxie. We passionately believe in what we do, and we never compromise our standards and values. Our culture is fun, engaging, and inclusive.
• We think and dream big, and make it happen. We grow, we ask, and we learn. We are curious, and we challenge the impossible and strive to make it a reality. We are never satisfied with the status quo. We always challenge our teammates to be better than they were yesterday. We love to come up with big ideas, but we thrive on action and results.
• All we do is win. Even when we lose, we win because we learn from our mistakes. We drive results for our clients and are tenacious. We never give up.

How to Get There

Now that the status of the organization is outlined and the vision of where the organization wants to be is defined, the road map to the goal or future needs to be defined and planned. This is where the organization must ask, “What do we need to do in order to implement the strategy to get to where we want to be?”

The organization must create the road map to their ultimate destination. This is where the rubber meets the road (like what I did there?) and where action and implementation are born. This requires crafting several types of plans.

The Plans Within the Plan:

• Strategic Plan: Is the strategic plan viable? Is there a need not currently being met that the organization can meet effectively? If not, is there a need to pivot?

• Technology and IT Plan: Does the organization have the right technology and IT to grow the organization? What is needed?
• HR Plan: Does the organization have HR plans to effectively grow in the years ahead?
• Communication Plan: Does the organization have the appropriate communication plans (internal and external) to help facilitate the growth of the organization?
• Hiring and Training Plan: What skills and people are needed to grow the organization? What training programs need to be initiated?
• Restructuring and Reengineering Plan: What is not working right now? What are the organization’s weaknesses and threats? What does the organization need to do to restructure or reengineer to turn those weaknesses and threats into opportunities or strengths?
• Budget Plan: What are the organization’s budget allocations? Is there a budget that will facilitate the direction and growth that is sought?
• Growth Plan: Why does the organization want to grow? Where is growth desired? How does the organization want to grow?

As Jim Rohn, an American businessman and self-made millionaire, stated, “If you don’t design your own life plan [or in this case your organization’s plan], chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.” We may not have control over all the changes that occur in life, but the key to success is taking control of what you can and not fixate on the things you cannot. The strategic plan allows the organization to design and plan its future, while taking the necessary actions to make the vision a reality. Without a strategic plan, the organization is at the mercy of chance.