By Dr. Joe Pace
Success does not happen by accident. Success comes from thinking and picturing what you want (end-results) and then executing effective plans to get there. Who is responsible for this? You and all of the employees are; all of you must decide, plan and act…you need to invent your future.
By following this philosophy and process you begin to gain control over our rapidly changing environment. College administrators and staff gain a sense of security. Loan access, student enrollment, student achievement, retention, and placement can all improve and become more predictable. Students can benefit from a curriculum that is fully aligned with the business community and committed staff who cares and has student outcomes clearly in mind. It all begins with the plan.
The following is a brief overview of a strategic and business planning process that has been very effective for many successful colleges.
Organizational Aim
The foundation of any strategic plan is the organizational aim. What is it you do? Who do you do it for? What customer needs are you satisfying? Where are you delivering these services and why are you doing so? What is the benefit to you and other stake-holders? The answers to these questions are the underpinnings of an organizational aim.
The four functions of an organizational are:
- We move toward those things we think about. Having an aim is the college’s first step toward having everyone working for a common target. This is an essential element to teamwork.
- The self-efficacy theory suggests that we can change our beliefs about our ability to cause things to happen. With this change comes an increase in performance. Thinking about the aim on a regular basis is one way to change our belief about our ability to make things happen.
- Defining the organizational aim also provides the internal motivation that creates drive and energy. The discrepancies between the way things are and the way you want them to be creates the structural tension (dissonance) that is at the core of internal motivation. It is this drive and energy that provides the staying power and creativity to overcome obstacles.
- Having an aim activates our built-in guidance system (reticular activating system) and alerts us to threats and opportunities. If our aim has not been assimilated, the guidance system remains dormant.
Guiding Principles
“Correct principles are like compasses: They are always pointing the way. And if we know how to read them, we won’t get lost, confused, or flooded by conflicting voices and values.”—Steven Covey
Guiding principles are the basis for making day-to-day decisions. Guiding principles are things like continuous and never-ending improvement, the golden rule, customer focus, action orientation, integrity, honesty and leadership. When concepts such as these are embraced by a college, consistency of style and constancy of purpose prevail. Guiding principles are essential to effective empowerment.
Situational Analysis
Looking at your college’s situation is critical to the planning process. In order to move forward, you must find out where you are. Evaluating your competition’s strengths and weaknesses, your own college’s strengths and weaknesses, your external challenges (economy, new legislation, new technology), your internal problems, your conceptual enemies, and your marketing opportunities are the foundation of a situational analysis.
Key Result Areas
The next step is to determine the systems for achieving your aim. Key Result Areas (KRAs) are the areas in which a college must excel in order to achieve its aim. Building visions for each KRA is another crucial step. Remember, we move toward those things we think about. How should you be thinking about curriculum revisions? What do you want each KRA to look like? Building ideal visions for each KRA provides opportunities to get away from the way things have always been done and consider new possibilities. An effective method of doing this is by benchmarking exercises.
Benchmarking
“To design a truly world-class organization, we must attempt to imagine that which is beyond our experience.” –Lawrence Miller
Benchmarking is the process of discovering world-class business processes that you would like to emulate. Who are the world-class service organizations and what do they do? Who are the best sales and marketing organizations and what do they do? Who has the “ideal” college operations system, and why is it “ideal”? Who is the best in the world at developing educational curriculum, and how do they do it? Looking at benchmarking opportunities in each Key Result Area creates possibilities that your college may not have considered before. In today’s fast changing climate, the more possibilities and more flexibility you have, the more secure you are.
Objectives in Key Result Areas
What gets measured gets done. After creating visions for each key result area, it is time to ask, “How do we measure our progress?” What are the best, time-bound measures that indicate the quality with which you are moving toward the visions in each Key Result Area are? It is preferable that these measures be quantifiable. Research is very clear that objectives must be measurable to have any effect on increasing motivation.
Strategies
“Managers are responsible for the system.”—W. Edwards Deming
What strategies will best close the gap between the way it presently is and your desired future? Through team brainstorming, new, innovative ways of creating desired futures can be developed. The process requires you to get out all the ideas and then weed through them, leaving only the most essential.
“The 80/20 Rule: Eighty percent of the results come from twenty percent of the activity.”—Pareto’s Law
In most organizations 80 percent of the results are driven by 20 percent of the activities. Determining the most essential strategies means isolating the strategies in the 20 percent that will have the maximum impact. There will be a great commitment to success of your strategies if those who are going to carry out the plan are included in creating these strategies.
Disengagement Strategies
“Time is the scarcest resource and unless it is managed, nothing else can be managed.”—Peter F. Drucker
It is also important to consider disengagement strategies. Where are you spending time, money, and other resources that are not leading you effectively toward your aim? An attempt should be made to get rid of more strategies than you are taking on.
Single Best Measure/Primary Measure
In addition to the objectives in Key Result Areas, it is very valuable to have a single best measure of overall college effectiveness. How can you hit a target if you don’t know where it is? What is the single best, time-bound measure that indicates the quality with which your college is achieving its aim? Establishing this target provides focus and feedback to the college as to how well it is doing. This is the scoreboard and indicates how well your team is playing the game.
Feedback
A strategic plan that is created and then filed away has far less chance of success than one that is detailed on a chart, posted in plain sight, and the focal point of team meetings and planning sessions. Research demonstrates that goals without feedback do not increase motivation or performance. Any effective plan must continually answer the questions: “Where are we now in relation to the goal? What adjustments must be made? What innovative ideas have popped up?” Feedback keeps you on track and alerts you to new ways that may not have been obvious at the formation of your plan.
Pipelining
Central to the entire process is building commitment to the plan. Once the initial draft is developed, it should be given to the entire organization for additions and/or subtractions. Each member of the organization should be provided the opportunity to contribute by being accountable for driving strategies either as a team captain or a member.
Take Action
Commitment is the decision to act. A leader’s job is to gather commitments and then constantly monitor the gap between commitment and action. Accountability means that the responsibility for successful achievement of each strategy is given to one individual. What is everyone’s responsibility ends up being no one’s responsibility. The person charged with the accountability for a strategy may solicit help from others, form committees, or even delegate—but the accountability for the end result cannot be delegated.
Strategic Planning is a Continuous and Never-Ending Improvement Process
The strategic plan should be reviewed monthly for two reasons: First, things are changing too fast for you to set long-term strategic positions and then wait a year to see if they are still appropriate. Second, new, creative ideas will surface over time. Planning needs to leave room for the on-going creative process.
There is a delicate balance between performing and adding to performance capacity. Planning can be the most effective means of maintaining that balance. The process can result in long-term success and security for the college, a vibrant work environment for the administration and staff, a rich educational experience for the students, and well-trained workforce for the business community.
The Importance of developing a rhythm
Part of the key to long term success is developing a rhythm of following through on the planning process and a rhythm of doing the items decided upon in your Key Result Areas. You can’t start with just a rhythm, you first need to start with repetition then build from there.
- REPETITION-The act or process or an instance of repeating or being repeated (a conscious level activity). We’ve all heard that repetition is the mother of learning. It typically takes a person 8 times of hearing (or seeing) something to remember it. Some people 16 times, some 24. Repetition is important in remembering something.
- ROUTINE-A prescribed, detailed course of action to be followed regularly; a standard procedure (a subconscious level activity that is created from repetition). When something is repeated enough it can become a routine. For example, brushing your teeth is a routine you do every day. Once something becomes routine, it is easier for you to remember to do it.
- RITUAL-A detailed method of procedure faithfully or regularly followed (usually involves emotion and a feeling of accomplishment and fulfillment evolving from routine). Some things that are routine can eventually become a ritual. For example, the family has dinner together every Sunday night. Not only do they eat together but they eat the same home made lasagna every Sunday. Eventually this can become a ritual that becomes a family tradition.
- RHYTHM-Procedure or routine characterized by regularly recurring elements, activities, or factors (rhythm is also known as the flow or being in the zone). When you do something enough you can get very good at it and develop a rhythm. For example: When golfing you swing the club the same way every time. Eventually you get in the zone where swinging the club that way and hit the ball every time.
- RESULTS-A favorable or concrete outcome or effect (a successful end result). When you get in a rhythm and are doing something the same way over and over you will get the same results.
- REVIEW-To examine with an eye to quality or course correction (a time to evaluate what is working or not working and fess up and fix it so we can rebirth). It’s important to stop and access where you are at. If you are not moving in the right direction, it may be time to do it differently or develop a different plan of action.
- REBIRTH-the revival of learning and culture (rebirthing creates new energy for new repetition, routine, ritual, rhythm and results). If you decide it’s time to develop a new plan of action it can cause excitement and help move toward a new plan.