Securing The Continuity of Strategic Plans

As we speak, Kenyans are up in arms against their various county governments for steep increases in license fees. Motorists in Nairobi are particularly incensed by the more than doubling of the daily parking fees. That is from KES 140-300 and KES 2000 – 5000 for the monthly ticket. These are great matters of concern, especially if the strategies  of the said governments are likely to be sustained into the future. But, will they? Coincidentally, I was recently invited to join a management team of our close to 6000 member church. The team is also in charge of developing and monitoring church strategy. During our first meeting, I was requested to accept to be inducted into the team membership, which I did. In the second meeting, the team of about 7 requested that I guide them through change of the church’s strategic leadership direction, and in particular the process of developing a strategic plan.  Again, I  did this within a short time and to the satisfaction of all. The subsequent meetings explored ways and means, of developing a Church strategy that will outlast occasional leadership changes, as well as usual organizational politics and culture.  Indeed, any strategic plan should give organizational direction that aims to achieve well defined results, within known time frames and parameters. That is so because failure to plan is planning to fail. Moreover, where there is no road map, any road will lead to the destination. The problem is that the destination may be unintended, despite usage of  resources, which may end up being wasted. Leadership changes meanwhile ought not to send a well strategized organization into limbo.  Unexpectedly though,  our church  witnessed the transfer of the Chief Executive Officer, who had wholeheartedly embraced the strategy idea. This change momentarily put us off balance, and  weren’t sure of the way forward. Most often, new leadership introduces new causes of action to suit their own style. Luckily though, the incoming CEO received our committee well, upon hand over by the outgoing CEO. The new CEO unreservedly embraced the whole strategy idea, but provided some input into the process. He needed to involve an external consultant, who was well known to him. He knew of the  consultant’s experience in preparing strategic plans for different churches, therefore the confidence.  A brief workshop with our team and the CEO was thus organized for the initial planning purposes. During the consultant’s presentation, it emerged that there was no difference between the approach we had earlier adopted, except for one major deviation.  He believed, correctly though and in line with tradition that organizational strategy is owned by the leadership. Thus, the input of the rest of the organizational members may be inconsequential. Strikingly though,  our enquiries brought out strategic plans of some churches that had failed to take off, particularly after leadership changes. In that realization especially, our team was  profoundly uncomfortable with that exclusive approach. Nobody was keen to witness the church vision and overall strategy, flying away with future outgoing leaders. Protracted presentations for the need of an all inclusive organizational strategic plan, were therefore made and agreed on by all concerned. This obviously borrowed from the initial approach that I had recommended. It was indeed exciting to witness the approach  being vindicated by an outside consultant. Earlier, I had contemplated missing the presentation, lest there could be discomfort emanating from conflicting approaches. (Keep in mind that consultants are also prone to the competitive force of business rivalry). In fact, it is not clear how I could have been perceived by my team, had they not have had the right guidance, from the beginning. Perhaps, one can be forgiven  for falling back to the adage  that “prophets are never easily recognized at home,” (remember, this is my longtime church). Else, we were right on course, even as we contemplated the buy in and involvement process that is now necessary, in all organizational leadership situations. This has been elaborately demonstrated by Author Stephen R Covey. Is your organization in the process of formulating its strategic plan? If not, you had better give it serious consideration. If so, you need to secure it by following an inclusive process.  It also needs to be secured from threats of other stakeholders as is currently  being experienced by most of our county governments.  Actually, this  involvement  aligns well with the global dynamics of the 21st century organizational culture.