As human service leaders, workers, and advocates, you understand that demand for services is increasing. You accept the day-to-day realities of an expanding customer base and the expectations for quality service. The resources (money and time!) to meet demand are usually insufficient and budgets are stretched to cover basic services. New expectations and expanding core services compound the need to stretch those resources.

As every manager knows, you can be either proactive or reactive. The proactive manager makes the right moves by planning for long-term and short-term challenges. The "tool" a manager uses is the "strategic plan." Deciding what the right moves for your agency are—how to allocate staff time and dollars—is the heart of strategic planning. The benefits of a well-researched and well-written plan are great, compared to the cost spent developing it.

I have had the opportunity and challenge of leading three rehabilitation agencies in the past thirty years. I have recently taken on the responsibility of leading a community-based support program at the Rural Institute called MontanaWorks. Although it has been ten years since I was charged with the responsibility of planning strategically for an agency, the same principles I followed then are still true today.

Strategic planning that is effective is specific to the agency's values/mission and has measurable milestones. Ultimately the plan will be only as good as the information gathered from the involved stakeholders. A clear definition of who you are and what you are in the eyes of your community, your customers, and your collaborators is critical. Your final planning document should address the following questions:

How can you achieve your goals and stay trued to your vision?
Who are the people responsible to make it all happen?
How will you measure your progress?
How will you identify new challenges and remain flexible so you can respond?

Preparing for strategic planning is as important as the plan itself. I offer the following suggestions for making the right moves as you begin.

Before Taking the Plunge

"If you don't know where you are going, it doesn't make any difference how you get there!"

Prior to your agency hosting a planning meeting, consider the following critical items:

Remember your roots
Know your customers
Keep things in perspective (Get Real!)
Focus on measurable outcomes
Maintain flexibility

Your Roots

Remember your roots, shared history, and traditions. These reflect the customer service values that launched your organization. Your values should be revisited and evaluated; are they still applicable to your current program and, more importantly, its future? Ignoring or forgetting values will ultimately cause services to lose their focus and their vitality to effectively serve customers. Understanding what was important "back then" is a common sense reminder of what is important now as well as in the future.

Your mission statement is a great place to "research" the historical foundation of your organization. As a general guide, ask yourself the following questions.

Does your program reflect the vision and values in your mission statement?
Will this mission statement support the strategic planning you are undertaking?
Are you considering a significant change in your organization's focus that might require a revision in your mission statement?

Customers

History tells us that we as individuals or organizations need to remain relevant to our customers' needs, aware of changing trends/methods of service, and open to new ideas to improve service delivery. Customers who feel their needs are going unnoticed or un-served will soon leave the agency. The agency without customers soon becomes a non-entity. Know your customers. They should be the first and best source of information about what is happening and what could be happening. They are a valuable resource to help you determine which services to offer and how those services should be delivered. Pose the following questions before making the strategic plan:

Who are your customers?
Why are you serving them?
Has there been a substantial change in the number of people you serve?
What do they expect as an outcome of your services?
Are your services still viable and valued?

On Main Street as well as in corporate boardrooms, the folks who sell us everything from tissue to trucks, expend a lot of energy asking customers the very questions posed above. The answers are clues and cues to what customers are thinking and what they want. Taking the pulse, using the simple diagnostic tool of asking for information, is a sensible approach to collecting vital information. Be open to customer feedback—your agency exists to serve them. Take charge—you can also actively poll the people you serve about their thoughts, ideas, and experiences.

The other people who are valuable sources of information for your strategic plan are your other stakeholders. The folks that provide the day-to-day contact, service delivery and support, and are accountable for the quality of services your agency provides—your staff—are essential. Your board is also a group to consider; these folks are the policymakers and have yet another perspective on your agency's "haves and wants." Suffice to say, good sources of information are the persons directly impacted by your agency's operations, from policymakers to service providers. The realistic strategic plan requires feedback from all the folks that are involved and impacted, because they are all stakeholders in your organization's future.

Perspective

Now armed with the knowledge of your historical roots/values and a stronger sense of the people you serve, you have a lot of data at your disposal. Agencies that want to thrive will need to address where you are today and what direction you want your agency to take in the future. The current "environment" should be assessed. This includes trends in funding, legislative activity, and cultural shifts (customer demand).

Keep things in perspective as you engage in both short and long-term planning.

What are the realities of your current situation?
What are the growth potentials?
What are the limitations that currently exist?

Your organization will need to respond to the ongoing reality of high demand for quality customer service, positive outcomes, and scarce funding. Take into account your organization's strengths and areas that need attention. Ultimately, perspective is the "reality check" that guides you as you shape your program to fit your values and customer needs. No service can be "all things to all people," and keeping things in perspective will help you plan realistically.

Getting responses to the "haves and wants" questions requires establishing an environment where ideas and experiences can be freely shared. The best information is given in an environment that encourages open and trustful communication. Having the wrong information at the start of strategic planning is problematic. If people tell you what they think you want to hear, rather than what they think, your outcome-based planning will miss the mark. If the expected outcomes do not truly match the issues, needs, and wishes of the customers as well as the staff that provide the services, your planning has no value.

Keep the discussion focused on issues not persons. The planning process is for identifying needs and wants, not for attacking personal positions or ideas. There is a natural tendency to get bogged down in a "venting session." It is important to identify negative issues, but even more important to recount positives-things that should be recognized and potentially enhanced. Fix the fixable and build on the good things.

The invited "information givers" (customers, staff and board) are assembled, an environment for open discussion has been established, all that remains is to put into place the method to record the answers to the above questions. Choose a leader to facilitate/direct the discussion. The facilitator sets the "ground rules" for the open exchange of individual responses and keeps the group focused in a positive direction. The facilitator asks for clarification and keeps the discussion on task.

Measurable Outcomes

The first job in the meeting is to identify what your current position is. The facilitator records answers to the questions you have been asking yourselves:

What is your position in the community?
What is your mission and the values that you adhere to?
Are the founding ideals and visions of service to customers still true today?
Who are your customers?
Are they satisfied?
What do you want?

Discussing wants helps to build a "wish list." Building the wish list is great opportunity to provide direction for the future. It is a rough draft for the outcomes that are the heart of the strategic plan.

Outcome-based goals—meaningful and measurable—are critical. The most important element of designing a strategic plan is writing goals/outcomes. In the absence of a written plan of action and measurable outcomes, a strategic plan is nothing more than a set of loose guidelines. An agency entrusted with public resources or private support must have a plan with specific, written outcomes, and timelines.

Your measurable outcomes represent those unique challenges that you decide that your agency will meet. They may represent milestones on the journey or they could be the ultimate destinations. They are based on specific values and are mission driven. In essence, these outcomes embody your roots and define your future.

How do you get what you want? What has to happen for your wishes, your vision, your outcomes to become a reality? Strategic planning should include a written list of "action items" needed to achieve your goals. Action items should be focused, time sensitive, and have a person's name attached to them. This is an opportunity to empower your agency and its customers by assigning people specific tasks. You can broaden your base of persons invested in the current and long-term health of an agency with this healthy exercise. It creates a broader "buy-in" potential and supports a work culture of taking responsibility for a final plan. Without commitment for the outcomes, all the energy expended to gather information and make your wish list is wasted.

Flexibility

Maintain flexibility! Things change. We know that our culture, communities, work environments, and financial circumstances all change. Planning in general, and specifically strategic planning, must include flexibility. Short-term events will happen and impact your plan.

Flexibility implies that there will be times that your plan may need to be addressed to account for new information, unexpected issues, and unforeseen challenges. The strategic plan addresses the reality that it is best to be in a position to respond to change rather that be caught in a position of reactive thinking. Belief systems can also be challenged, sometimes to the extent that an inflexible strategic plan may indeed so alter the ongoing mission of the agency that it may become nonexistent.

Conclusion

Making all the right moves means being a proactive manager and looking to the future of your agency. Strategic planning is a valuable tool for outlining the achievable, the doable, and the "dreamable" for your agency. There are always risks in making bold moves, but developing a formal strategic plan and putting it into action is the right move.

Liberating Ourselves by Learning

By Ann Van Loan, Executive Director Western Resources for dis-ABLED Independence

Western Resources for dis-ABLED Independence (WRDI) hired me two years ago. I knew I needed help from the first day, but to what degree, I had no idea. My assistant director had been the acting director for nearly a year, except for when a previous director was briefly employed. Well, in walks Ann….Oops, now I am wondering if I have made a mistake in choosing to work at WRDI. My past experience was in county government, as co-owner of a computer store, and as a member of the clergy at the hospital; not quite the criteria for running a nonprofit organization. But the Board of Directors assured me that I had the right credentials.

Within the first year I let go part of the staff and hired seven new employees, wrote job descriptions, updated the personnel policy manual, tried to figure out what Rehabilitation Act “Part B” and “Part C” funding was all about, and realized there was just not enough money to do the things we are directed to do. I had a five member Board of Directors, yet I did not have a quorum for the first three months. At this point, I was feeling overwhelmed and I knew I was in desperate need. It was time to look for grants.

I found out about the Rural Independent Living Leadership Mentoring Initiative (RILLMI), free training offered to rural Independent Living Centers by The University of Montana Rural Institute and the Association of Programs in Rural Independent Living, and I wrote to Mike Flaherty at the Rural Institute for an application. Let me tell you, by the time I finished that application, there were blood and tears all over it. I just knew they would not turn me down—seventeen counties in western South Dakota, a Board of Directors that needed training, a director and the employees that needed guidance and training, lack of peer support training and, as always, the lack of monies to support the programs. Now, how could they turn me down? Well, they didn’t turn me down, and Mike Flaherty came to WRDI as a shining light for our agency.

I was ready to roll up my sleeves and get to work. I knew it would be hard work but I was up to the challenge. Mike was gentle with us and never made us feel stupid. We were able to work our way through some difficult issues. One of the trainings was on the values, mission, and culture. He did a training session on communication styles, which helped us to learn the different ways that we need to focus when communicating with one another. On another occasion we worked on conflict/negotiation, which helped us find the middle ground when there are differences both with staff and consumers. We also had a team building session that I think that every agency should have from time to time. It just really builds cohesiveness.

Nelson Mandella taught us that:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and famous? …as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

To ask for help is to liberate ourselves, our staff, consumers, and anyone we come into contact with.

You can contact Ann Van Loan at Western Resources for dis-ABLED Independence, 405 E. Omaha, Suite A, Rapid City, SD 57701 (605) 718-1930, (888) 434-4943 toll free.

Resolving Conflict with Negotiation

Every organization will from time to time have internal and external disagreements. These conflicts may be simple differences of opinions and interpretations of events, or be a more widespread discussion over policy or budget priorities. Our initial reaction to most conflict is often stress and anxiety. While the stress can positively stimulate growth, it usually creates negative work conditions. Fight or flight is often the initial reaction to unpleasant friction in the workplace. Fight generally prolongs and expands conflict; flight ignores the problem, hoping that the unpleasantness and underlying issues will just go away.

Parties enter a negotiation with the intent to capture as many of their ideas and plans through a system of "verbal barter." Obviously this verbal barter—the debate of ideas, plans, and desired outcomes—focuses on each party getting what they think is best. In reality, rarely, if ever, does either party get all that it desired in a negotiated settlement.

For negotiation to be effective, everyone in the agency has to abide by the guidelines of trust, honesty, and maturity throughout the process. Guided dialogue, within a proper framework, is an excellent management tool that seeks the best possible course of action or decision after all perspectives are weighed. An overriding consideration for entering any negotiation demands that for meaningful impact to take place, a general "no shortcuts" rule must be honored. I offer the following suggestions as a checklist for successful negotiating.

The Rules of Engagement

1. Just the Facts Ma'am

Nothing is as important for setting the stage for purposeful negotiation than getting the facts. Getting the facts requires getting all the information that relates to the issue being considered. Common questions to be answered may include:

Is the information current?
Is the information source reliable?
What are the issues of conflict?
What parties are involved?

Incorrect or incomplete information will have a damaging effect on meaningful success. In fact, any negotiation based on flawed information is doomed at the onset. The energy expended initially to gather the facts is well spent, as it provides the framework for lasting and valid negotiation.

2. Give and Take

Negotiation is a give and take process. Understand at the onset:

What is indeed negotiable?
What options can I bring to the discussion?
What are potential fall-back positions?

All three questions need our input or a plan to address the answers. Our responses to these three questions will provide a great deal of potential flexibility, the give and take to the negotiation. Black and white responses won't work. The art of negotiation, the whole process, is elastic. The more abundant the responses to the above questions, the more flexibility you bring to the process, and the better the outcomes.

3. Stick to the Issue

Throughout the negotiation process, always keep focused on the issue or issues on the table. Use an agenda designed to keep the pertinent issues on the table and stick to it. At the same time we want to stay on topic, we want to make sure we discuss it completely. It is helpful to maintain a working list of all the topics, or talking points. Even the best attempts at negotiation can be derailed or rendered invalid if we fail to keep all related issues open for discussion. Leave no loose ends!

4. Know What you Want

Have a clear idea of what you want to achieve, how you wish to proceed, and what the best outcome would look like. Determine in advance a "game plan" that lays out your opening moves, your data, feelings, and desires. In turn, the respectful negotiator acknowledges the data, feelings, and desires of the other participating parties in the negotiation process.

5. It's Not Personal

Personalizing disagreements are all too common. The very issue of communication and information sharing is quite personal in itself, so this is an expected correlation. Finger pointing and "you" statements in any negotiating environment may derail any real chance of reaching meaningful settlement for either side. Focus on the issue not the personality; demonizing and condescending behavior will immediately shut down any chance of meaningful communication. In personalized conflict there is a high chance of escalating the friction, reducing any real chance of settlement.

6. Choose Your Battles Well

Determine what is important, necessary, and critical. There is potential for many little "battles" in the workplace. Ask yourself:

How important is this issue?
Should I spend the energy or time over this minor conflict?
Is this an isolated conflict?
Is this issue part of something larger that could be addressed at another time and place?

Choosing battles takes a good dose of common sense and maturity on everyone's part. Many larger conflicts arise out of smaller points of friction, either ignored or blown out of proportion due to inaction (flight doesn't work!). Many issues can be managed on a one-at-a-time basis long before bigger conflicts arise.

7. Now? Timing is Key

Knowing when to engage is also an important consideration. Timing can be as critical as any other negotiation component. Sometimes picking the right time may be the sole element that determines success. Some of us are better than others at "reading the person or the moment."

The best environment for negotiation is as far away from disruption and distraction as possible. An important social skill is knowing when to ask or challenge. Engaging in debate or hoping to initiate negotiation in a highly charged, stressful environment is risky. We need to be prepared, armed with the information needed to present our interests, if we are going to successfully negotiate.

Mediated Negotiation

There may be situations when it may be necessary to have an unbiased third party guide or referee the negotiation. This may be the case in more involved discussions when facts are disputed or when a personality is indeed the focal point of friction.

Mediated negotiation, or more simply mediation, is the management tool that binds differing parties in a formal communication environment. There have been many books and articles written about mediation and at the end of this article is a list of resources you can access. Briefly, the mediator's role is to actively enforce the rules of engagement, seek consensus, and ultimately guide the course of negotiation to its logical outcome.

Mediation demands trust, honesty, and maturity for success. When used effectively mediation is indeed a powerful management approach to seeking consensus in conflict-charged atmospheres within agencies and when we advocate in the community.

Resources

Condeluci, Al. (2002). Cultural Shifting, Community Leadership and Change. St. Augustine, Florida: Training Resource Network, Inc.

Fisher, Roger and Ury, William. (1983). Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In. New York: Penguin Books.

Griffin, Cary. (1998). Working Better, Working Smarter: Six Stages of Organizational Development. St. Augustine, Florida: Training Resource Network, Inc.

Heyman, Richard. (1994) Why Didn't You Say that in the First Place? How to be Understood at Work. San Francisco: Josey-Bass Publishers.

Kaye, Beverly and Jordan-Evans, Sharon. (2002). Love 'Em or Lose 'Em, Getting Good People to Stay. Scranton: Pennsylvania: Career Systems International.

Wycoff, Joyce and Richardson, Tim. (1995). Transformation Thinking: Tools & Techniques that Open the Door to Powerful New Thinking. East Rutherford, New Jersey: Berkely Publishing Corporation.

This Rural Factsheet was prepared by Mike Flaherty, Project Director
The Rural Institute
52 Corbin Hall, The University of Montana
Missoula, MT 59812
(406) 243-4619
mcf@ruralinstitute.umt.edu

52 Corbin Hall
University of Montana
Missoula, MT 59812

(406) 243-5467 Voice/TTY
(406) 243-4730 Fax
(800) 732-0323 Voice/TTY Toll-Free

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