Designing Effective Strategic Planning Retreats

Sponsored by:
Designing Effective Strategic
Planning Retreats
Rick Lent and Sam Frank
August 7, 2013
Twitter Hashtag - #npweb
Part
Of:

Sponsored by:
Advising nonprofits in:
• Strategy
• Planning
• Organizational Development
www.synthesispartnership.com
(617) 969-1881
info@synthesispartnership.com
INTEGRATED PLANNING
Part
Of:

Sponsored by:Part
Of:
Coming Soon

Sponsored by:
Today’s Speakers
Sam Frank
Principal, Synthesis Partnership
Founding Director, Nonprofit Webinars
Assisting with chat questions:
Jamie Maloney, 4Good
Part
Of:
Rick Lent
Principal
Meeting for Results

Designing Effective Strategy Sessions:
Planning to Achieve Results
Rick Lent, Ph.D. Sam Frank
www.meetingforresults.com
Strategy, planning &
organizational development
for nonprofits
www.synthesispartnership.com

Take-Aways
1. Critical role of engagement in a strategic planning.
2. How to choose tools to help you structure an
effective, engaging session in your situation.
3. How to use selected tools for implementing
effective structures regarding…
• Whom you invite to participate.
• How you design the discussion to support dialogue.
• How you plan to reach a decision.
• How you plan to follow-up.
6www.meetingforresults.com

What is changing in how organizations
conduct strategy sessions?
1. Changes in focus: how broad or prescriptive?
2. Changes in the frequency of planning?
3. Changes in who is involved?
www.meetingforresults.com 8
What is your experience?
Type in your thoughts on any of these:

Changing Context for Strategic
Planning?
• Planning has to be directional and flexible.
• More critical to involve various stakeholders as
well as senior leaders.
• More of a dynamic process subject to ongoing
input and improvement.
• Greater need to build organizational
engagement and commitment quickly.

Overview:
Nonprofit Strategic Planning Process
Preparation
Assessment
Implementation
Engagement
Plan Development
Engagement
Preparation
Assessment
Implementation
Plan Development

Examples
1) A major foundation wants to revamp the strategy that has
shaped its direction for decades
• 200 people, from front desk to board participate
• Video of interviews with beneficiaries
• 2 ½ days
2) National social action organization wants to develop
aligned strategy to coordinate multi-state efforts.
• 30 presidents and board members from state affiliates
• 2 days
3) State nonprofit needs to redefine how it serves its clients
• 6 executive board members and 20 regional representatives
• 6 hours

Challenges
• More people involved in planning with different
stakes and levels of authority.
• Widespread understanding and support essential to
fast and flexible implementation.
• Need to avoid overly lengthy implementation
process, multiple re-dos, cascades and so on.
 In large, complex, and potentially contentious
sessions, you need to pay critical attention to
meeting structure to be successful.

Unseen Structures Affect What We Do
…
This work by Rick Lent, Ph.D. is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Unseen Structures of Meetings
• Physical, temporal,
procedural aspects of
meetings.
• With an (unrecognized)
impact on how we
interact with each other
and the work of the
meeting.

Which Strategic
Planning Meeting
Would You Rather
Attend?

12 Structural Choices Across the Three
Phases of Any Meeting
Planning
1. How you define the work
of the meeting.
2. Whom you invite.
3. How you design the
discussion.
4. How you plan to reach a
decision.
5. How time will be “spent.”
6. How you will arrange the
meeting space.
Conducting
1. How you share
responsibility.
2. How you support dialogue.
3. How you manage time
4. How you work with any
conflict.
Achieving Results
1. How you build decisions.
2. How you plan to follow-
up.

Key Choices for Structuring for Effective
Strategic Planning Meetings
• Whom you invite to participate.
• How you design the discussion to
support dialogue.
• How you plan to reach a decision.
• How you plan to follow-up.

Whom You Invite
• Include (representatives of) the whole system.
• Not just the “usual suspects”
• Tool for identifying diverse stakeholders:
– “ARE IN.”

ARE IN:
Identifying Who Should Be Present
• Be clear about the work of the meeting and what
a successful result will entail. Then plan to include
those who represent:
– Authority to act on meeting conclusions.
– Resources to apply in implementing meeting
conclusions.
– Expertise on critical aspects of the discussion or
decision.
– Information on some aspect of the discussion.
– Need for an effective outcome of this meeting.
This tool was first defined by Weisbord and Janoff (2010)

How You Design the Discussion
Plan to maintain a productive discussion given:
– Numbers of participants and if they know each other
– Differences in status or perspective
– Role of presentations
– Tools to support your structure:
1-2-All
PALPaR (Present, Ask, Listen, Pause and Reflect)
• Three Reaction Questions

1-2-All:
Effective Engagement for Groups of Any Size
After introducing a subject or question to be addressed by the
group, complete the following steps.
1: Individual Reflection. Check to make sure everyone
understands the question or topic for consideration, and then
give individuals a moment to gather their thoughts.
2: Small Group Discussion. Next ask participants to turn to their
neighbors to form small, 2-3 person groups to share their ideas.
Explain the time they have for their discussion and ask them to
make sure everyone in their small group can share his/her
thoughts in that time.
All: Whole Group Report. Ask each group for a brief report
(typically 1-3 minutes) summarizing their small group discussion
for everyone.

PALPaR:
Creating a Respectful Exchange of Reactions
Before presenting a plan or proposal, outline the following steps to
participants, and then implement as described.
Present: You present the proposal (report or other information).
Ask: Then you ask participants to talk with each other (in small groups) to answer three
“reaction” questions:
1. What did you like about this proposal?
2. Where do you need more information?
3. What don’t you like?
Listen: Take reports from each small group, one question at a time. That is, take everyone’s
comments on the first question about “likes” first, before going to the second question.
As you hear replies, record key points where all can see.
Pause: Then take a break to incorporate what you have heard before continuing. Use this
pause to reflect on feedback received and decide how to respond. You do not have to
change your proposal in response to the feedback. And…
Reply: Come back to the group and summarize what you heard as key points, and then how
you have taken that feedback into account (or not) in the final proposal.

Three Reaction Questions:
Gathering Balanced Feedback
After you present a proposal, ask participants to reflect on their own
or (even better) to talk in small groups to answer the questions below.
Try not to take any questions at first, as this will open up the discussion
before you give them all a chance to reflect on their reactions.
1. What do you like about [the proposal]?
2. Where do you need further information?
3. Where do you have concerns?
After a few minutes, take reports (from individuals or small groups),
one question at a time beginning with the first. Make sure you get all
replies to the first question before proceeding to the second.
Once all the reactions have been shared, ask the group, “What are we
learning about this proposal/decision?” to help everyone integrate all
that s/he heard and arrive at overall conclusions.

How You Plan to Reach a Decision
• Productive engagement requires being clear how
you want to reach decisions on strategy.
• Five ways to reach decisions with a group, “5Cs”
– Consensus
– Consent
– Compromise
– Counting
– Consulting

How You Plan to Follow-Up
• Strategy can be implemented more effectively
when people have a chance to reflect on their
actions in an appropriately structured and
timed follow-up...
• Tools to structure effective follow-up:
– Three Follow-Up Questions
– Follow-Up Timing

Three Follow-Up Questions
Learning from a balanced review of progress
Bring the group together and focus the discussion
around these three questions:
1. What has been accomplished as planned?
2. What hasn’t been accomplished as planned?
3. What can we learn about making progress in this area
from our answers to both questions?
Use all three questions one at a time in this order. You
can modify the questions to fit the circumstances, but
use all three types.

Follow Up Timing
Choosing an Effective Time for Learning from Actions
Announce a review of progress on agreed actions
within 30-45 days of the original meeting.
• This period of time is usually long enough to have some
accomplishments.
• More important, this is not so long that the only thing that is
“top of mind” is why some planned action was unrealistic.

For More Information..
28
Rick’s e-book available on Amazon
and other e-book retailers.
Also see Rick’s blog at
www.meetingforresults.com/blog
or sign up for his newsletter
Contact Rick directly at:
rick@meetingforresults.com or 1-978-580-4262
Critical Issues
in Strategy, Planning & Organizational Development
perspectives for nonprofit trustees and staff
Archive at http://bit.ly/SyParchive
Contact Sam directly at:
sbf@synthesispartnership.com or 1-617-969-1881

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