Ask The Hard Questions

I’ve worked as an executive leader for twenty-five years, and as a consultant with businesses, non-profit organizations and public sector agencies for the past three. Through these experiences I’ve noticed distinct challenges for how each of these different sectors approaches strategy work and implementation. Below is a summary of what I’ve learned and lessons I draw from them.

1. In strategy and planning activities, businesses can usually identify their competition and what “winning” means to them. For example, “winning” might mean capturing additional market share or successfully adding a new business line. The challenge they often face is identifying the right questions and answering them honestly. The central questions they often avoid are "Where do we want to compete?" and "How are we different from our competition?" In my experience, business leaders often avoid these two questions because the answers require hard choices and, often, demonstrate they need to stop doing something they have been doing, which means shifting their budgets and employees’ work with uncertain future results.

Businesses who end up with winning strategies and strong implementation plans ask the hard questions to understand their competitive landscape and where they have the best chance of success.

2. Government agencies, unlike businesses, operate with the end goal of “serving the public," which means definitions of success are varied and often tied to election cycles. Government leaders often skip the crucial step in strategy creation of asking "What does success mean for us?" and "What is our role in connection with our partners and constituencies?" Without asking these questions, government agencies often pursue a confused muddle of goals, labeled a “strategic plan,” in a fruitless attempt to satisfy every constituency, both within the organization and in the community.

Government agencies should focus on how to use their role and scarce resources effectively with a broad understanding of how they exist interdependently with their various constituencies, e.g. labor unions, community residents, local businesses, and other government partners.

3. Similar to businesses, non-profit organizations also exist in a competitive landscape for funding and volunteers, and yet many don’t acknowledge this fact. In my experience, non-profit leaders who don’t confront this reality are less effective in strategy and planning work. Even non-profits that recognize they are in competition with others usually struggle to agree on a strategy that differentiates them from their peers with clear accountability measures. Often they default solely to their mission statements, which don’t provide useful direction in an evolving world. Non-profits should ask "How is our mission valuable in comparison to other non-profit organizations working on similar issues?"

Non-profits should assess how they are different from their peers at the outset of any strategy work. This helps them define how they are most valuable in the pursuit of their missions and raises their chances to sustain the funding and volunteers they need to thrive.

Please send comments, questions and your ideas! I can be reached at tom@rinehartstrategies.com

Thanks for reading.