THE CASE FOR PLANNING

PROLOGUE:

THE CASE FOR PLANNING

In the course of my twenty seven years of consulting with nonprofit boards of directors throughout the U.S. and Canada. I wrote a monthly series of articles (175 in all) called "BOARD SENSE – Common Sense For Nonprofit Board Members" which I distributed to national associations who, in turn, re-distributed them to their local nonprofit member organizations. I was therefore surprised when quite a large number of these board members would tell me at workshops or conferences that what I was writing for my nonprofit clients applied in large measure to the businesses,
large and small, which these board members owned or worked for. In the last four years before I retired I switched distribution of BOARD SENSE to the Internet and when I finally stopped, I had over eight hundred subscribers world wide.

Thinking that many of you who read my blogs might find this information useful in whatever type of board you might be involved with I decided to make a number of them available here. For those of you who have little or no interest in this subject, fear not, as I will not allow this one topic to dominate the subjects I will be writing about – except for the first three or four until I feel I have an audience for this type of material. Here now is the third of the first set of six blogs in
this series.

The original version of what follows in this blog was prompted by some questions I had received from a client I once worked with as as well as a new client both of whom had experienced uncontrolled growth which threatened their organizations' very existence. These two organizations were both nonprofits but their situations are applicable to proprietary rganizations as well. Each organization had been successful by being - shall we say - opportunistic; seizing opportunities as they arose and presented themselves. But no real thought was given to the manner in which their response to each opportunity would be continued, once started, in the face of demands other programs made upon available staff. Neither was any thought given to the impact on their respective organizations when the opportunity was seized and the resources (primarily people and money) of the organization were being stretched to the limit.

In each of these situations corrective action - planning - saved the day and the organizations are alive and well at this time. However, in my own career as a board member and officer of a number of nonprofits prior to turning professional, I saw in my former home town of Providence RI three fairly sizable organizations fail - go bankrupt - when they had stretched their resources to the breaking point and the organizations fell apart. They were each trying to do too many things and not doing any of them well. This cost them their credibility in the community which in turn
cost them their ability to raise sufficient funds from the community and so they dried up and blew away. Your tiger is best controlled by discipline and a strong leash - not by desperately holding onto its tail!


SUCCESS CAN BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR ORGANIZATION'S HEALTH!

THE CASE FOR PLANNING!

Some planners refer to the absence of planning as "Muddling Through!" In some organizations where a highly talented entreprneur is in full charge and has full control, muddling through may work very well. Such a manager undoubtedly has a vision or a plan in his or her head which guides every action and every decision - even if the vision or the plan is subconscious. But should the organization become unusually successful beyond the dreams and hopes of our entrepreneur, then our entrepreneur may find that he/she has a tiger by the tail and the successful organization may start to fly apart.

But in most organization muddling through is not likely to get the job done. Unfortunately too many boards either do not plan at all or if they do, they try to do it on one of those weekend planning retreats which are almost invariably
inadequate to the needs of the organization. Increasingly, however, smarter boards of directors are recognizing that they must plan. Here are some of their reasons.

Planning will require that the organization study its history so that it has a basis to determine where it is now and how it got there, and where it may be going if control through planning is not exercised.

Planning will require the thorough working through of both the purpose and mission statements of the organization; as well as their periodic review. Planning cannot proceed without defining accurately both purpose (WHY the organization exists) and mission (a succinct summary of WHAT the organization will do to achieve that purpose) since all goals, objectives, activities and critical issues will follow from and be controlled by these two statements.

Planning will help to assure that present and future decisions will be made within a well thought out context and with an eye to their future consequences.

Planning will force the organization to analyze the competitive environment in which the organization operates.

Planning forces the organization to review its own strengths and weaknesses as well as the opportunities and threats that confront it. To not regularly review these "SWOT's" as they are sometimes called is to operate with one's head in the sand.

Planning requires the organization to face up to the critical issues that confront it in, among other things, its structure, its products programs and services, its personnel, its funding, and so forth.

Planning may be required by governmental agencies which regulate and in some cases fund the organization. In such cases, the planning often emphasizes the financial aspects of the organization, but such planning need not, and should not, be so limited in scope.

Planning encourages the organization to be proactive as opposed to being reactive or opportunistic. It provides a means by which an organization can take a good measure of control over its own destiny.

Finally, by taking control over its destiny and by encouraging decision making that takes cognizance of the longer term effects of each decision, the organization has taken out an excellent insurance policy to insure its survival for the foreseeable future.

The late great photographer, Ansel Adams, once wrote in one of his books that "Chance favors the prepared mind." I think we can modify that good advice to apply to organizational planning and say that chance also favors the prepared organization and its board.

While this by itself is not a reason for planning, a side benefit of the planning process which has always - with but one exception that had nothing to do with the planning activity - occurred in the organizations I have worked with in
guiding their planning processes is the development of teamwork among board members and between board and staff together with a shared vision of the organization's future. This has been due to the fact that both board and staff have been involved in the process and the process used was both rigorous and disciplined.

Finaly always bear in mind to keep that tiger on a strong leash. Attempting to hold it by its tail can be exceedingly dangerous!


Andrew Swanson is also the author of a recently published novel "The Grantor" and you will find it described in my first blog under that title. The blog provides a description of the novel and instructions as to how to order it. It is also
currently listed by Amazon Books, Barnes and Noble, and Borders. Barnes and Noble's listing not only contains a summary of the book but includes a chapter long excerpt for you to sample.

Swanson is also an independent distributor for the Shaklee Corporation who, among some 250 products, manufactures a truly remarkable product called Vivix. Vivix provides an extended life span (up to age 125) for its users and overall good health for its users which makes the extension of user life possible. Vivix is described in a previous blog under the title "My Experience With Vivix". This blog also provides more description as well as ordering information.