Strategic Planning: Accountability Matters

This is the final post in a four part series on creating the right context for strategic planning. In the first post I outlined the need to match strategic planning process to your organizational culture. In the second post discussed the need to have a clear and focused change or improvement agenda to guide the planning process. The third post detailed the need to consider how the implementation of the strategic plan is resourced. This final post focuses on the need for accountability in the strategic planning process.

Accountability is different than achieving the goals and objectives of the strategic plan. The question of “did we get to where we wanted to be” is the measure of achievement. Accountability, on the other hand, describes how an agency empowers and manages the plan as it unfolds. Outcomes ultimately measure the success of the strategic plan and outcome measurement is a given. However, in my experience, agencies that consider the process of accountability in strategic planning create much more effective plans. There are three areas of accountability that need to be considered as part of the strategic planning process.

Leadership Accountability: As I have suggested before, one of the common mistakes of strategic planning is that it is considered as an event rather than a process. The creation of a planning document is the starting point but keeping the plan as the visible reference point is more important. Consider your last three senior staff or board meetings and ask yourself how many times your agency’s strategic plan was mentioned? Or considered another way, does your strategic plan implementation occupy a designated place on the agenda of your meetings? While many leadership teams think and act strategically as a core competency it is a missed opportunity to not to organize leadership practice around the written strategic plan. The leaders of organizations that invest the time, resources and energy to develop a strategic plan need to be accountable to the specifics of the strategic plan.

Team Accountability: A second area of accountability is the accountability of the team to the strategic plan. For strategic planning to be successful, it needs to be resourced and also become part of the operating culture of team members. If strategy is owned by an entire organization, one would expect that strategy would show up intentionally in performance plans and in team meetings. Team accountability transcends team members carrying around laminated, “vision, mission, strategy” cards in their wallet but evokes a culture of strategic thinking and practice. If the team has had an authentic voice in the creation of a strategic plan, then team accountability becomes easier to create, track and measure.

Client and Stakeholder Accountability: I believe that strategy needs to be developed at a systems level and that requires agencies to consider the views of clients and stakeholders. However, when a community is engaged in a strategic planning process, the engagement needs to be larger than a token survey or series of focus groups. Early in my career, I was fortunate to work alongside some very strong community leaders and organizers who had many stories of organizations that would engage the community but then never follow through with stated or implied commitments. I recall proposing to conduct a survey in a community only to have a mentor of mine look at me, raise her eyebrows and say, “Do you want me to save you from being chased down the street or should I let you go and try to do a survey?” She went on to say how engagement requires a commitment to accountability with the community that is much larger than conducting a survey. This community organizing lesson is equally important for a strategic planning process. If you involve clients and stakeholders in a strategic planning process then there is an accountability that is implied the moment your engagement begins. So as the implementation of the strategic plan unfolds there needs to be a continuing engagement and accountability to clients and stakeholders.

By now you might have the sense that creating a process to remain accountable to strategic planning serves two functions. At the most basic level creating accountability structures ensures transparency in the process and enables ongoing communication of progress to occur. More meaningful to the implementation process is the cycle of action that is created by the accountability measures. If the organizational leadership and board are committed to the strategic plan and have standing agenda and action items dedicated to advancing the plan; if the entire team has a corollary consideration process and has the strategic plan hard-wired into performance plans; and if the clients and stakeholders are engaged in ongoing and meaningful ways; then an organization has broadened the implementation platform in a way that encourages further commitments and actions in support of the strategic plan. Accountability matters as a pre-planning function of strategic planning.

As stated in the beginning of this series, my purpose has not been to run through the litany of strategic planning models. Rather, in the last several posts I have outlined some of the systems thinking that needs to inform the development of a strategic planning process. Strategic planning is more about process and less about product. Aligning your organizational culture, selecting a strategic agenda for the process, creating an implementation plan and developing an accountability structure are four critical components of the strategic planning process. It is my experience that those agencies and teams that consider these components of strategic process energize their strategic plans enabling them to advance with clearer purpose and confidence towards a more certain and predictable future.

As always, your comments are welcomed.

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Strategic Planning: Accountability Matters

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