“Not having a strategy is a strategy in itself…” This was something I used to say to leaders in my previous organization when they told me that things were too uncertain and unpredictable to put a strategy in place. Or that they needed to be responsive to what donors wanted and there was no point in coming up with something proactive. When we don’t have a strategy, then, in my experience, we weaken ourselves – we become more subject to the strategies of other organizations. As importantly, it weakens us internally. In the absence of a strategy, teams and individuals start to make up their own direction. They fill in the gaps. And that rarely (I’m going to risk saying never!) leads to everyone rowing in the same direction.
But what do you do when your strategy explodes or implodes or is indefinitely put on ice, due to seismic shifts in the external environment. As we’ve seen for so many humanitarian agencies around the world – those previously funded largely from USAID obviously, but even those who aren’t are significantly impacted financially, with little certainty of what might be to come. Strategy process is usually put in place when there is at least a modicum of stability and right now, that feels completely missing. At the same time, I see so much confusion from many colleagues across multiple organizations. They don’t know what their organization’s strategy is and so don’t in turn know what they should be doing or where they should be best focusing their time.
I think back to the team I was on when COVID first shut (most of) the world down. Our leaders decided that we needed to provide a barebones strategy that would set some organizational direction. And I was proud of the fact that 4-6 weeks out from the start of lockdown we had published a bare bones set of guiding direction that we could send to our teams and use to start to influence donors and policy makers as things evolved? Was it perfect? No! Did it change? Absolutely! But it served a really useful purpose even with all its limitations.
Based on this and other experiences of creating strategy in a crisis, I’ve pulled together 5 core questions for leaders to ask themselves and their stakeholders to support a bare bones ‘strategy’ (Call it strategic direction if strategy seems too grandiose!) and help keep moving and teams aligned in a mission-oriented direction.
1. What do we need right now? How do we trade off between the practicalities of survival/getting the work done/influencing others? Do we need broad brush strokes? Are we looking to motivate and inspire? Or reassure? Or influence?
2. What information do we have? What do we know? What do we know we don’t know (and who else might be able to fill in the gaps?). Most likely we don’t have time for a thorough process (and with things shifting quickly it will become redundant far too fast.
3. What does ‘good enough’ mean at a time like this? What are the costs of putting out a strategic direction that turns out to need to shift? What are the costs of NOT putting out a strategy? What does it mean to be participatory at a time like this? What compromises are we ready to make – and which ones are we not?
4. What are our organizational lines in the sand? What are we not prepared to compromise on in terms of our values? Or our work? What risks are we prepared to take? What hills are we prepared to (metaphorically) die on?
5. What’s the timeline/s we can work to? How often should we be reevaluating our strategic direction? This may change.
6. Who do we need to be informing? Channeling Simon Sinek’s work, people, both internal and external to our organizations want to know not only the WHAT is being prioritized but also the HOW it is going to be done and the WHY. Can our communication manage to convey this clearly.
At the end of the day, in extraordinary times, we are unlikely to get things ‘perfect’ – asking these questions will allow us to frame up some of the tradeoffs and come more informed into the incredibly hard decision-making processes that most leaders are making right now. And remembering that in the absence of sharing a strategy, others – inside and out – will come to their own conclusions of what your strategy is.
Reach out if I can be of assistance in helping to shape some of the strategic conversations you are needing right now.
(Photo Credit by Marcus Woodbridge on Unsplash)
