Tag Archives: nonprofit

When is the best time to start your strategic plan?

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You’re probably inundated with news articles and television interviews about how the President-elect will begin his first 100 days, or how the current President is helping with the transition. Maybe you’ve also been getting emails from companies  you subscribe to about what they will be offering at their best end of the year prices or what’s in store for 2017.

That’s because it’s that time again! The time when leaders, business owners and nonprofit executives begin their review of the past year and begin to carve out a plan for the year ahead.

The best time to start your strategic plan is today. 

Those of you who follow me regularly know that a strategic plan is one of my 4 Elements for Success. I think it’s pretty difficult to move forward if you don’t have a plan or roadmap for what you will do to accomplish your goals. It’s helps to keep you focused on what’s most important and eliminates your tendency to follow every bright, shiny object that will max out your time or capacity.

There are a couple of ways I suggest you begin to craft your plan and I wanted to share them with you today.

1) Assess what worked so far:

Take some time to really look back at your income, expenses, return on those investments of time and money, programs, services, human capacity and customer or client satisfaction with your company or nonprofit. It takes some time, but it’s critical that you get feedback. Easy ways to accomplish this are free surveys online, meetings with key stakeholders or a random sampling of your client base, employee reviews or evaluations, meetings with bookkeeper or treasurer, etc. Think of all the information you need to make decisions next year and figure out a way to compile that information in the next couple of weeks.

2) The Best and the Rest:

Ask yourself these questions –

What worked best last year?

What do you wish you would have done but didn’t get around to implementing?

What would you do differently?

What do you want or need to let go of?

Use the answers to these questions and others that come up along the introspective process to formulate the list of things you want to make sure you do next year.

3) Connect to your core values

Do the things you accomplished this year fall within your core values? Are you aligned with what matters most to you? (If you haven’t had a values assessment, reach out and let me know. I can walk you through a process that will really help.)

4) Time and talents – Do you have all the human and financial resources you need to do what you want to do next year? If not, how can you put them in place at the right time in your plan?

5) Personal capacity and efficiency – Were you able to delegate appropriately and manage your time efficiently this year? What would you do differently? As you think about the coming year, are there areas or aspects of your work that you can delegate to someone this year? Or is there someone you can begin to develop to receive more of the share of the workload so you can focus on growth or more self care?  Who will take on each piece of the plan?

These are just a few ways in which you can get ready to create your actual plan.

Part two of this process is figuring out what buckets you need to put into your plan. We’ll talk about that in another post coming soon.

I’d like to share with you a recent webinar training I facilitated on strategic planning, which goes more in depth about how to create an effective plan and what accountability measures you can build in to your plan. Subscribe to my list on Facebook by clicking the “Sign Up” button or fill out the contact us form on this website. Once we get you signed up, I’ll send you a link that will bring you to this important webinar! It’s free and you can listen whenever you have the time!

As always, I am ready and willing to help you in whatever way I can. Some of my clients hire me to help them facilitate their initial plan, while some have me come periodically during the year to keep them on track. Whatever your needs, reach out if you’re ready to take the next step and create a strategic plan that ensures your most successful year yet!

I’ll Keep On Making These New Mistakes

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Last week, I was watching Dancing with the Stars and heard this great song called Try Everything from the movie, Zootopia. I immediately recognized it as one of those songs I needed to add to my Morning Inspiration Playlist. (Do you have one of those? I highly recommend it!)

A couple of days later, I played it for my granddaughter, Kandyce, and told her I thought we’d be able to go see the movie this weekend. (We did and it was fantastic! I highly recommend that too.) I got the chance to see the song paired with the movie and it inspired me even more! You can watch the video just below and get a small sampling of what I’m talking about.

Try Everything Official Video Shakira

Watching Judy Hopps articulate her dream as a young person and then set out to make it come true was very inspiring. But what resonated with me the most about the lyrics is these two lines: “I’ll keep on making these new mistakes. I’ll keep on making them every day.”

As we launch or grow a business or nonprofit, we absolutely don’t know everything.  It’s one of the reasons many people NEVER even begin. Fear of making mistakes and failing can be truly paralyzing. A lot of business owners find that they aren’t willing to try everything or ANYTHING because it may mean they fall. The more things you try, the greater the risk.

Notice the song doesn’t say you’ll make the same mistakes. It says you’ll keep on making new mistakes. If you’re not making new mistakes, you may not ever get to where you want to be. You’ll hear crickets all day long if you don’t try something. You have to keep putting yourself out there, every day, to see what works and what doesn’t.

Sure, you’ll have bad days. You’ll make choices that could have turned out differently and led you to a different place. You’ll feel like things aren’t moving fast enough and want to give up. But you’ll keep learning! You’ll do it differently tomorrow and the next day, until you see that it’s working just the way you want it to.  Just like Judy, you’ll climb and fall, climb and fall. You’ll figure out how to do it differently and you’ll stop falling.

And perspective is important too. Don’t make a lot of important decisions when you’re having a bad day. Give yourself some time. You aren’t looking at things from the mountain on those days I call “crumple and cry days.”  You’re looking up from the ground or inside of the valley.

Just turn on a little music, dance it off and start again. Watch an inspiring movie or video. Call a friend to talk you off the ledge.

Try Everything.

Kandyce tries rock climbing

 

A Values Driven Philosophy

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I created a visual representation of my values today using www.wordle.net.  (Thanks to Meg Hoffman for leading me to this great site!) I think any time you can see something visually it helps you to incorporate it more fully into your life and work. I also use a Values Assessment as fieldwork frequently as I think it is critical in assisting me as a coach to discover what opportunities provide the most authentic meaning in a client’s life and work. In other words, how can any of us engage in a meaningful life or career if we aren’t connecting to things that are important to us?

I used my values when creating a mission and philosophy for 4 Elements Coaching and for my other business, Nonprofit Staff Success International. During the creation phase of my business foundation. I included my values in my business plan and posted them on one website.  By communicating what I value most, I assist my clients in discovering more about me as a coach and as a business owner. And, whenever I come to a personal or business decision that feels heavy, I check in with my values to see whether the opportunity aligns with one or more of them. Because I value community, for example, I may decide to partner with a fellow coach to facilitate a weekend self care retreat which  connects women to other women who share the same challenges and can support solutions. Whenever I create new training content, I am actively aligned with my desire to enlighten my clients and to assist them in discovering new and innovative information that they can apply in their work. There really isn’t any aspect of my coaching businesses that isn’t somehow connected to one of these seven themes.

Do you know what you value? How does it show up in your work and in your life? How often do you check in to see if something you want to do, or feel compelled to do, is aligned with what matters the most?

Even if you aren’t ready to hire a coach, I’d love to help you discover your values and how you can apply this information to your career or to a situation where you need more clarity or movement.

Contact me at LaurieJohnson@4elementscoaching.com or by using our contact us form here and ask for a complimentary values assessment and coaching session. Don’t you owe it to yourself to create a rich life and satisfying work that flows around the things that are an integral part of who you are?