heartland presentation

One Step Ahead: Building a Strong Organization

Presented by:Lolita SereleasF.U.N.D. Consulting, LLC

F.U.N.D. Consulting, LLC

Women-owned consulting firmWorks with CDFIs, non-profits, fro profit, government entitiesFocus on capacity building services including needs assessment, market analysis, strategic planning, and organizational development

Approach to Staying Ahead

Know the basics of understanding your marketAccept changeEngage in a continuous strategic management process

Stages of Organizational Development

InceptionStart-Up/LaunchStabilityMaturityHigh Performance

Inception

A founder(s) recognizes an unmet need. Establishes a vision and works to gain support. Best practices in this phase include: Market analysis Strategic Planning Fundraising/Investment Incorporation

Start-Up/Launch

Moves from vision and planning to implementation. This phase is marked by: Small staff—founder(s) are usually

heavily involved in service delivery Constant search for revenue

Stability

Founders move from delivery to managementMore staff is hiredOrganization has name recognition in the market

Maturity

Focus on strategic growth and improving qualityGrowth necessitates increase in resourcesIdentification and evaluation of success measures

High Performance

Sufficient internal structuresUnderstanding of success measures and ability

to replicate them• Clear statement of mission that creates sense

of esprit de corp.• Well defined values which result in distinctive

cultureGood communication and information sharing systems

• Design (work flow, structure, systems) that supports mission and values

Market

Non-profit shift in thinking from “service areas” to markets

Why Analyze and Understand Your Market?

Improve business soundness and stability

Market studies help advance the primary mission

Inform and focus marketing, advertising, and outreach efforts

Why Analyze and Understand Your Market?

A good market study helps secure funding

A good market study helps secure valuable partners

A good market study informs your organization’s strategic planning

Need vs. Demand

Need What does population of the

service/market area need to improve quality of life (or work)?

Demand What products or services are

customers ready to use?

Needs Assessment

A systematic exploration of the way things are and the way they should beIdentifies gaps and explores possibilitiesCan be internal or external

Market Analysis

Measures opportunity and potentialExternal

In Other Words….

Who are my customers?Where are they located?What do my customers need to improve their quality of life?What products do they want but do not have access to?What products are right for my customers?Who else is working in the market area?

Process

Assemble committee/plan to assessDetermine appropriate methodologyEstablish timelineDevelop plan for communicating process and responsibilities to appropriate staffDevelop plan for communicating resultsDevelop plan for implementing recommendations based on findings

Research Methods

Secondary data analysisGIS mappingKey informant interviewsSurveysFocus groups

Analysis

By geographyBy demographic Income Race Others

Change

Now that you understand your market position, you have to accept that it is going to change.

Your organization has to change with it, even stay one step ahead.

What is organizational change?

Typically, the concept of organizational change is in regard to organization-wide change, as opposed to smaller changes such as adding a new person, modifying a program, etc.

(Carter Mcnamara, PHD

What Provokes Organizational Change?

Change should not be done for the sake of change -- it's a strategy to accomplish some overall goal. Usually organizational change is provoked by some major outside driving force, e.g., substantial cuts in funding, address major new markets/clients, need for dramatic increases in productivity/services, etc.

(Carter Mcnamara, PHD

Change is Scary

Expect resistance to change

Make Successful Changes

Do not change for the sake of changeKeep customers in mind

Making Change Successful

Establish a clear vision and set a strategy

Why Change Fails 1. Allowing too much complacency

2. Failing to create a sufficiently powerful guiding coalition 3. Underestimating the power of vision 4. Undercommunicating the vision 5. Permitting obstacles to block the vision 6. Failing to create short term wins 7. Declaring victory too soon 8. Neglecting to anchor changes firmly in the corporate culture

John P. Kotter

Thinking Strategically

“Strategic thinking produces a vision, a profile of what an organization wants to become, which then helps managers make vital choices." From: Strategy Pure & Simple IIMichel RobertMcGraw Hill Professional Book Group, 1998 Copyright (c) 1998 by Michel Robert.

Strategic Thinking vs. Planning

Strategic thinking is different from strategic planning and operational planning. In fact, strategic thinking is the framework for the strategic and operational plans.

Strategic thinking is the type of thinking that attempts to determine what the organization should look like. In other words, the strategy. Operational planning, and even what has become known as strategic planning, is the type of thinking that helps us choose how to get there.

From: Strategy Pure & Simple IIMichel RobertMcGraw Hill Professional Book Group, 1998 Copyright (c) 1998 by Michel Robert.

Strategic Management

Strategic Thinking vs. Planning

Outcomes of Strategic Thinking

The combined effects of these is the creation of a capacity for strategic thinking that meets what Day (1994) refers to as the three fundamental tests for a strategically valuable capability:

they create superior value for customers/clients,

they are hard for competitors to imitate, and

they make the organization more adaptable to change. Strategic Thinking

A Discussion Paper

Eton LawrencePersonnel Development and Resourcing Group

Research Directorate,Policy, Research and Communications Branch,Public Service Commission of Canada

April 27, 1999

Asking the Right Questions

You have to ask the right questions, to get answers that will help develop long term strategies and solutions, not short term remedies and identification of symptoms.

You have to make sure you understand the questions you are asking.

Asking the right questions: an ongoing process

You are not settling for an answer but acting while continuing to think. The world will not wait for thinking to end. To end thinking simply because you must act negates the whole power of strategic thinking. It is an ongoing, natural flow of thought evoked by questions.

* What seems to be happening? * What possibilities do we face? * What are we going to do about it?

Staying One Step Ahead

Collecting information on an ongoing basisIncorporating it into strategic thinking processBoth formal and informal data collection mechanisms

Formal Data Collection

Key Informant InterviewsFocus GroupsSurveys

Questions?