3 minutes
Tell them that change is less difficult when considered in advance—and other tips.
This is a bonus article from the September issue of Credit Union Management magazine.
Staff members often see strategic planning as unfamiliar and threatening. It means change, and especially in smaller organizations with long-tenured teams, change can be difficult and significantly disruptive. Employees need to understand that change will come whether they plan for it or not and that they have a much better chance of managing the future by considering what it means before it arrives.
The key to engagement in planning discussions is the ability to move beyond the day-to-day to think about the bigger picture. Often people who are operationally strong can struggle to move past the way things currently work to think about the way things might be. The critical challenge is creating an environment that supports open sharing of ideas and perspectives without judgment (avoiding the 18-second manager problem, which is the topic of a great video from Tom Peters). Sometimes, those who are comfortable with strategy unintentionally intimidate those who are unexperienced because they push back too quickly or challenge or dismiss new and different ideas.
It takes time for teams to form and become effective. That means expectations need to be defined before the process starts. You cannot suddenly bring staff into the process and expect them to be able to immediately acclimate to and engage with a group that has been together many times. The forming, storming, norming, performing stages need to happen, and that takes time. If you are including new people in the planning process, prepare them beforehand and make sure the entire team has experienced being together before the planning session takes place. You can’t just throw everyone into the room, ask them to think about the future and expect them to engage in a meaningful way.
Be sure to create opportunities for idea sharing and input before the planning session, perhaps by surveying or interviewing staff or conducting a series of discussions around topical articles that have strategic implications for your credit union. Teach people how to consider alternative perspectives, equip them to share their ideas and engage in debate about them; help them understand how to expand their thinking. This preparation needs to occur before the planning session.
Recognize that this will be an evolutionary process. It may take two or three years to develop the capacity of team members to think strategically. Finding the right facilitator for the process—someone who fits for your credit union’s current realities and future potential—can be extremely useful. Then engage in a planning process that develops the strategic thinking muscles of the staff (and the entire planning team) and prepares them to define the right future destination for your credit union.
When I first started facilitating strategic planning sessions with credit unions, the biggest challenge I saw was that everyone focused more on the how and not enough on the what. Strategy is about defining what the business will become; tactics are about how it will make that happen. When pushed to consider a three- to five-year vision, managers and directors inevitably drifted toward the comfortable, known realities of the way things were being done instead of the bigger picture discussion and debate regarding what might be done or what is possible and necessary to ensure long-term success.
That is why I shifted my efforts toward the strategic planning process and away from the strategic planning session. Defining an effective strategy that will create the right future is a process, not an event. It is less about the annual planning session and more about the ongoing discussion and engagement in considering the realities of the industry within which the business operates. Creating that kind of thinking capacity within the entire planning team and creating an environment that allows everyone to bring their best ideas and insights to the surface in the discussions at the planning session is the key to success.
Michael Hudson, Ph.D., is a speaker, writer, coach and ideapreneur.
