Many visioning processes begin with a guided visualization, where participants close their eyes and listen as they are guided by a facilitator through a series of images and questions. The key is to imagine we have arrived at a specified, fabulous point in the future – where all of our dreams have been realized. It is exactly the way we want it. It is about what we are for – not what we are against. And for most of us, our experience of being in this desired future reality is vivid and visceral. (Note: a few of us experience “visualizations” slightly differently – some of us don’t see pictures in our minds at all. Instead, we see words, or experience a set of sensations.) The experience of imagining that we have arrived at a point in the future – that we are there, right now – can unleash a whole new set of innovative, creative ideas. Click here for a list of 14 questions or elements to weave into your visualization script.
Tag: Strategic Planning
20 Questions for scoping new facilitation gigs
Facilitating a planning session for a first-time client? Avoid blindsides! Here’s a list of key questions that can help you walk in well-prepared and armed with knowledge about the real purpose, the group, the cuture, the context, and the space itself.
So you’ve been hired to facilitate a strategic planning session for a new client group or team. You want to offer maximum value, and you definitely do NOT want to get blindsided by unexpected eruptions from the Board or staff, or by your own ignorance of their culture, context or decision-making protocols. How do you best begin scoping the project?
As with all facilitation, investing in solid preparation pays off in the form of a richer, better use of precious face-to-face time. I was recently doing a little technical coaching for another facilitator, as she got ready to shepherd a campaign strategy session with a first-time client. It got me thinking about the sorts of questions I typically ask at the beginning of a new project. Some of these questions would also be useful when doing a fuller assessment at the beginning of an organizational change initiative, although that would require more robust preparation. Meanwhile, here’s a list of things to consider even for facilitating a one-off meeting.
Big Picture
- Purpose: Why now? What is the overarching purpose of this session?
- Outcomes: What would “wild success” look like for this session, specifically? What specific outcomes might the team be hoping for?
Process Context
- Timing: Where does this session fit contextually – is it part of a larger planning process? At the tail end of one? Are folks exhausted from planning? Excited and eager?
- Experience: What planning frameworks and processes has this group done in the past? What about the styles and approaches of past facilitators?
- Attitudes: What are the attitudes folks have toward planning in general? (Flakey? Waste of time? Exciting? Overdue?)
- Energy: How much bandwidth do folks have for this process?
- Conflict: How is conflict handled by the group, traditionally?
Decision-Making
- Norms: How are decisions made in this group (Consensus? Majority voting? One decision-maker?) And who makes them – Board only? Executive and Management Team only? Everyone? Is it different for certain kinds of decisions?
- Decision-makers: Does anyone NOT in the room need to be consulted before decisions are final? This is almost always the case for coalition meetings, for example.
Participation
Scoping out the participants can be tricky, but the more I can know about who’s going to be in the room – and who isn’t – the more I can tailor the agenda design to the group’s real needs. So I might ask:
- Participants: Who’s going to be in the room in terms of:
- rank and power
- institutional knowledge/history
- relationships and influence
- skills, including strategic ability and experience
- Is the Board included in the session? Staff? What about key consultants or partners? What about founding directors? Why or why not?
- What about participants’ primary leadership styles? Do they tend to be focused on details? Great at generating ideas/innovative? Tend to highlight risks/downsides? Tend to highlight possible benefits/upsides? Comfortable or even drawn to conflict? Conflict-averse?
- Influencers: And here’s a key one: who’s NOT going to be in the room that has influence on the dynamics or the outcome from the outside?
Preparation
- Pre-work: How much pre-work can we do in terms of sharing information through prepared briefing notes or other materials? Examples might include:
- Having group members prepare advance briefing notes to bring everyone up to speed on key topics in advance
- Conducting interviews and/or on-line surveys
- Conducting pre-session scoping meetings or focus groups with smaller numbers of the team?
- Any other research or data-gathering that I or someone on the team might need to do to make the best use of our face to face time together
- Orientation: What do I need to know about the group’s culture and ‘language’? For example, I once needed to develop a glossary of acronyms before being able to effectively work with one science-based land use coalition, in order to keep up with flipcharting and the direction of the content. With other groups I’ve needed to memorize the spelling and pronunciation of traditional First Nation names. With some, I’ve needed to avoid terms like “energy” (“atmosphere” might be OK) or business planning concepts like “BHAG” (Big Hairy Audacious Goal).
Logistics
- Documentation: How will decisions be documented? This is key. If no one takes notes, or if the group relies only on my short-hand flipchart notes, there’s a risk that key decisions and ideas won’t be carried forward – rendering the whole exercise a waste of time. And note-taking is a critical skill – it requires being able to listen, type and sort for key ideas at the same time; it is a powerful role, not at all a ‘junior’ one as some mistakenly assume
- Venue: What kind of physical space will we have? Natural light? Access to outdoors? Easy access to breakout spaces? Room to stand and spread out? Ample space for posting flipcharts?
- Room set-up: What kind of restrictions might we have in terms of room set-up? For example, seating arrangements need to account for some participants joining in as ‘disembodied beings’ by speakerphone, skype, or videoconference. Seats might also need to be adjusted if everyone needs to be able to face a single wall to view a visual presentation.
- Location: What about the location – is it easy to access by transit or bike? Is there access to outdoors with the option of doing any work outside?
- Food and drinks: What about food and refreshments? I strongly advise having beverages (at least tea/coffee, herbal tea and plenty of water) at the outset of the session, and for every break – that way participants can refresh themselves throughout the day. I also advise that all break snacks include healthy, high fibre finger foods: nuts, fresh fruit, raw veggies, possibly cheese or yoghurt – with the addition of carby, sugary wheat-based things like muffins as an option. Usually it’s the other way around: all starch and sugar, which pretty well guarantees a group-wide sugar crash at about 2 pm
- Timing: Are there fixed times for lunch or breaks? I generally try to schedule breaks every 90 minutes; is that an option? Do we need extra time prior to the meeting to set up the room or will that be done by the facility? Do we need to push the start time back due to any participants commuting in that morning?
- Equipment: What kind of equipment will be provided? Typical equipment includes: at least one flipchart pad and stand; odor-free markers (some participants are sensitive); masking tape; various sizes and colours of Post-it notes; sticky dots for “dotmocracy” exercises; an LCD projector, table, and 3-pronged extension cords, along with various Mac laptop adapters for the projector. I always have my own portable equipment for local work, but often rely on clients to provide these items when I’m working out of town.
Do you have other questions you typically ask? War stories to share about the impact of NOT asking certain questions? I’d love to hear them!
Facilitating an organizational vision: Collage
Sometimes words are not enough. Creative approaches such as collage can be incredibly powerful for developing compelling visions – starting with images. The words can follow. Leadership coach and facilitator Olive Dempsey offers a beautiful workshop on visioning using collage, or what she calls “visioning boards”. Sharon Livingstone, a brilliant focus group moderator based in New Hampshire, first taught me to use collage as a creative-association technique when I briefly studied with her several years ago.
The basic idea is this: provide stacks of different kinds of magazines, glue stick, scissors, and some sort of cardboard backing. Invite participants to thumb through and pick out any images that speak to them about an aspirational, fabulous future life – personal or professional or both. They may pick out words, or letters to make up words. You might add coloured pencils, watercolours, anything else to facilitate capturing a collection of images that convey a feeling AND specific outcomes or states of being. For organizational visions, this is fantastic to do in small groups or teams.
The trick to making this really work lies in the debrief afterward. Have each group present their completed collage. Ask: Why did those specific images speak to you? What’s surprising and new? What are the key themes or threads that may draw it all together? What do others see, outside of the group? What’s most resonant here for all of us?
Here’s a lovely example of several simple vision boards; these are focused on personal visions, but of course could equally apply to organizational visions.
Facilitating an organizational vision: The Hot Pen Technique
Successful organizations have long known about the power unleashed across a team when people are galvanized around an effective vision. There are dozens of approaches to facilitating an organizational vision process. The essential process is all about marrying imagination and strategy – taking intuitive, creative and informed leaps into a possible aspirational future. The next few posts will lay out just a few that I’ve found really effective as a facilitator, starting with the “hot pen technique.”
Books like The Artist’s Way describe the benefits of using stream-of-consciousness approach to creative writing for a prescribed length of pages or amount of time. The idea is to let your creative juices flow, without editing or judging anything that wants to emerge. Feeling creatively constipated, so to speak? Not to fear. Just write ‘blah blah blah’, or cuss like a sailor – anything goes. Just write.
Business leader and visioner extraordinaire Ari Weinsweig teaches a similar approach to visioning specifically, and it’s incredibly powerful (and fun). He calls it the “Hot Pen Technique”. Check out page 144 of Ari Weinsweig’s “A Lapsed Anarchist’s Approach to Building a Great Business” for specifics. The basic idea is this: write for at least 15 minutes without stopping. Turn off your ‘internal editor’ and just write – whatever comes to mind – about your aspirational future. It should be a stretch – that is, bold enough to get your heart racing just a little – but also achievable. It should also be personal. Put yourself in the picture. You’re the star of this movie!
And ideally, include the elements of a great story. That is, engage your senses of light, touch, smell, taste, as you describe the setting and characters co-starring in this fabulous new future. Hell, add a soundtrack! Make it as vivid, detailed and visceral as your imagination allows.
I recently attended a workshop of Ari’s while facilitating a retreat in beautiful Molokai, Hawaii, and found this technique to be remarkably useful. While I went into the exercise feeling pretty clear about my vision, the method crystallized and fleshed out startling new details of what I hope to achieve in both my personal and professional trajectory.
Organizational visions: More case studies of great vision statements
Some of my recent posts describe the power of effective organizational visions, including examples of a few not-so-great vision statements, and one fabulous vision in narrative form. Here are a few more examples of organizational visions that do hit at least some of the notes of a vivid narrative description of an aspirational future. The key: we can see pictures in our minds about what success looks like, and what the organizations are for – not just what they’re against.
We are feeding ourselves, our families, and our community with easily accessible and nourishing food from our local gardens, farmers, and ranchers.
– Slow Food Denver
Canadians have confidence in us. Canadian Blood Services provides a safe, secure, cost-effective, affordable and accessible supply of quality blood, blood products and their alternatives. Canada is self-sufficient in blood and we are working to be self-reliant in plasma. Emerging risks and best practices are monitored continuously. Our blood and blood products are safe and of quality…. [the full vision is longer, but you get the point!]
– Canadian Blood Services
Our vision: Provide a world-class Club Experience that assures success is within reach of every young person who walks through our doors, with all members on track to graduate from high school with a plan for the future, demonstrating good character and citizenship, and living a healthy lifestyle.
– Boys and Girls Club of Martin County, USA
ForestEthics believes that protecting our planet is everyone’s business. Because of our work, environmentally responsible corporations and governments will thrive. Natural systems will be protected, and the people and wildlife that depend on them will prosper. Markets will be more transparent and ethical.
– ForestEthics
What are YOUR favourite examples of great vision statements? I’d love to hear them! In upcoming posts I’ll share some of the methods I and other facilitators use to help organizations and businesses tap into the power of their own visions.
Typical Not-For-Profit Vision Statements
As I continue this series of posts on organizational visions, I want to acknowledge right now that most organizations, particularly in the not-for-profit sector, don’t use a narrative-focused approach in building their visions. And I respectfully submit that many non-profits have lackluster vision statements. A few are certainly short and to the point, but fail to tap into the power of a vivid narrative description. Vision statements of even the largest, most well-resourced charities in the world are often based on what feels like an unattainable future, or are so broad and conceptual as to feel like meaningless platitudes. They aren’t bad, necessarily – they just aren’t compelling, or “sticky”.
Here’s a typical (hypothetical) example:
“Our vision is for a world without hunger.”
What does that really mean? What does such a future look like? It’s not motivating, because of two things:
One, it’s unclear. That is, I have no pictures in my mind of what that world looks like. Sure, I can make up a few stories, scenarios and images – but that’s just me going to the extra mental effort filling in the blanks for myself.
Two, it seems unattainable. To our knowledge, no reasonably complex human society has ever successfully ended hunger for all of its citizens.
Here are several other classic, real-world examples:
“A hunger-free America
“A world without… [insert disease here]”
“A sustainable world for future generations”
“A world in which every person enjoys all of the human rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights instruments”
What do you think? Are these sufficiently vivid, sticky and compelling to be repeated by staff at all levels; to be motivational and inspire weary volunteers even in tough times?
In upcoming posts I’ll share some of the methods I and other facilitators use to help organizations and businesses tap into the power of their own visions.
Case study: A compelling narrative vision for Zingerman’s Farmer’s Market
In my last post I described Collins and Porras’ 4-part model for an effective vision. One component is a vivid narrative description. I’ve seen relatively few organizations create this, particularly in the not-for-profit sector – but its creation is possibly the most fun and engaging. Here’s a lovely example of a narrative vision statement for what became a Zingerman’s-sponsored Farmers Market in Ann Arbour, Michigan:
It’s the longest day of the year; the sun is at its pinnacle of warmth and light. Throngs of people are milling around the Roadhouse parking lot, amazed and excited at the abundance of locally produced goods, ranging from several gorgeous varieties of tomatoes to handmade soap and artisan crafts, to herbs and plants, plus a very strong synergy of Zingerman’s items—cheese from the Creamery, breads from the Bakehouse, and the ever-energetic Roadshow crew caffeinating all the vendors and customers. Every vendor is selling the best of what there is to offer, growing or producing themselves what they sell…”
And by the way: within just four years this vision had become a full, day-glo reality for the lucky farmers and foodies of Ann Arbour.
5 Qualities of a great organizational vision
Quick: think of an organization or business you know and love. Maybe it’s one you actually work or volunteer at. What’s their vision for success? In other words, what’s the specific statement or narrative that they use to describe wild, vivid, success in, say, ten or twenty years? Chances are they have one – but you don’t know what it is of the top of your head, even if you work there. Or they have one – but it’s so broad as to be virtually meaningless. Maybe it’s just a vague platitude, like “an end to world hunger.” True, it’s not easy to come up with a clear, powerful vision. But the process itself can be a wonderfully creative experience. And once developed, an effective vision can be a rich source of fuel and inspiration for years to come.
Truly great organizational visions tend to have 5 key qualities. And, no surprise – – these are the same qualities of effective social change messages of all kinds:
- Visual: This seems like a no-brainer, but visions should, in fact, involve imagery – vivid pictures, told in words, that literally stimulate the visual cortex of listeners. “In 30 years we will have achieved world peace” is certainly aspirational, but it’s not visual.
- Motivating: Effective visions are emotionally compelling, and deeply motivating. They speak to the heart and gut – not just the head. They inspire people to act, to keep going when the going is tough, to dig down a little deeper because with that extra push, the beauty and power of that collective vision feels within reach
- Achievable: Powerful visions are like big “stretch goals” – their achievement may be well out of our comfort zone, it may call for great acts of courage and perseverance – but it is actually possible to get there. They are, in the words of Ari Weinsweig, “strategically sound.”
- Positive: Effective visions are stated in the positive – what we are FOR, not what we’re AGAINST. That’s easier said than done for many social change organizations whose orientation has been focused on stopping oppression or negative environmental and economic development.
- “Spreadable”: Like any good, ‘sticky’ story, effective visions can be repeated, spread like a happy virus from one team member to another, and beyond. If they are too long, boring, or conceptual (versus vivid and grounded in tangible imagery and action), we can be pretty certain they will sit on shelves gathering dust. John Kotter, author of “Leading Change”, suggests that it should be possible to convey a great vision in no more than 5 minutes. That way, they can be communicated as a regular, cherished practice across all levels of the organization. His research suggests that most companies under-communicate their visions by a factor of 10.
The power of organizational vision
In 1961, US President John F. Kennedy challenged his nation to, literally, reach for the moon. Like all great leaders, Kennedy understood that an effective vision will unleash a level of power, alignment and motivation that can change the world. This is the start of a series of ideas and tools to help you with your own visioning process.
In 1961, US President John F. Kennedy challenged his nation to, literally, reach for the moon:
“I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth.”
In a mere seven years, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were the first humans on the planet to set foot on the moon’s surface. Dozens more followed. Like all great leaders, Kennedy understood that an effective vision will unleash a level of power, alignment and motivation that can change the world.
I’m in the midst of supporting a visioning process for a large civil rights organization. The team has a phenomenal track record, and is now ready to take their work to the next level. Their questions and insights have encouraged me to reflect even more deeply on my own approach to visioning – so organizational visioning is going to be the focus of my next few posts.
7 Steps to Creating An Effective Internal Communications Plan
A smart internal communications plan can serve as a launching point for achieving continual growth, alignment and impact across your team over time. Here’s a 7-step plan to developing your own.
“It’s so ironic,” sighed Angela, a campaign director with a large civil rights organization. We were sitting in her sun-lit board-room discussing the results of a new organizational assessment. “We’ve just led one of the most successful anti-discrimination campaigns in the state. But half of our staff barely know the story, other than what they read in our news releases. The other half know all about it – but couldn’t talk about our organizational vision if their lives depended on it.” She looked up. “We’ve got to do a better job of communicating with our own people.”
Sometimes the most effective spokespeople and media relations experts “fall down” when it comes to reaching their own internal audiences. The good news is, we already know what makes communication effective. We live in a world that demands it: being inundated with messaging 24/7 has forced us to become sophisticated consumers of messaging and communications. We just need to apply that same knowledge to our own teams. Whether it’s a simple intra-office memo or communications around a transformational change initiative, here are the basic components of an effective internal communications plan.
1. Clarify your purpose
For specific communications, get specific about your purpose. For example, is the message being delivered for information only, to generate feedback, to generate new ideas, or is a specific action required?
2. Clarify your desired outcome(s)
Do you need a response in writing by a certain time or prior to a particular event? Are you seeking a list of 3-5 new ideas? How specific can you reasonably be about how you will define success? This step is essential for identifying the benchmarks and metrics you’ll use to evaluate your results.
3. Know your audience
- Identify your target audience. Who exactly do you need to reach? Is it ‘everyone in the organization’ – or are the most important people, in fact, a few key influencers or opinion leaders (which has nothing to do with positional power, necessarily), individuals with specific skills, or one or two key decision-makers?
- Meet them where they’re at. What do they already know, believe or feel about the issue? If you’re talking about a brand-new concept, then a little informational background will be essential. If they are aware of the issue, but highly skeptical, then your messages and framing will need to address that, not just gloss over it.
4. Develop the strategy
- Identify pathways. What are the most effective pathways for reaching your particular target audience(s)? Is it email? Written memos (remember those?) A phone call? Face to face meeting? Intranet? Social media? Cloud platforms such as google drive? Hard copy memos inserted into payroll packages? A display board in the staff common room?
- Consider messengers. Also ask: who’s the most effective messenger? It may not be you. It may not be the most senior executive. Does your audience instead need to hear the message from a trusted peer? Do you need internal champions to move the issue forward?
5. Develop the message
Now that you’ve identified and ‘profiled’ your audience, develop your message. It should be short, clear, compelling, and ideally, visual. It is very likely positive – focused on what the team is for, rather than what it’s against. If you deliver the message through stories, it will almost certainly be ‘sticky’ – both memorable and high-impact.
6. Deliver the message
Effective communications are really about delivering the right message, to the right audience, at the right time – often many times. So plan it out. Here are some elements to think about:
- People power: Who needs to do what, by when? Who is the decision-maker? Who needs to be consulted? Who needs to be informed? Who’s doing the actual work? Is there a lead, or internal ‘project manager’ to ensure the work is proceeding as planned?
- Timing: When is the optimum time to deliver the message? How often does it need to be repeated?
- Resources: How much time will it take – and are there other resources required? How is this work reflected on internal workplans, if at all?
- Metrics: How will you know the message is received? How will you know the desired results are being achieved? When and how are you scheduling evaluation along the way (see below)?
7. Evaluate and learn
Don’t just identify metrics for tracking progress – revisit them on a regular basis. Use what they teach you. Build evaluation into monthly and quarterly reviews, for example. And include it as a routine practice or group norm: for instance, at every staff meeting, include a standing agenda item that has the team reflect on its internal communications. Include tracking questions on annual internal organizational surveys. Questions could be as simple as: How well are we communicating our organizational vision? How well are we keeping one another abreast of one another’s work and results? How are we doing with having “courageous’ conversations” in a timely, skillful way? How are we doing with email brevity and appropriateness? How are we doing with the preparation and use of well-crafted briefing notes? Insanity has been defined as “doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” Building in evaluation at every level of your communications will interrupt any bias toward activities and help teams focus on results. With routinized evaluation, your internal communications, and therefore your internal alignment and collective ability to get things done, will continually improve.
Sample Plans
Here’s a great multi-agency plan for a set of child-focused Irish agencies attempting to collaborate more effectively. There are clear, high–level messages, a broad but clear set of audiences and a list of tactics tailored somewhat for each audience, plus a broad-stroke timeline. The challenge with the plan is its lack of metrics – how will they measure success?
The ITSMF, a forum for Information Technology professionals, offers a great internal communications plan to its members. Out of respect for its chapter model, it is not overly prescriptive, but does suggest useful types of metrics that could form the basis for continual evaluation.
The global organization Civicus also offers a short, useful case study on pages 17-19 of its internal communications toolkit. Evaluation is mentioned under “next steps”, with specific reference to a follow-up survey to track results over time.
Suzanne Hawkes 