Week 7 - Signature Assignment: Write and Analyze a Case Study and Week 8 - Assignment: Create a Brochure on Organizational Planning

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Bryson, J. M. (2018). Strategic planning for public and nonprofit organizations : A guide to strengthening and sustaining organizational achievement. John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated. Created from ncent-ebooks on 2021-10-26 20:12:57.

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Table of Contents COVER TITLE PAGE LIST OF FIGURES AND EXHIBITS

Figures Exhibits

PREFACE SCOPE AUDIENCE OVERVIEW OF THE CONTENTS COMPANION STRATEGIC PLANNING WORKBOOKS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS FOR THE FIFTH EDITION THE AUTHOR PART ONE: UNDERSTANDING THE DYNAMICS OF STRATEGIC PLANNING

CHAPTER ONE: Why Strategic Planning Is More Important Than Ever DEFINITION, PURPOSE, AND BENEFITS OF STRATEGIC PLANNING DEFINITION, PURPOSE, AND BENEFITS OF STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT COMPARISONS AND CONTRASTS SUMMARY

CHAPTER TWO: The Strategy Change Cycle: An Effective Strategic Planning and Management Approach for Public and Nonprofit Organizations

A 10-STEP STRATEGIC PLANNING PROCESS TAILORING THE PROCESS TO SPECIFIC CIRCUMSTANCES SUMMARY

PART TWO: KEY STEPS IN THINKING, ACTING, AND LEARNING STRATEGICALLY

CHAPTER THREE: Initiating and Agreeing on a Strategic Planning Process PLANNING FOCUS AND DESIRED IMMEDIATE OUTCOMES DESIRED LONGER-TERM OUTCOMES GETTING CLEAR ABOUT THE PURPOSE DEVELOPING AN INITIAL AGREEMENT PROCESS DESIGN AND ACTION GUIDELINES HAVE REALISTIC HOPES FOR THE PROCESS

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SUMMARY CHAPTER FOUR: Clarifying Organizational Mandates and Mission

MANDATES MISSION STAKEHOLDER ANALYSES THE MISSION STATEMENT PROCESS DESIGN AND ACTION GUIDELINES SUMMARY

CHAPTER FIVE: Assessing the Environment to Identify Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Challenges

PURPOSE DESIRED IMMEDIATE OUTCOMES LONGER-TERM DESIRED OUTCOMES EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENTS INTERNAL ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT THE ASSESSMENT PROCESS PROCESS DESIGN AND ACTION GUIDELINES SUMMARY

CHAPTER SIX: Identifying Strategic Issues Facing the Organization IMMEDIATE AND LONGER-TERM DESIRED OUTCOMES EIGHT APPROACHES TO STRATEGIC ISSUE IDENTIFICATION SUMMARY

CHAPTER SEVEN: Formulating and Adopting Strategies and Plans to Manage the Issues

PURPOSE DESIRED IMMEDIATE AND LONGER-TERM OUTCOMES THREE APPROACHES TO STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT PROCESS DESIGN AND ACTION GUIDELINES SUMMARY

CHAPTER EIGHT: Establishing an Effective Organizational Vision for the Future DESIRED IMMEDIATE OUTCOMES AND LONGER-TERM BENEFITS AN EXAMPLE PROCESS DESIGN AND ACTION GUIDELINES SUMMARY

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CHAPTER NINE: Implementing Strategies and Plans Successfully PURPOSE AND DESIRED IMMEDIATE AND LONGER-TERM OUTCOMES PROGRAMS AND PROJECTS THE SPECIAL ROLE OF BUDGETS PROCESS DESIGN AND ACTION GUIDELINES SUMMARY

CHAPTER TEN: Reassessing and Revising Strategies and Plans PURPOSE AND DESIRED OUTCOMES BUILDING A STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT SYSTEM PROCESS DESIGN AND ACTION GUIDELINES SUMMARY

PART THREE: MANAGING THE PROCESS AND GETTING STARTED WITH STRATEGIC PLANNING

CHAPTER ELEVEN: Leadership Roles in Making Strategic Planning Work UNDERSTANDING THE CONTEXT UNDERSTANDING THE PEOPLE INVOLVED, INCLUDING ONESELF SPONSORING THE PROCESS CHAMPIONING THE PROCESS FACILITATING THE PROCESS FOSTERING COLLECTIVE LEADERSHIP (AND FOLLOWERSHIP) USING DIALOGUE AND DELIBERATION TO CREATE A MEANINGFUL PROCESS MAKING AND IMPLEMENTING DECISIONS IN ARENAS ENFORCING PRINCIPLES AND NORMS, SETTLING DISPUTES, AND MANAGING RESIDUAL CONFLICTS SUMMARY: PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER AND PREPARING FOR ONGOING STRATEGIC CHANGE

CHAPTER TWELVE: Getting Started with Strategic Planning THE THREE EXAMPLES REVISITED GETTING STARTED

RESOURCES RESOURCE A: A Guide to Stakeholder Identification and Analysis Techniques

AN ARRAY OF TECHNIQUES CONCLUSIONS

RESOURCE B: Using Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and Social

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Media in the Strategic Planning Process ENHANCING ORGANIZATIONAL USE OF TECHNOLOGY THE TOOLS CONCLUSIONS

REFERENCES NAME INDEX SUBJECT INDEX END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT

List of Illustrations Chapter 1

Figure 1.1. The ABCs of Strategic Planning.

Figure 1.2. Rational Planning Model.

Figure 1.3. Political Decision-Making Model.

Figure 1.4. Purposes and Functions of Strategic Planning and Management.

Chapter 2

Figure 2.1. The Strategy Change Cycle.

Figure 2.2. Strategic Planning System for Integrated Units of Management.

Figure 2.3. Strategic Planning and Management Outcomes, Actions, Design Features, and Context.

Chapter 3

Figure 3.1. Possible Purposes to Be Served by the City of Utrecht in Addressing the Challenges of Housing and Integrating Asylum Seekers.

Figure 3.2. Outcomes Likely to Be Needed If the Strategic Planning Process Is to Succeed.

Chapter 4

Figure 4.1. Stakeholder Map for a Government.

Chapter 5

Figure 5.1. Simplified Policy Field Map of the Relationships Surrounding the Metropolitan Economic Development Association's Program With the Association of Women Contractors and the U.S. Department of Commerce's Minority Business Development Agency.

Chapter 6

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Figure 6.1. Sorting Out the Issues and Their Implications.

Figure 6.2. Strategic Issues Facing a Roman Catholic Religious Order.

Chapter 7

Figure 7.1. The Loft Literary Center Map of High-Level Goals (boxed with shadow), Performance Indicators (boxed with no shadow), and Strategies Related to Resource Use (unboxed).

Chapter 10

Figure 10.1. Strategic Issues Management Model.

Figure 10.2. Purchaser-Provider Contract Model.

Figure 10.3. The Architecture of the Virginia Performs System.

Resources

Figure A.1. Strategic Management Purposes and Functions and Stakeholder Analysis Techniques to Assist in Fulfilling Them.

Figure A.2. Power Versus Interest Grid.

Figure A.3. Bases of Power—Directions of Interest Diagram, With Examples of Power Bases and Interests.

Figure A.4. Stakeholder-Issue Interrelationship Diagram.

Figure A.5. Problem-Frame Stakeholder Map.

Figure A.6. Policy Attractiveness Versus Stakeholder Capability Grid.

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“Leading and managing public-serving organizations in complex environments is a distinct form of professional practice, and strategic planning is one of its key aspects. Bryson has thought through this issue from every angle, so the fortunate reader of the latest edition of this landmark book can readily deliberate about how best to apply their own intelligence to leading and managing public service organizations in the here and now, wherever and whenever that may be.”

Michael Barzelay

Professor

London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)

“Nobody captures the processes, insights, and strategies for strategic management like John Bryson does. He has produced another tour de force with the fifth edition of Strategic Planning for Public and Nonprofit Organizations.”

Frances S. Berry

Reubin O'D. Askew Eminent Scholar and Frank Sherwood Professor of Public Administration

Askew School of Public Administration and Policy Florida State University

“The new fifth edition gives us a new best-book-in-the-world on strategic planning for public and nonprofit organizations. Bryson does a masterful job of integrating intellectual insight and practical knowledge, showing conclusively that good theory can be very practical.”

Barry Bozeman

Arizona Centennial Professor of Science and Technology Policy and Public Management

Director of the Center for Organization Research and Design

Arizona State University

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“Public and nonprofit leaders are facing significant and unprecedented challenges today. Navigating these challenges and creating innovation in a complex world without a roadmap and guideposts is impossible. Once again John Bryson, in his latest edition of Strategic Planning for Public and Nonprofit Organizations, provides a clear framework for creating sustainable change in a complex world. This book is a must-read for leaders and managers to effectively create strategies for transformative change.”

Gary Cunningham

President and CEO of the Metropolitan Economic Development Association

Minneapolis, MN

“In a time of great uncertainty for public organizations, strategic management is a must to survive. Bryson's new book shows the way forward and how to manage it. A must-read for practitioners and students alike, which treats the whole strategic planning and management process and activities in depth.”

Erik Hans Klijn

Professor

Department of Public Administration and Sociology

Erasmus University

Rotterdam, The Netherlands

President

International Research Society for Public Management

“There has never been more pressure on public and nonprofit leaders to demonstrate their value to the world. Strategic planning is a key means to do so, but too often it becomes a make-work exercise in practice. To avoid that trap, read this book. John Bryson is the undisputed master of how to make strategic planning work in the public and nonprofit sectors, and this book is the bible on the topic.”

Donald Moynihan

Professor and Director

La Follette School of Public Affairs

University of Wisconsin–Madison

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“Anyone working in complex systems and facing dynamic change should grab this book to help you think, prepare, and act. For the novice, it provides an invaluable foundation for approaching strategy development and execution. For the experienced leader, this resource offers fresh tools and insights on applications that can energize your efforts within and across organizations.”

Laurie Ohmann

Senior Vice President of Client Services & Community Partnerships

Catholic Charities of St. Paul and Minneapolis, MN

“John Bryson's Strategic Planning for Public and Nonprofit Organizations is THE book I always recommend to practitioners and academics alike. There is no better book on planning on the market today.”

Rosemary O'Leary

Edwin O. Stene Distinguished Professor

Director, School of Public Affairs

University of Kansas

President

Public Management Research Association

“Bryson's work has benefited innumerable practitioners and students in the US and well beyond it. Now this fifth edition even further ties together strategic planning with strategic thinking, acting, and learning. The book thus completes an impressive intellectual trajectory across the field of the strategic management of public services organizations.”

Edoardo Ongaro

Professor of Public Management

The Open University

United Kingdom

President

European Group for Public Administration (EGPA)

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“John Bryson is the doyen of strategic planning for public services. This fifth edition of his book is essential and required reading for all students and practitioners.”

Stephen Osborne

Chair of International Public Management

University of Edinburgh

Editor

Public Management Review

“This new edition is a great resource for practitioners, scholars, and students learning the art and science of strategic planning as a basis for strategic management. It operationalizes practical guidance, showing how strategic thinking, acting, learning, and deliberation have to be designed and integrated into the strategic planning process.”

David M. Van Slyke

Dean and Louis A. Bantle Chair in Business and Government Policy

The Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs

Syracuse University

“The new edition of this most authoritative book on public and nonprofit strategic management responds effectively to the changing environment of our time, incorporating more content on governance, collaboration, deliberation, sustainability, and public value creation. Beautifully written, theoretically sound, and practically useful, it is a must-read for scholars, practitioners, and students who want to keep abreast of the field.”

Kaifeng Yang

Professor

Reubin O'D. Askew School of Public Administration and Policy

Florida State University

Dean and Professor, School of Public Administration and Policy

Renmin University of China

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FREE Premium Content

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http://www.wiley.com/go/johnbryson5e

STRATEGIC PLANNING

FOR PUBLIC AND NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS

A Guide to Strengthening and Sustaining Organizational Achievement

FIFTH EDITION

JOHN M. BRYSON

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Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey Published simultaneously in Canada

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600, or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at www.wiley.com/go/permissions. Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for damages arising here from.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Bryson, John M. (John Moore), 1947- author.

Title: Strategic planning for public and nonprofit organizations: a guide to strengthening and sustaining organizational achievement / John M. Bryson. Description: Fifth edition. | Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2017. | Series: Bryson on strategic planning | Revised edition of the author's Strategic planning for public and nonprofit organizations, c2001. | Includes bibliographical references and index. |

Public administration. | BISAC: BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Nonprofit Organizations & Charities. Classification: LCC HD30.28 (ebook) | LCC HD30.28 .B79 2017 (print) | DDC 658.4/012—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017040594 Cover Design: Wiley

Cover Image: © Ivanastar/Getty Images

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LIST OF FIGURES AND EXHIBITS

Figures 1.1 The ABCs of Strategic Planning.

1.2 Rational Planning Model.

1.3 Political Decision-Making Model.

1.4 Purposes and Functions of Strategic Planning and Management.

2.1 The Strategy Change Cycle.

2.2 Strategic Planning System for Integrated Units of Management.

2.3 Strategic Planning and Management Outcomes, Actions, Design Features, and Context.

3.1 Possible Purposes to Be Served by the City of Utrecht in Addressing the Challenges of Housing and Integrating Asylum Seekers.

3.2 Outcomes Likely to Be Needed If the Strategic Planning Process Is to Succeed.

4.1 Stakeholder Map for a Government.

5.1 Simplified Policy Field Map of the Relationships Surrounding the Metropolitan Economic Development Association's Program With the Association of Women Contractors and the U.S. Department of Commerce's Minority Business Development Agency.

6.1 Sorting Out the Issues and Their Implications.

6.2 Strategic Issues Facing a Roman Catholic Religious Order.

7.1 The Loft Literary Center Map of High-Level Goals (boxed with shadow), Performance Indicators (boxed with no shadow), and Strategies Related to Resource Use (unboxed).

10.1 Strategic Issues Management Model.

10.2 Purchaser-Provider Contract Model.

10.3 The Architecture of the Virginia Performs System.

A.1 Strategic Management Purposes and Functions and Stakeholder Analysis Techniques to Assist in Fulfilling Them.

A.2 Power Versus Interest Grid.

A.3 Bases of Power—Directions of Interest Diagram, With Examples of Power Bases and Interests.

A.4 Stakeholder-Issue Interrelationship Diagram.

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A.5 Problem-Frame Stakeholder Map.

A.6 Policy Attractiveness Versus Stakeholder Capability Grid.

Exhibits 1.1 Strategic Planning and Strategic Management—Definitions, Functions, and Approaches.

3.1 Purpose Mapping Technique Guidelines.

3.2 Choosing the Right Stakeholders.

3.3 City of Minneapolis's Initial Agreement Process for Its 2014–2017 Strategic Plan.

3.4 Metropolitan Economic Development Association's Initial Agreement Process for Its 2016–2017 Strategic Plan.

3.5 Intosai'S Initial Agreement Process for Its 2017–2022 Strategic Plan.

3.6 Near's Strategic Planning Process.

3.7 Longer Planning Process of a Large Human Service Organization.

4.1 THE VISION, MISSION, AND VALUES OF THE METROPOLITAN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATION, 2011–2015 AND 2016–2020.

4.2 International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions' Mission and Vision Statements, 2017–2022.

4.3 Mission and Focus of the Amherst H. Wilder Foundation.

5.1 The 2014 SWOT Analysis of the International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions.

5.2 Six Trends Driving Change in Government.

5.3 BUILDING THE NEW LEADER.

5.4 “Our Miserable 21st Century.”.

5.5 The Organizational Highs, Lows, and Themes Exercise.

5.6 THE SNOW CARD, OR AFFINITY DIAGRAM, TECHNIQUE.

5.7 MEDA Strengths, Weaknesses, and Strategic Implications—2014.

6.1 Some Key Strategic Issues in the City of Minneapolis's Strategic Planning Process.

6.2 Strategic Issues Facing the Metropolitan Economic Development Association (MEDA).

6.3 Some Strategic Issues in the INTOSAI Case.

6.4 Operational Versus Strategic Issues.

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7.1 The Vision, Values, Goals, and Strategic Directions in the 2014–2017 Minneapolis Strategic Plan

7.2 Metropolitan Economic Development Association's Strategic Framework, 2016–2020.

7.3 Principles Guiding the Development of MetroGIS.

7.4 David Osborne and Peter Plastrik's Typology of Public-Sector Strategies.

7.5 BRYAN BARRY'S TYPOLOGY OF TYPICAL NONPROFIT STRATEGIES.

9.1 City of Minneapolis Community Indicators.

9.2 City of Minneapolis Fire Department Goals, Objectives, and Tactics, 2014–2017.

10.1 The City of Minneapolis Strategic Management System.

10.2 Virginia Performs Scorecard at a Glance.

11.1 How Gary Cunningham Has Worked to Fulfill the Leadership Roles in Making Strategic Planning and Implementation Work.

12.1 The City of Minneapolis Changes Under the 2014–2017 Strategic Plan.

12.2 MEDA Under Its 2016–2020 Strategic Framework.

12.3 Implementation of the INTOSAI 2017–2022 Plan So Far.

A.1 Participation Planning Matrix.

A.2 Ethical Analysis Grid.

A.3 Policy Implementation Strategy Development Grid.

B.1 Open Government Maturity Model.

B.2 Sites Where ICT and Social Media Tools Relevant to Strategic Planning May Be Found.

B.3 Matching Web-Based Tools to the Strategy Change Cycle.

B.4 Cmap Displayed in Cmap Viewer.

B.5 The Basic Logic Structure of a DebateGraph.

B.6 A Simplified DebateGraph Map of the White House Open Government Initiative.

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This book is dedicated to all of my students over the past 40-plus years, all the organizations with whom I have been privileged to work, and the people who have been kind enough to read and comment on this book in its several editions. I owe you all a deep debt

of gratitude—not least for all that I have learned from you.

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PREFACE This book addresses a number of important questions facing the leaders and managers of public and nonprofit organizations as they cope with the challenges that confront their organizations, now and in the years ahead. How should they respond to the increasingly uncertain and interconnected environments in which their organizations operate? How should they respond to dwindling or unpredictable resources; new public expectations or formal mandates; demographic changes; technology changes; deregulation or reregulation; upheavals in international, national, state, and local economies and polities; and new roles for public, nonprofit, and business organizations, including calls for them to collaborate more often? What should their organizations' missions be? How can they create greater and more enduring public value? How can they formulate desirable strategies and implement them effectively? These are the questions this book addresses.

SCOPE Strategic Planning for Public and Nonprofit Organizations is based on two premises. The first is that leaders and managers of public and nonprofit organizations must be effective strategists if their organizations are to fulfill their missions, meet their mandates, satisfy their constituents, and create public value. These leaders and managers need to exercise as much discretion as possible in the areas under their control. They need to develop effective strategies to cope with changed and changing circumstances, and they need to develop a coherent and defensible basis for their decisions. They also need to build the capacity—the resilience—of their organizations to respond to significant challenges in the future.

The second premise is that leaders and managers are most likely to discern the way forward via a reasonably disciplined process of deliberation with others when the situations faced require more than technical fixes. To succeed, deliberative processes also need institutional and organizational processes and structures in place to support them. The deliberative tradition, however, nowhere implies that there is “one best answer” to major challenges, only that there is the possibility of gaining understanding, finding common ground, and making wise choices via the deliberative process.

Strategic planning at its best makes extensive use of analysis and synthesis in deliberative settings to help leaders and managers successfully address the major challenges that their organization (or other entity) faces. This book begins by defining strategic planning as a deliberative, disciplined approach to producing fundamental decisions and actions that shape and guide what an organization (or other entity) is, what it does, and why it does it. Strategic planning has an important role to play as part—but only a part—of complex social problem solving. Specifically, it can be helpful for:

Gathering, analyzing, and synthesizing information to consider its strategic significance and

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frame possible choices

Producing considered judgments among key decision makers about desirable, feasible, defensible, and acceptable missions, goals, strategies, and actions

Producing similarly considered judgments about complementary initiatives, such as new, changed, or terminated policies, programs, and projects, or overall organizational designs

Addressing key organizational challenges now and in the foreseeable future

Enhancing continuous organizational learning

Creating significant and enduring public value

As experience with this kind of deliberative approach has grown, a substantial and expanding inventory of knowledge, guidance, procedures, tools, and techniques has also developed to assist leaders and managers. Strategic planning of this kind has become a standard part of management thinking and practice in the business world. Strategic planning has also become the standard practice of large numbers of public and nonprofit organizations. Of course, strategic planning isn't always called for, doesn't always work, or can work quite badly. This book is intended to help practitioners make suitable, wise, and effective use of strategic planning.

The first four editions of this book played an important role in promoting the use of strategic planning by public and nonprofit organizations. The practice of strategic planning has progressed substantially, and new areas of concern have emerged. Although this fifth edition covers many of the same topics as the first four editions, it also focuses on additional areas requiring special attention. All of the chapters and references have been updated, and new cases have been added. In addition, new material has been added on:

How to identify the actual or desired purposes of initiatives, including, of course, strategic planning efforts

The importance of focusing on creating public value and preserving and enhancing core democratic values

The importance of critical thinking and the logical structure of deliberative arguments and the requirements for effective deliberation intended ultimately to create public value

A new approach to strategy formulation called principles-focused strategizing designed to guide strategy development in situations characterized by high complexity, shared power, significant feedback effects, and the absence of clear goals

Collaboration, including cross-sector collaboration

Implementation and performance management

Organizational learning and formative, summative, and developmental evaluations

Organizational and community resilience and sustainability, which also means more attention to risk management

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The applicability of information and communication technology and social media throughout the process

The fourth edition's resource on developing a livelihood scheme, which links competencies and distinctive competencies directly to organizational aspirations, has been dropped to save space. The resource basically repeated what is in Bryson, Ackermann, and Eden (2007). In addition, the resource on how to use strategy mapping has been dropped because that information is now in a new workbook called Visual Strategy (Bryson, Ackermann, & Eden, 2014).

The fifth edition reflects a continuing major trend in the field by explicitly blending strategic planning with leadership and ongoing management. People realize that the former is no substitute for the latter. People also realize that strategic thinking, acting, and learning must go together for strategic planning to serve its function as a deliberative process focused on identifying and addressing important organizational issues. Of course, these points were all emphasized in the previous editions, but they are emphasized even more in the fifth edition. The book is therefore as much about strategic management—and indeed strategic governance—as it is about strategic planning. I have kept the original title, however, because of the recognition and following that the first four editions have achieved worldwide.

The new edition also reflects another continuing trend in the field by highlighting the importance of inclusion, analysis and synthesis, and speed as means to increasing organizational and community effectiveness (Bryson, 2003). The idea is to get more people of various kinds and skills involved, increase the sophistication and quality of analysis and synthesis used to inform action, and do it all more quickly than in the past. Doing any two of the three is not so hard, but doing all three together is very hard. One of the challenges the book presents, but does not really solve, is how to be inclusive, analytic, synthetic, and quick all at once. Figuring out how to address this effectively is one of the continuing tasks for the field.

In short, this edition places a renewed emphasis on the fact that strategic planning is not the same as strategic thinking, acting, learning, or deliberation. What matters most is strategic thinking, acting, and learning in a deliberative context. Strategic planning is useful only if it improves strategic thought, action, and learning; it is not a substitute for them. Strategic planning also does not produce deliberation unless it is designed into the process. The reader should keep clearly in mind that the formation, or realization, of strategies in practice has a variety of sources (the vision of new leaders, intuition, group learning, innovation, what already works, chance), and strategic planning is only one of them. Wise strategic thought, action, and learning takes all of them into account. As Mintzberg (1994, p. 367) famously noted, “Strategy formation cannot be helped by people blind to the richness of its reality.”

Specifically, this book:

Reviews the reasons public and nonprofit organizations (and communities) should embrace strategic planning and management as ways of improving their performance

Describes the elements of effective deliberation and deliberative practices

Presents an effective strategic planning and management process for public and nonprofit

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organizations that has been successfully used by thousands of public and nonprofit organizations around the world—this approach is called the Strategy Change Cycle. The book offers detailed guidance on applying the process, including information on specific tools and techniques that might prove useful in various circumstances within organizations, across organizations, and in communities

Discusses the major roles that must be played by various individuals and groups for strategic planning to work and gives guidance on how to play the roles

Clarifies the various ways in which strategic planning may be institutionalized so that strategic thinking, acting, and learning may be encouraged, embraced, and embedded across an entire organization

Includes many new examples of successful (and unsuccessful) strategic planning practices

Relates the entire discussion to relevant research and literature

AUDIENCE This book is written for two main groups. The first consists of elected and appointed policymakers, managers, and planners in governments, public agencies, and nonprofit organizations who are responsible for and who want to learn more about strategic planning and management. The book will help them understand what those are and how to make use of them in their own organizations and, to a lesser extent, their communities. Thus, the book speaks to city council members, mayors, city managers, administrators, and planners; sheriffs, police chiefs, fire chiefs, and their staffs; school board members, administrators, and staff; county commissioners, administrators, and planners; governors, state cabinet secretaries, administrators, and planners; legislators; chief executive officers, chief administrative officers, chief financial officers, and chief information officers; executive directors, deputy directors, and unit directors; presidents and vice presidents; elected and appointed officials of governments and public agencies; and boards of directors of nonprofit organizations.

The second major audience consists of academics and students of strategic planning and management. For-credit and professional development courses on strategic planning and management are now typically offered in schools of public affairs, public administration, planning, and public policy. This book offers participants in these courses a useful blend of theory and practice.

Others who will find the book interesting are businesspeople and citizens interested in increasing their understanding of how to improve the effectiveness and value creation of governments, public agencies, and nonprofit organizations. To a lesser extent, the book is also intended to help these individuals understand and improve their communities.

OVERVIEW OF THE CONTENTS Part One introduces the reader to the dynamics of strategic planning. Chapter 1 introduces the

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concept of strategic planning and why such planning is important for governments, public agencies, nonprofit organizations, and communities. Attention is focused on strategic planning for: (1) public agencies, departments, or major organizational divisions; (2) general purpose governments; (3) nonprofit organizations; (4) a function, such as transportation, health care, or education that bridges organizational and governmental boundaries; (5) interorganizational networks and collaborations; and (6) entire communities, urban or metropolitan areas, regions, or states seen as economic, social, and political entities.

Benefits of strategic planning are emphasized as are the conditions under which strategic planning should not be undertaken. In this chapter, I also argue that the practice of public and nonprofit strategic planning will become further institutionalized and improved over time. The reason is that—at its best—strategic planning can accommodate substantive rationality; technical and administrative feasibility; legal, ethical, and moral justifiability; and—of crucial importance—political acceptability.

Finally, readers will be introduced to three organizations whose most recent experiences with strategic planning will be used throughout the book to illustrate key points. The first is the City of Minneapolis, which has been making use of strategic planning for many years and keeps developing its performance management system. The second is a nonprofit organization, the Metropolitan Economic Development Association (MEDA), which is headquartered in Minneapolis. MEDA has been in the business of helping minority entrepreneurs and minority- owned businesses for more than 45 years and has an excellent track record of success. The third is the International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI), a nonprofit organization in association with the United Nations that brings together the peak audit organizations of 194 governments internationally. The U.S. Government Accountability Office is the U.S. representative.

In Chapter 2, I present my preferred approach to strategic planning and management, which I call the Strategy Change Cycle. This approach has been used effectively by thousands of governments, public agencies, and nonprofit organizations in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, and Australia, and indeed on every continent—except perhaps Antarctica! Since Peking University Press published a Chinese-language version of the book, use of the approach is also on the rise in China. Chapters 3 through 10, which make up Part Two, describe in detail how to apply the approach.

Chapter 3 covers the initial agreement, or readiness assessment and “plan for planning,” phase of the strategic planning process. Chapter 4 focuses on identification of mandates and the clarification of mission and values. Chapter 5 addresses the assessment of an organization's external and internal environments. Chapter 6 discusses strategic issues—what they are, how they can be identified, and how to critique them. Chapter 7 is devoted to the development of effective strategies and plans, along with their review and adoption. Chapter 8 covers the development of the organization's vision of success—that is, what the organization should look like as it fulfills its mission and achieves its full potential. Chapter 9 attends to development of an effective implementation process. Chapter 10 covers reassessment of strategies and the strategic planning process as a prelude to a new round of strategic planning. Chapters 3

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through 7 thus emphasize the planning aspect of the Strategy Change Cycle, and Chapters 8 through 10 highlight the management aspects. Jointly, the eight chapters together encompass the strategic management process.

Part Three includes two chapters designed to help leaders know what they will need to do to get started with strategic planning and to make it work. Chapter 11 covers the many leadership roles and responsibilities necessary for the exercise of effective strategic leadership for public and nonprofit organizations. These roles include sponsoring, championing, and facilitating a reasonably deliberative process in such a way that an organization's situation is clearly understood, wise decisions are made and implemented, residual conflicts are handled well, and the organization is prepared for the next round of strategy change. Chapter 12 assesses the strategic planning experiences of the three organizations used as examples throughout the text. This chapter also provides guidance on how to begin strategic planning.

Two resource sections are included at the end of the text. Resource A presents an array of stakeholder identification and analysis methods designed to help organize participation, create strategic ideas worth implementing, organize a coalition of support in favor of the ideas, and protect the ideas during implementation. Resource B presents information on how Internet- based tools and social media may be used to support a strategy change cycle.

Strategic Planning for Public and Nonprofit Organizations will provide most of the guidance leaders, managers, and planners need to engage in a deliberative strategic planning and management process aimed at making their organizations (and communities) more effective and responsive to their environments. This book presents a simple yet effective strategic planning and management process designed specifically for public and nonprofit organizations, detailed advice on how to apply the process, and examples of its application. The entire exposition is grounded in the relevant research and literature, so readers will know where the process fits in with prior research and practice and can gain added insight on how to apply the process.

COMPANION STRATEGIC PLANNING WORKBOOKS Three workbooks can help practitioners work through both the conception and nuts and bolts of the strategic planning and management process. The first is coauthored with Farnum Alston, a highly skilled and experienced consultant, called Creating and Implementing Your Strategic Plan, Third Edition (2011). This workbook is designed primarily to help those who are relatively new to strategic planning—along with those who are old hands—to guide themselves through the Strategy Change Cycle. The workbook, however, is clearly not a substitute for the book. Effective strategic planning is an art that involves thoughtful tailoring to specific contexts. Strategic Planning for Public and Nonprofit Organizations provides considerable guidance on how to think about the tailoring process, including many process guidelines, caveats, and case examples. Thus, the book should be read first before the workbook is used and should be consulted on a regular basis throughout the course of a Strategy Change Cycle.

The second workbook is designed to provide more detailed attention to the implementation and

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management of strategies. For this workbook, called Implementing and Sustaining Your Strategic Plan (2011), I teamed with longtime consultant, colleague, and friend, Sharon Anderson, as well as Farnum Alston. Again, the book should be read before the workbook is used.

The third workbook, Visual Strategy: Strategy Mapping for Public and Nonprofit Organizations (2014), shows how to make use of visual strategy mapping, an extremely powerful technique for helping individuals and groups figure out what they think they should be doing, how, and why. Visual strategy maps are causal maps that show what leads to (or causes) what. When done, maps indicate how missions are fulfilled via goal achievement and how goals are reached through carefully thought-through strategy and action. The book is coauthored with long-time friends and collaborators Fran Ackermann and Colin Eden.

Minneapolis, Minnesota John M. Bryson

July 2017

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS FOR THE FIFTH EDITION Space limitations prevent me from thanking again by name all those dozens of people who contributed to the previous four editions of this book. They should all know that I remain deeply grateful to them. Without their insights, thoughtfulness, advice, and other forms of help, neither those editions nor this one would have been written. I carry their wisdom with me every day. I must also express deep gratitude to the many readers who gave me valuable feedback on the previous editions of this book.

There is space, however, for me to thank at least some of the people who contributed their insights, advice, and support to the fifth edition. Deep thanks and appreciation must go to Colin Eden at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland, and Fran Ackermann at Curtin University in Perth, Australia, who have been valued colleagues and coauthors in the field of public and nonprofit strategic management for over 30 years. Both are coauthors of Visual Strategy, a new companion workbook that shows how to do strategy mapping, an important strategic planning technique.

I would also like to offer special thanks to Michael Barzelay at the London School of Economics and Political Science, who has helped me gain a far richer understanding of what I was up to and how best to do it than I ever would have achieved otherwise. And I would like to offer special thanks to Michael Quinn Patton, a path-breaking evaluation theorist and practitioner who helped me see the connections between strategic planning and developmental evaluation. The result was a new approach to strategy formulation introduced in this book called principles-focused strategizing.

A number of practitioners also provided immense help. I am reminded of the old adage: A practitioner is a theorist who pays a price for being wrong. These thoughtful, public-spirited, good-hearted friends and colleagues have shared with me their hard-won insights and have provided invaluable knowledge and encouragement necessary to produce the fifth edition. Their number includes Farnum Alston, my coauthor on Creating Your Strategic Plan, Third Edition, a companion workbook focused primarily on developing a strategic plan, and of Implementing and Sustaining Your Strategic Plan, a second companion workbook focused on plan implementation. Another outstanding practitioner who has been an immense source of wisdom and insight is Sharon Roe Anderson, my coauthor (along with Farnum) on Implementing and Sustaining Your Strategic Plan. Peter Fleck and Mallory Mitchell helped coauthor Resource B, for which I am grateful.

All who finish reading this book will know how grateful I am to several other practitioners who were involved in the main strategic planning cases featured in this book. At the City of Minneapolis, these include Jay Stroebel (currently city manager of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota), Cassidy Gardenier, Kim Keller, Anna Koelsch, Andrea Larson, and Jeff Schneider. At the Metropolitan Economic Development Association in Minneapolis, special thanks go to President and CEO Gary Cunningham, Joanna Ramirez Barrett, Andrew O'Leary, Michelle

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Tran Maryns, Ashley Michels, and Kelley Reierson. And at the U.S. Government Accountability Office, I deeply appreciate the help of the staff who were the champions of the strategic planning process undertaken by the International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI).

At the Humphrey School, I would like to offer special thanks to the former dean Eric Schwartz and our current dean Laura Bloomberg for their support in a host of ways. And, of course, I would like to thank all of my faculty and staff colleagues in the Public and Nonprofit Leadership Center. In addition, I want to acknowledge the contributions of my research assistants Jeff Ochs, Kassira Absar, Mallory Mitchell, and Danbi Seo.

I also owe my gratitude to my former students who helped develop some of the information used in the three case illustrations throughout the book. The following students produced invaluable team papers on the strategic management efforts of the City of Minneapolis: (1) Brad Christ, Lindsay Bergh, Megan Evans, and Milo Weil (Christ et al., 2009); (2) Chelsea Arbury, Laura Durden, Liz Harens, and Noah Wiedenfeld (Arbury et al., 2014); (3) Kaela Dickens, Daniel D'Haem, Darin Newman, and Jocelyn Rousey (Dickens et al., 2015); and Margie Andreason, Ashleigh Norris, Suzanne Oh, Patrick Roisen, Alan Roy, Mark Skogen, Scott Vargo, and Susan Wooten (Andreason et al., 2016).

Student team papers that were very helpful for understanding the efforts of the Metropolitan Economic Development Association case were written by: (1) Andrew Ostlund, Carolyn Dienhart, Sanjay Jain, and Yue Zhang (Ostlund et al., 2014); (2) Akua Asare, Serge Michel, Andrew Uhler, and Noah Wiedenfeld (Asare et al., 2014); and (3) Anand Agrawal, John Chisholm, Dani Gorman, Suzanne Lantto (Agrawal et al., 2015).

Finally, Peter Huff, Christina Field, Faris Kassim, and Kelly Parpovic produced a team paper that helped clarify and analyze the strategic planning efforts of INTOSAI. Peter Huff (2017) followed up on the team's work and produced the final document that was submitted to INTOSAI and was the major source of written information on which the book draws.

Some ideas in Chapters 1 and 2 appeared first in Bryson and Einsweiler (1987); Bryson and Roering (1987); and in a book coedited with Bob Einsweiler (1988). Parts of Chapter 7 appeared in Bryson (1988). Parts of Chapter 4 and Resource A appeared in Bryson (2004). Earlier versions of some material in Chapters 9, 10, and 11 appeared in Bryson and Crosby (1992) and Crosby and Bryson (2005). Some material on public values and creating public value appeared first in Bryson, Crosby, and Bloomberg (2014, 2015a and 2015b).

Finally, I must thank my spouse, Barbara Crosby, herself a skilled academic, and our two wonderful children, Jessica and John (“Kee”), for their love, support, understanding, intelligence, and good humor. Barbara is my best friend, closest adviser, and the person who more than any other has helped me understand and appreciate what love could be. She has also taught me a great deal about leadership and strategic planning. Jessica and Kee are terrific, and I love them deeply. I am also delighted to have our grandson, Benjamin, who more than anyone helps put this work in perspective. My hope is that this book will help make the world a better place for our children and grandchildren—and everyone's children. If it does, I will be very

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thankful.

J. M. B.

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THE AUTHOR John M. Bryson is McKnight Presidential Professor of Planning and Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota's Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs in Minneapolis. He works in the areas of leadership, strategic management, collaboration, and the design of organizational and community change processes. He wrote the best-selling and award-winning book, Strategic Planning for Public and Nonprofit Organizations (1988, 1995, 2004, 2011, 2018), and cowrote (with Barbara C. Crosby) the award-winning book Leadership for the Common Good (1992, 2005). He is a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration.

Dr. Bryson has received many awards for his work, including five best book awards, six best article awards, the General Electric Award for Outstanding Research in Strategic Planning from the Academy of Management, and the Distinguished Research Award and the Charles H. Levine Memorial Award for Excellence in Public Administration given jointly by the American Society for Public Administration and the Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration. In 2011 he received the Dwight Waldo Award from the American Society for Public Administration that is given to individuals for “outstanding contributions to the professional literature of public administration over an extended scholarly career of at least 25 years”. He serves on the editorial boards of the Academy of Management Discoveries, Perspectives on Public Management and Governance, International Public Management Journal, Public Management Review, and Public Performance and Management Review.

Prof. Bryson has served in a variety of roles at the university and Humphrey School, including twice as associate dean. He has consulted with a wide variety of governing bodies, government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and for-profit corporations in North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. He is a regular presenter at practitioner-oriented workshops and short courses, including most frequently those of The Evaluators Institute of Claremont Graduate University.

Prof. Bryson holds a doctorate and master of science degree in urban and regional planning and a master of arts degree in public policy and administration, all from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He was awarded a B.A. degree in economics from Cornell University.

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PART ONE UNDERSTANDING THE DYNAMICS OF STRATEGIC PLANNING The environments of public and nonprofit organizations have become not only increasingly uncertain in recent years but also more tightly interconnected; thus, changes anywhere in the system reverberate unpredictably—and often chaotically and dangerously—throughout society. This increased uncertainty and interconnectedness requires a fivefold response from public and nonprofit organizations (collaborations and communities). First, these organizations must think and learn strategically as never before. Second, they must translate their insights into effective strategies to cope with their changed circumstances and to ensure resilience and sustainability for the future. Third, they must develop the rationales necessary to lay the groundwork for the adoption and implementation of their strategies. Fourth, they must build coalitions that are large enough and strong enough to adopt desirable strategies and protect them during implementation. And fifth, they must build capacity for ongoing implementation, learning, and strategic change.

Strategic planning can help leaders and managers of public and nonprofit organizations think, learn, and act strategically. Chapter 1 introduces strategic planning, its potential benefits, and some of its limitations. The chapter discusses what strategic planning is not and in which circumstances it is probably not appropriate, and it presents my views about why strategic planning is an intelligent practice that is here to stay—because of its capacity, at its best, to incorporate both substantive, procedural, and political rationality. The chapter concludes by introducing three organizations that have used a strategic planning process to produce significant changes. Their experiences will be used throughout the book to illustrate the dynamics of strategic planning.

Part One concludes with an overview of my preferred strategic planning process (Chapter 2). The process was designed specifically to help public and nonprofit organizations (collaborations and communities) think, act, and learn strategically. The process, called the Strategy Change Cycle, is typically very fluid, iterative, and dynamic in practice but nonetheless allows for a reasonably orderly, participative, and effective approach to determining how best to achieve what is best for an organization and creates real public value. Chapter 2 also highlights several process design issues that will be addressed throughout the book.

A key point to be emphasized again and again: The important activities are strategic thinking, acting, and learning, not strategic planning per se. Indeed, if any particular approach to strategic planning gets in the way of strategic thought, action, and learning, that planning approach should be scrapped.

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CHAPTER ONE Why Strategic Planning Is More Important Than Ever If you don't like change, leave it here.

—Sign on the tip jar in a coffee shop

Leaders and managers of governments, public agencies of all sorts, nonprofit organizations, and communities face numerous and difficult challenges. Consider, for example, the dizzying number of trends and events affecting the United States and the rest of the world in the past two decades. What follows is my list (you will have your own):

Technology has always been a game changer, but the speed and scale of the changes seem to be accelerating. In recent decades, technology has wrought dramatic changes in the workplace, social interactions, information and opinion sharing, politics, financial systems, health care, security systems, global interconnectedness, and so on. There has been a dramatic growth in the use of information technology, social media, e-commerce, and e- government. The nature of work is changing, and careers are being redefined.

Population flows, including migration, immigration, and refugees, have altered numerous societies and landscapes and affected demographics, workforces, and politics. Large parts of the Middle East have been destabilized, and in its wake, there has been enormous human suffering, redistributions of people, and challenges for the rest of the world. China is in the midst of the largest migration in human history as a result of massive moves from rural areas to cities. The 2016 U.S. presidential election, the United Kingdom's 2016 decision to exit the European Union, and the politics of other EU and other countries have all been affected by responses to large movements of people within and across borders.

Aging and diversifying populations are affecting workplaces, politics, and public finances. In advanced economies, business and government leaders wonder where needed workers will come from as populations age, huge numbers of workers retire, and the need for skilled workers increases. They also wonder how to pay for benefits to retirees. National and local politics and cultures are having to adapt to changing demographics, the changing nature of families, and spatial sorting by social and political preferences.

Climate change is real, whether you believe humans have much to do with it or not. And regardless of the causes, there is a huge need to develop effective ways to mitigate its effects and recover from its downsides. For example, the oceans are already rising and the effects of a collapse of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets and subsequent rises would be devastating.

Inequality in the United States has increased substantially since the 1970s and is about where it was in the Gilded Age of the late 1800s. A number of scholars and social commentators argue that such inequality is seriously destabilizing both economically and politically. Others would agree and add that economic benefits should be shared more

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equally on moral grounds. Meanwhile, the level of absolute poverty globally has diminished dramatically in the past 30 years as a consequence of more open and effective markets and effective government action. Clearly, this should rank as one of the great human achievements. Yet inequality within many countries can still be a cause of major instability, and the moral argument for greater equality also carries weight with many people.

Violence in general is down globally and in the United States, yet public safety is always an issue. Worryingly, there has been a recent rise in the murder rate in the 30 largest U.S. cities even though crime nationwide remains near all-time lows. The United States experiences 30,000 gun deaths a year. When compared with gun deaths in other countries, outside of war and terrorist engagements, this number is astronomically high. Some argue that strong gun controls are needed, whereas others argue that fewer controls will lead to greater safety. So far, the latter argument is winning—we have close to as many guns as people in the country, and the deaths continue.

When it comes to game changers, nuclear war is always a threat. North Korea may soon have missiles with serviceable nuclear warheads capable of reaching its neighbors and even the United States. We can only hope nuclear weapons are never used by anyone. Meanwhile, terrorist organizations are constantly trying to acquire nuclear capabilities.

Terrorism is a growing challenge, whether inspired by Islamic jihadism, nationalism of various sorts, or racism. Let's hope that countries around the world, including the United States, find ways to reduce terrorism through a panoply of political, social, economic, educational, diplomatic, military, and policing means.

Economic management is becoming more difficult. Since 2000, we have seen huge bubbles in the housing and stock markets followed by long bear markets, recessions, and slow recoveries worldwide. Global interconnectedness, a belief in government austerity policies no matter the context, weakened or threatened central banking institutions, and an unwillingness by many governments to pursue fiscal policies to prevent recessions only make the challenges of effective economic management more difficult going forward. Although as I write we are now in the midst of one of the longest bull markets in U.S. history, what can and will be done in response to the next big downturn is an open question.

It seems like there are no icons left to knock down. According to a 2016 Gallup Poll, the only U.S. institutions in which more than 50 percent of the public had “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence were the military (73 percent), small business (68 percent), and the police (56 percent). Of the 15 institutions listed, Congress was at the bottom with 9 percent. In other words, in the United States, trust in almost every institution is very low, their perceived legitimacy is also in question, and whom and what to believe is up for grabs. Meanwhile, partisanship is at pre–Civil War levels—and we know how that turned out. One can rightly worry about the future of our republic and democracy itself. Even worse, this crisis in confidence in the institutions countries need to govern themselves and to prosper is apparently worldwide.

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Perhaps most ominous, in the United States, we have experienced a dramatic decline in social capital in recent decades, especially among the less educated and less well off. Defined as good will, fellowship, sympathy, and social intercourse, social capital is a crucial factor in building and maintaining personal and family physical and mental health as well as strong communities. The younger generation in general is not very interested in politics, not very trustful of politicians or others, cynical about public affairs, and less inclined to participate in enduring social organizations, such as unions, political parties, or churches (Putnam, Feldstein, & Cohen, 2004).

As a result of all these trends and events, it is not surprising that in the United States and elsewhere, we have seen sustained attention paid to questions of government and nonprofit organizational design, financing, management, performance, and accountability as part of the process of addressing these and other concerns. Indeed, in the public sector, change— though not necessarily dramatic or rapid change—is the rule rather than the exception (Kettl, 2015a, 2015b, 2015c; Light, 1997).

So do I have your attention? Organizations that want to survive, prosper, and do good and important work must respond to the challenges the world presents. Their response may be to do what they have always done, only better, but they may also need to shift their focus and strategies. Although organizations typically experience long periods of relative stability when change is incremental, they also typically encounter periods of dramatic and rapid change (Baumgartner & Jones, 2009; Mintzberg, Ahlstrand, & Lampel, 2009). These periods of organizational change may be exciting, but they also can be anxiety producing—or even terrifying. As geologist Derek V. Ager notes, “The history of any one part of the earth… consists of long periods of boredom punctuated by short periods of terror” (Gould, 1980, p. 185). He might as well have been talking about organizational life!

These economic, social, political, technological, environmental, and organizational changes are aggravated by the interconnectedness of the world. Changes anywhere typically result in changes elsewhere, making efficacious self-directed behavior problematic at best. As Booker Prize–winning novelist Salmon Rushdie said, “Most of what matters in your life happens in your absence” (1981, p. 19). More recently, Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist Junot Díaz asserted, “It's never the changes we want that change everything” (2008, p. 51). Only if you are lucky are the changes for the better; often “the best things in life happen when you don't get what you think you want” (Bakewell, 2010, p. 333).

This increasing interconnectedness is perhaps most apparent in the blurring of three traditionally important distinctions—between domestic and international spheres; between policy areas; and between public, private, and nonprofit sectors (Kettl, 2008 2015a, 2015c). The U.S. economy is now intimately integrated with the economies of the rest of the world, and events abroad have domestic repercussions. Distinctions between policy areas are also hard to maintain. For example, both educational policy and arts or cultural policy are seen as types of economic development policies to help communities and firms compete more effectively. Strengthening the economy will not eliminate government human service and Social Security costs, but letting it falter will certainly increase them. Physical education programs,

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educational programs promoting healthy lifestyles, and parks and recreation budgets are viewed as ways of controlling health care costs.

Finally, the boundaries between public, private, and nonprofit sectors have eroded. National sovereignty in several areas has “leaked up” to multinational corporations, international organizations, and international alliances. Sovereignty has “leaked out” to businesses and nonprofit organizations. Taxes are not collected by government tax collectors but are withheld by private and nonprofit organizations from their employees and turned over to the government. The nation's health, education, and welfare are rightly seen as public—and not just government —responsibilities, and we increasingly rely on private and nonprofit organizations and associations for the production and coproduction of services in these areas. Weapons systems are not produced in government arsenals but by private industry.

When such fundamental public functions as tax collection, health, education, welfare, and weapons production are handled by private and nonprofit organizations, then surely the boundaries between public, private, and nonprofit organizations are irretrievably blurred. But beyond that, sovereignty has also “leaked down” as state and local governments have been the big gainers in power in the past 25 years and the federal government the big loser. State and local governments now are typically more important as the problem solvers, even though they often lack the knowledge, resources, legitimacy, and political will to do so effectively. The result of this “leakage” of sovereignty up, out, and down—and the irretrievable blurring of boundaries between public, private, and nonprofit sectors—is the creation of what Brinton Milward and his colleagues call “the hollow state” in which government is simply an actor— and not necessarily the most important actor—in the networks we rely on to do the public's work (Milward & Provan, 2000).

The blurring of these boundaries means that we have moved to a world in which no one organization or institution is fully in charge, yet many are involved, affected, or have a partial responsibility to act (Bryson, Crosby, & Bloomberg, 2014; Kettl, 2015a, 2015c). This increased jurisdictional ambiguity—coupled with the events and trends noted previously— requires public and nonprofit organizations (and collaborations and communities) to think, act, and learn strategically as never before. Strategic planning is designed to help them do so. The extensive experience of public, nonprofit, and private organizations with strategic planning in recent decades offers a fund of research and advice on which we will draw throughout this book.

DEFINITION, PURPOSE, AND BENEFITS OF STRATEGIC PLANNING What is strategic planning? I define it as a deliberative, disciplined approach to producing fundamental decisions and actions that shape and guide what an organization (or other entity) is, what it does, and why. Strategic planning may be thought of as a “way of knowing” intended to help leaders and managers discern what to do, how, and why (Bryson, Crosby, & Bryson, 2009). Strategic planning of this kind can help leaders and managers successfully address

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major issues or challenges facing an organization (or some other entity), by which I mean issues or challenges not amenable to simple technical fixes.

As experience with this kind of deliberative approach has grown, a substantial and expanding inventory of knowledge, concepts, procedures, tools, and techniques has also developed to assist leaders and managers in their deliberations. Much of that inventory is highlighted in this book.

As a deliberative approach, strategic planning must attend to the design and use of the settings within which constructive deliberation is most likely to occur (Crosby & Bryson, 2005, pp. 401–426). First and foremost, this means creating formal and informal forums in which important issues can be identified and addressed, useful learning can occur, and results can be carried forward toward wise decisions in relevant areas (Moynihan & Landuyt, 2009). In addition, formal and informal arenas are needed in which legislative, executive, and administrative decisions are made. Finally, formal and informal courts must be designed and used, where underlying laws and norms are reinforced or modified and residual conflicts from policymaking or executive decisions are managed. The most important court is probably the court of public opinion.

Of the three types of characteristic settings, forums are the most amenable to design, in contrast to formal arenas and courts, which often are quite rigidly structured. Fortunately, however, in my experience, forums are the most important kind of setting because they are where meaning is created and communicated—which is extraordinarily consequential for shaping what follows, including what gets considered in arenas and courts.

In each of these settings for deliberation, participants must take into account the “deliberative pathways” that are possible and available for use as part of mutual efforts at persuasion. The term was coined by Bryan Garsten (2006, p. 131) to describe Aristotle's sense of “the landscape of thoughts and patterns” that might exist in an audience and thus “the pathways” that might exist from one belief to another. These pathways are the starting point for understanding how mutual understanding, learning, and judgment might proceed. The pathways will influence a listener's beliefs via the structure and logic of an argument (logos), via trust in the judgment and good will of the speaker (ethos), or because he or she felt moved by an emotion (pathos) (Garsten, 2006).

Strategic planning approached as the design and use of settings for deliberation must include an awareness of the features of effective deliberation, including the pathways that might be available for use. In other words, the overall process of designing a pathway (or process) for deliberation must take into account the pathways already existing within audiences' heads.

The basic form of a reasonable statement is to make a claim based on good reasons and evidence. Deliberation occurs in situations requiring choice—the basic form of a deliberative statement is choice based on reasons in order to achieve ends (Simons & Jones, 2011, pp. 241–267). This honorable tradition of reasonable deliberation goes back at least to Aristotle and Cicero, both of whom analyzed and promoted its virtues.

But to succeed, deliberative processes and practices also need institutional and organizational

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arrangements in place to support them. Deliberation certainly should be a part of politics, but its constructive role must be supported and protected or the politics can get very nasty indeed.

The deliberative tradition requires a willingness on the part of would-be deliberators to: resist rushing to judgment; tolerate uncertainty, ambiguity, and equivocality; consider different views and new information; and be persuaded—but also a willingness to end deliberations at some point and go with the group's considered judgment. The deliberative tradition doesn't presume that there is a “correct” solution or “one best answer” to addressing major challenges, only that there is wisdom to be found via the process (Garston, 2006; Stone, 2011). Many find the lack of definitiveness in deliberation frustrating. It takes time to build and maintain an appreciate audience for deliberation—as with poetry, jazz, hip hop, and rap music.

In short, at its best, strategic planning requires deliberation informed by broad-scale yet effective information gathering, analysis, and synthesis; clarification of the mission and goals to be pursued and issues to be addressed along the way; development and exploration of, and choice among, strategic alternatives; and an emphasis on the future implications of present decisions. Strategic planning can help facilitate communication, participation, and judgment; accommodate divergent interests and values, foster wise decision making informed by reasonable analysis; promote successful implementation and accountability; and enhance ongoing learning. In short, at its best, strategic planning can prompt in organizations the kind of imagination—and commitment—that can help effectively address the challenges they face. As psychotherapist and theologian Thomas Moore (2016, p. 292) observed, “Usually the main problem with life conundrums is that we don't bring to them enough imagination.”

One useful way to think about strategic planning is presented in Figure 1.1, The ABCs of Strategic Planning. The figure presents a capsule summary of what strategic planning is all about. Necessary richness and detail can be added as needed to this basic understanding. “A” is figuring out, via a deliberative process, where you are, “B” is where you want to be, and “C” is how to get there. Leaders and other process participants come to understand A, B, and C as they formulate, clarify, and resolve strategic issues—the fundamental policy choices or challenges the organization has to face. The content of A and B are the organization's existing or new mission, structure, communications systems, programs and services, people and skills, relationships, budgets and other supports. The content of C is the strategic plan; plans for various functions; and ways to restructure, reengineer, reframe, or repurpose (Scharmer, 2016); budget allocations; and other strategies and vehicles for change.

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Figure 1.1. The ABCs of Strategic Planning. Source: Bryson and Alston, 2011.

Getting from A to B involves clarifying vision, mission, and goals. Getting from A to C is the process of strategy formulation; getting from C to B is strategy implementation. To do strategic planning well, you need to figure out A, B, and C and how they should connect as you go along. You accomplish this principally by understanding the issues that A, B, C, and their interconnections must address effectively. Think of the arrows as making use of pathways for deliberation that result in the final choices of what is in A, B, and C. The summary also makes it clear that strategic planning is an approach, not a detailed, rigidly sequential, step-by-step, technocratic process. As an approach, it requires effective deliberation—and leadership—and a variety of concepts, activities, procedures, tools, and techniques that can contribute to its success.

So that is how strategic planning is defined and briefly what it is. But why engage in strategic planning? At best, the purpose of strategic planning in the United States and elsewhere is to help public and nonprofit organizations “create public value,” to use Mark Moore's compelling and evocative phrase (Moore, 1995, 2013). This means producing enterprises, policies, programs, projects, services, or physical, technological, social, political, and cultural

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infrastructure that advance the public interest and the common good at a reasonable cost.

At a general level, in the United States, creating public value means enhancing life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all while also fostering a more perfect union. It means ensuring that the beneficial effects of our institutions and efforts carry on into the indefinite future and that we change what we must so that the world is always left better off than we found it. Strategic planning is about listening to “the better angels of our nature,” as Abraham Lincoln called them in his first inaugural address—it is about organizing our best and most noble hopes and dreams, making them reasonable and actionable, and bringing them to life—in short, to create significant and enduring public value.

Experience has clearly demonstrated that strategic planning can be used successfully to help (Bryson, Edwards, & Van Slyke, 2017):

Public agencies, departments, or major organizational divisions

General purpose governments, such as a city, county, state, or tribal governments

Nonprofit organizations providing what are basically public services

Purpose-driven interorganizational networks (such as partnerships, collaborations, and alliances) in the public and nonprofit sectors designed to fulfill specific functions, such as transportation, health, education, or emergency services—that bridge organizational and governmental boundaries

Entire communities, urban or metropolitan areas, and regions or states

This book concentrates primarily on strategic planning for public and nonprofit organizations, including the collaborations of which they may be a part. It considers applications for communities in lesser detail. (The term community is used throughout the book to refer to communities, urban or metropolitan areas, and regions or states.) Although the process detailed in this book is applicable to all the entities listed above, the specifics of its implementation may differ for each case.

When strategic planning is focused on an organization, it is likely that most of the key decision makers will be “insiders”—though considerable relevant information may be gathered from “outsiders.” Certainly, this would be true of public agencies, local governments, and nonprofit organizations that deliver “public” services. When most of the key decision makers are insiders, it will likely be easier to get people together to decide important matters, reconcile differences, and coordinate implementation activities. (Of course, whether the organization's board of directors or governing body consists of insiders or outsiders may be an open question, particularly if they are publicly elected. For instance, are elected city council members insiders, outsiders, or both? Regardless of the answer, it remains true that typically a major proportion of the key decision makers will be insiders.)

In contrast, when strategic planning is focused on a function crossing organizational or governmental boundaries, or on a community, almost all of the key decision makers will be outsiders. In these situations, the focus of attention will be on how to organize collective thinking, action, and learning more or less collaboratively within an interorganizational

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network or networks where no one person, group, organization, or institution is fully in charge but many are involved, or affected, or have a partial responsibility to act. One should expect that it might be more difficult to organize an effective strategic planning process in such a “shared-power” context. More time probably will need to be spent on organizing forums for discussion, involving various diverse constituencies, negotiating agreements in existing or new arenas, and coordinating the activities and actions of numerous relatively independent people, groups, organizations, and institutions (Agranoff, 2012; Deyle & Wiedenman, 2014).

Organizations engage in strategic planning for many reasons. Proponents of strategic planning typically try to persuade their colleagues with one or more of the following kinds of statements:

“We face so many conflicting demands we need to figure out what our focus and priorities should be.”

“The rules are changing on us. We are being told to emphasize measurable outcomes, the competition is stiffer, funding is getting tighter, and collaboration is being pushed, and we need to figure out what we do or can do well that fits with the changing picture.”

“We have gone through quality management, reinvention, and reengineering, downsizing and rightsizing, along with continuing revolutions in information technology. Now people are asking us to take on performance management, dashboards and scorecards, knowledge management, and who knows what else? How can we make sure all of this effort is headed in the right direction?”

“We can expect a severe budget deficit next year, and the public will suffer unless we drastically rethink the way we do business. Somehow we need to figure out how to do more with less through better integration of our activities, finances, human resources, and information technology.”

“Our city is changing, and in spite of our best efforts, things do not seem to be getting better.”

“Issue X is staring us in the face, and we need some way to help us think about its resolution or else we will be badly hurt.”

“We need to integrate or coordinate better the services we provide with those of other organizations. Right now, things are just too fragmented and poorly resourced, and our clients needing more than one service are suffering.”

“Our funders (or board of directors or new chief executive) have asked us to prepare a strategic plan.”

“We know a leadership change is coming and want to prepare for it.”

“We want to use strategic planning to educate, involve, and revitalize our board and staff.”

“Our organization has an embarrassment of riches, but we still need to figure out how we can have the biggest impact; we owe it to our stakeholders.”

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“Everyone is doing strategic planning these days; we'd better do it too.”

Regardless of why public and nonprofit organizations engage in strategic planning, however, similar benefits are likely to result. Many authors argue that strategic planning can produce a number of benefits for organizations. The first and perhaps most obvious potential benefit is the promotion of strategic thinking, acting, and learning, especially through “strategic conversation” and deliberation among key actors (Van der Heijden, 2005).

Let me define these terms. I define strategic thinking as thinking in context about how to pursue purposes or achieve goals. This also includes thinking about what the context is and how it might or should be changed; what the purposes are or should be; and what capabilities or competencies will or might be needed, and how they might be used, to achieve the purposes. Strategic acting is acting in context in light of future consequences to achieve purposes and/or to facilitate learning. And drawing in part on Simon (1996, p. 100), I define strategic learning as any change in a system (which could be an individual) that by better adapting it to its environment produces a more or less permanent change in its capacity to pursue its purposes. The learning thus is focused pragmatically on what works, which likely includes knowing something about what doesn't. Learning of this sort doesn't have to be by design; much of it will be tacit and epiphenomenal. In short, strategic planning is an approach to facilitate these kinds of thinking, acting, and learning.

The second benefit is improved decision making. Improved decision making is really crucial because studies have indicated that at least half of all strategic decisions fail as a result of poor decision-making processes (Nutt, 2002)! Strategic planning helps because it focuses attention on the crucial issues and challenges the organization faces and it helps key decision makers figure out what they should do about them. It can help them make today's decisions in light of future consequences. It can help them develop a coherent and defensible basis for decision making and then coordinate implementing the resulting decisions across levels and functions. It can help them exercise maximum discretion in the areas under their organization's control and influence actions and outcomes in those areas that are not. Strategic planning thus can help organizations formulate and clearly communicate their strategic directions and intentions to relevant audiences and also act on those intentions.

The third benefit is enhanced organizational effectiveness, responsiveness, resilience, and sustainability, which flow from the first two. Organizations engaging in strategic planning are encouraged to clarify and address major organizational issues, respond wisely to them, and deal effectively with rapidly changing circumstances. They are encouraged, in other words, to be well managed. And though it almost sounds tautological to say so, it clearly is not: The evidence is fairly clear that organizations that are managed well and are relatively stable perform better, are appropriately responsive to external demands, are innovative in effective ways, have greater influence, are more accountable, and are more resilient than organizations that are not managed well (e.g., Borins, 2014; Meier & O'Toole, 2009).

Good management helps create good organizational systems and response repertoires; in other words, good management is a process that draws on resources of many kinds to produce the outputs and outcomes that indicate organizational effectiveness and that trigger the resource

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flows the organization needs to sustain itself and to continue to create public value into the future (Bryson, Gibbons, & Shaye, 2001; Osterwalder, Pigneur, Bernarda, Smith, & Papadakos, 2014). Increasingly, integrated use of human resources, information technology, and financial management are crucial elements of organizing, strengthening, protecting, and sustaining organizational capabilities for creating public value (e.g., Alford & Yates, 2014).

The fourth benefit is enhanced organizational legitimacy. Organizations that satisfy their key stakeholders according to the stakeholders' criteria and that create real public value at reasonable cost have earned the right to exist (Ackermann & Eden, 2011). Said differently, public and nonprofit organizations are externally justified in that they exist to provide real service; those that do, and continue to find ways to do so as circumstances change, typically continue to exist. These survivors therefore can concentrate on doing better without having to worry quite so much as they otherwise might about having to justify their claims on others' resources (Suddaby, Bitektine, & Haack, 2017).

Fifth, beyond organizational effectiveness, strategic planning can help produce enhanced effectiveness of broader societal systems. Most of the public problems we face these days stretch beyond any one organization's boundaries. Our big challenges in education, health, employment, poverty, the environment—you name it—typically need to be conceptualized at the supraorganizational or system level, not the organizational level. Those systems are what really need to work better if our lives and the world are to be made better and broadly based public value is to be created. Organizations can contribute to better functioning of these systems, but they typically must do so in partnership with others or by somehow taking those others into account (Emerson & Nabatchi, 2015; Mulgan, 2009). Strategic planning can help organizations take the broader environment into account and can help them figure out how best to partner with other organizations so that they jointly can create better environments (Agranoff, 2012; Bryson, Ackermann, & Eden, 2016). The result probably should be some sort of concerted institutional redesign effort at the system level that better serves public services (e.g., Scharmer, 2016).

Finally, strategic planning can directly benefit the people involved. Policymakers and key decision makers can be helped to fulfill their roles and responsibilities, and teamwork and expertise are likely to be built among participants in the process. Human, social, political, and intellectual capital can increase. Morale can improve based on task accomplishment. Further, employees or organizations that can create real, demonstrable public value are more likely to have a job in the future. Reduced anxiety may result from a job well done, increased competency, strengthened relationships, and enhanced job prospects.

In short, strategic planning is very often a very smart thing to do for several reasons: It is relatively easy to do. It is not all that time and resource intensive, particularly when matched against the costs of potential failure. It seeks out relevant information; makes use of deliberative argumentation, which is an important route to producing wise judgments; and helps with figuring out how to organize the participation and coalition needed to adopt the ideas and protect them during implementation. And it would seem to go hand in hand with the craft of creating public value. When not overly formalized, bereft of participation, and

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obsessed with numbers, strategic planning can make effective use of deliberation to produce enhanced organizational responsiveness, performance, and accountability.

Although strategic planning can provide all these benefits, there is no guarantee that it will. For one thing, the process depends on its participants' willingness to engage in deliberation. In addition, strategic planning must be adapted to its context, even as its purpose may be to change aspects of that context. Leaders, managers, and planners therefore need to be very careful—and strategic—about how they engage in strategic planning because their success will depend at least in part on how they tailor the process to their situations.

This book will present a generic approach to strategic planning for governments, public agencies, and nonprofit organizations that is based in considerable research and experience. Advice will be offered on how to apply the process in different circumstances. But the process will work only if enough key decision makers and planners support it and use it with common sense and sensitivity to the particulars of their situation. And even then, success is never guaranteed, particularly when very difficult and fraught strategic issues are addressed.

Furthermore, strategic planning is not always advisable. In my experience, there are two compelling reasons for holding off on a formal strategic planning effort. First, strategic planning may not be the best first step for an organization whose roof has fallen—keeping in mind, of course, that every crisis should be managed strategically (Weick & Sutcliffe, 2015). For example, the organization may need to remedy a cash flow crunch before undertaking strategic planning. Or the organization may need to postpone strategic planning until it fills a key leadership position. Or it could be that showing compassion for people who have faced some sort of disaster is the first order of business.

Second, if the organization lacks the skills, resources, or commitment of key decision makers to engage in deliberative strategic planning, or if implementation of the results is extremely unlikely, strategic planning will be a waste of time. Such a situation embodies what Bill Roering and I have called “the paradox of strategic planning:” It is most needed where it is least likely to work, and least needed where it is most likely to work (Bryson & Roering, 1988, 1989). If strategic planning is undertaken in such a situation, it probably should be a focused and limited effort aimed at developing the necessary skills, resources, and commitment.

A number of other reasons also can be offered for not engaging in strategic planning. Too often, however, these “reasons” are actually excuses used to avoid what should be done. Many organizations—particularly small nonprofit organizations—may prefer to rely on the intuition and vision of extremely gifted leaders instead of on formal strategic planning processes. If these leaders are strategically minded and experienced, there may be no need for strategic planning for purposes of developing strategies. It is rare, however, for any leader to have all the information necessary to develop an effective strategy and rarer still for any strategy developed by a single person to engender the kind of commitment necessary for effective implementation. A reasonably structured and formalized deliberative strategic planning process helps organizations gather and assess the information necessary for effective strategy formulation. It also provides the discipline and commitment necessary to effectively implement

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strategies.

In addition, many organizations—particularly those that have enormous difficulty reaching decisions that cut across levels, functions, or programs—find that incremental decision making and mutual adjustments of various sorts among interested partisans is the only process that will work. “Muddling through” of this sort, as Charles Lindblom (1959) described it, legitimizes the existing distribution of power and resources in the organization and allows the separate parts of the organization to pursue opportunities as they arise. Interesting and useful innovations may develop that enhance learning and promote useful adaptations to changing circumstances. In fact, if the muddling occurs within a general agreement on overall direction, everyone may be better off (e.g., Poister, Edwards, & Pasha, 2013). Unfortunately, muddling typically results in a chronic suboptimization of organizational performance, and key external and internal constituencies therefore may be badly served (Andrews, Boyne, Law, & Walker, 2012).

Strategic planning also probably should not be undertaken if implementation is extremely unlikely. To do so would be the organizational equivalent of the average new year's resolution. On the other hand, when armed with the knowledge that implementation will be difficult, key decision makers and planners can focus extra attention on ensuring implementation success.

Finally, organizations simply may not know how and where to start and stop the process. The good news is that strategic planning actually can begin almost anywhere—the process is so interconnected that you end up covering most phases via conversation and dialogue, no matter where you start.

What Strategic Planning Is Not Strategic planning clearly is no panacea. As noted, strategic planning is simply a deliberative, disciplined approach to helping people in organizations (collaborations, communities) figure out what they think they should be doing, how, and why. It may not be possible to design or use the needed formal and informal forums, arenas, and courts; the key decision makers may not participate. Even if they do take part, needed deliberations may not necessarily occur. And if they do, needed actions may not necessarily be taken as a result. There is an available set of concepts, procedures, tools, and practical guidance designed to help leaders, managers, and planners think, act, and learn strategically, but those needed in any particular situation may not be used or used effectively. Indeed, in my experience—in life generally and in strategic planning specifically—there are more ways to fail than to succeed, so possible failure is always lurking in the footsteps of incipient success.

One must always remember that strategic planning is not a substitute for strategic thinking, acting, and learning. Only caring and committed people can do that—and almost always via deliberative processes. Unfortunately, when used thoughtlessly, obsessively, or with excessive formality or rigidity, strategic planning can drive out precisely the kind of strategic thinking, acting, and learning it was supposed to promote. That kind of approach may be worse than no approach at all.

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Furthermore, strategic planning is not a substitute for leadership broadly conceived. In my experience, there is simply no substitute for leadership when it comes to engaging in strategic planning effectively. At least some key decision makers and process champions must be committed to it; otherwise, any attempts to use strategic planning are bound to fail. An effective strategic planning team also is typically needed. And skilled facilitators are often necessary.

In addition, strategic planning is not synonymous with creation of an organization's strategies. Organizational strategies have numerous sources, both planned and unplanned. Strategic planning is likely to result in a statement of organizational intentions, but what is realized in practice will be some combination of what is intended with what emerges along the way (Mintzberg et al., 2009). Strategic planning can help organizations develop and implement effective strategies, but organizations should remain open to unforeseen opportunities as well. Too much attention to strategic planning and reverence for strategic plans can blind organizations to other unplanned and unexpected—yet incredibly useful—sources of information, insight, and action.

It should be clear now that the deliberation among key actors in strategic planning—and especially among key decision makers—is of a very special kind: it is thoughtful, reflective, informed, appreciative, situation- and stakeholder-sensitive, mission-oriented, careful, and political—in the best sense. Deliberation of that sort involves a special kind of discipline harkening back to the Latin roots of the word emphasizing instruction, training, education, and learning. Of course, there is a second meaning of discipline embodied in later interpretations emphasizing order, control, and punishment. I personally prefer the emphasis on education and learning, though there clearly are occasions when imposing order, taking control, and imposing appropriate sanctions are appropriate. Strategic planning should be used as a kind of purposeful discipline to create noteworthy public value. If it does not, then it has been a waste of time other than to fulfill some symbolic or procedural requirement.

Why Strategic Planning Is Becoming a Standard Practice A very large fraction of public and nonprofit organizations now claim to engage in strategic planning (Bryson & Edwards, 2017). Having said that, many leaders and managers no doubt groan at the prospect of having to go through another round of strategic planning. They may have “been there, done that” and, depending on their experience, may not want to do it again. They also have seen all manner of management fads come and go. Managers in particular are frequently, and justifiably, tired of these fads and feel as though they are the victims of some sort of perverse management hazing or status degradation ritual.

But strategic planning is far from a passing fad, at least not the sort of deliberative strategic planning proposed in this book. The reason is that the strategic planning process presented here builds on the nature of political intelligence and decision making. So many other management techniques have failed because they ignore, try to circumvent, or even try to counter the political nature of life in private, public, and nonprofit sector organizations. Too many planners and managers, at least in my experience, just do not understand that such a quest is almost guaranteed to be quixotic. Politics is the method that we humans use to answer the

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analytically unresolvable questions of what should be done for collective purposes, how, and why (Moore, 2013; Mulgan, 2009).

Most of these new management innovations have tried to improve government decision making and operations by trying to impose a formal rationality on systems that are not rational, at least in the conventional meaning of the word. Public and nonprofit organizations (and communities) function primarily based on a political intelligence and rationality, and any technique that is likely to work well in such organizations must accept and build on the nature of political rationality (Stone, 2011).

Let us pursue this point further by contrasting two different kinds of decision making: the “rational” planning model and the political decision-making model. The rational planning model, a rational-deductive approach to decision making, is presented in Figure 1.2. This model begins with goals, which are achieved through policies, programs, and actions. If there is a traditional planning theology, this model is one of its icons. Indeed, if there were a Moses of planning, Figure 1.2 would have been etched on his tablets when he came down from the Mount.

Figure 1.2. Rational Planning Model.

Let us now examine a fundamental assumption of the rational planning model—that in the fragmented, shared power settings that characterize many public and nonprofit organizations, networks, and communities, there will either be a consensus on goals, policies, programs, and actions necessary to achieve organizational aims or there will be someone with enough power and authority that any disagreements can be effectively overruled. The assumption just does not hold in most circumstances—only in fairly centralized, authoritarian, and quasimilitary bureaucracies—maybe (Bolman & Deal, 2013).

Let us now examine a model that contrasts sharply with the rational planning model, the political decision-making model presented in Figure 1.3. This model is more emergent or inductive rather than top-down or rational-deductive. It begins with issues, which almost by definition involve conflict, not consensus. The conflicts may be over ends, means, timing, location, political advantage, reasons for change, or philosophy and values—and they may be severe. As efforts proceed to resolve the issues and learn how to move ahead, policies and programs emerge that address the issues and are politically rational—that is, they are politically acceptable to involved or affected parties. Over time, more general policies may be formulated to capture, frame, shape, guide, or interpret the policies, programs, and learning developed to deal with the issues. The various policies and programs are in effect treaties

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among the various stakeholder groups and, though they may not exactly record a consensus, at least they represent a reasonable level of agreement among stakeholders (Bolman & Deal, 2013; Spee & Jarzabkowski, 2017).

Figure 1.3. Political Decision-Making Model.

Now, the heart of the strategic planning process discussed in Chapter 2 is the identification and resolution of strategic—that is, very important and consequential—issues. The process, in other words, accepts political decision making's emphasis on issues and seeks to inform the formulation and resolution of those issues. Effective strategic planning, therefore, should make political decision makers more effective, and, if practiced consistently, may even make their professional lives easier (Janis, 1989; Nutt, 2002). Because every key decision maker in a large public or nonprofit organization is, in effect, a political decision maker (Bolman & Deal, 2013), strategic planning can help them and their organizations. Strategic planning—at least as described in this book—therefore will last in government and nonprofit organizations because it accepts and builds on the nature of political decision making. If done well, it joins political acceptability with administrative feasibility, procedural rationality, and substantive rationality.

Having drawn a sharp distinction between the rational planning and political decision-making models, I must now emphasize that the two models are not inherently antithetical. Indeed, several researchers have demonstrated that multiparty efforts to reach consensus on important issues fraught with conflict often can look extremely messy in practice but then meet very high standards of rationality after all of the political, technical, administrative, procedural, and legal issues have been sorted out (Deyle & Weidenman, 2014; Innes, 1996; Innes & Booher, 2010). The challenge in this case is simply to sequence the approaches appropriately. The political decision-making model is necessary to work out consensual agreements on what programs (services, projects, and so on) and policies will best resolve key issues. Then the rational planning model can be used to recast that consensus in the form of goals, policies, programs, and actions.

Although the planning and decision making that goes into the formulation of a strategic plan may look fairly sloppy to an outsider, once a consensus is reached on what to do, the resulting

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strategic plan can be rewritten—rationalized—in a form that is quite rational by ordinary definitions (Ackermann & Eden, 2011). Furthermore, the rational planning model may be used to sort out and address any minor (and perhaps major) inconsistencies embedded in the political consensus. Clear goals, when backed by political agreement and authority, can help foster and guide organizational innovation and effectiveness (e.g., Fernandez & Rainey, 2006).

To use another example, in many organizations and communities, there exists a broad-based consensus on basic purposes and values—and often on many policies, programs, and actions as well. There may even be a consensus on the organization's or community's vision. This consensus can be recast using the rational planning model. The political model can then be used to address remaining issues on which there is no agreement, which are likely to revolve around what has to be done to achieve the agreed-upon goals or vision.

To summarize: A great advantage of the strategic planning process outlined in this book is that the process does not presume consensus where it does not exist but can accommodate consensus where it does exist. Because there is no presumption of consensus, the process is more suitable for politicized circumstances than purely “rational” approaches. An intense attention to, and deliberation about, stakeholders and their interests, external and internal environments, and strategic issues means that the actions that are ultimately agreed upon are more likely to be politically wise and that organizational survival and prosperity are, therefore, more likely to be ensured. Furthermore, by gathering relevant information, asking probing questions, and focusing on how best to raise issues, the process can be used to inform political decision making in such a way that virtuous public and nonprofit purposes are better served than they would be if only the rawest forms of political decision making prevailed.

The process, in other words, provides a way of blending substantive rationality (that is, the content of the final answer makes sense), procedural rationality (that is, the steps followed make reasonable sense to the parties involved or affected), and political rationality (that is, acceptability to the interested parties)—content and process and politics—in wise ways to the betterment of the organizations and communities that use it (e.g., Page, Stone, Bryson, & Crosby, 2015).

DEFINITION, PURPOSE, AND BENEFITS OF STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT What is strategic management, and how does strategic planning relate to it? Strategic management is a more inclusive concept than strategic planning because strategic management is the reasonable integration of strategic planning and implementation across an organization (or other entity) in an ongoing way to enhance the fulfillment of mission, meeting of mandates, continuous learning, and sustained creation of public value (see Exhibit 1.1). Strategic management should thus be considered a part of organizational governance, which, as Owen Hughes (2010, pp. 87–88) points out, “is about running organizations, about setting up structures to enable the organization to be run…. In English, the verb govern derives from the Latin gubernare, meaning steer, direct, rule.”

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Exhibit 1.1. Strategic Planning and Strategic Management—Definitions, Functions, and Approaches.

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Source: Adapted in part from Two Views of Strategic Planning, by M. Barzelay and J. M. Bryson, 2010, London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Management (unpublished manuscript); and Bryson (2010).

Functionally, strategic planning involves the kind of deliberative, disciplined work intended to help clarify organizational purposes, mandates, goals, and strategies. It also includes designing an effective and responsive strategic management system that will build the enterprise's capacity for, and delivery of, success over time. Implementation, however, involves the effort

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to realize in practice an organization's mission, goals, and strategies; the meeting of its mandates; continued organizational learning; and the ongoing creation of public value. Doing so requires actually developing a useful strategic management system, including linking budgeting, performance measurement, and performance management, and allowing desirable changes in ends and means to emerge over time. Conceptually, it is useful to view strategic planning as the “front end” of strategic management, even though most strategic planning efforts begin amid the implementation of previously designed, or currently emerging, strategies. There are many different ways to approach strategic planning in practice. This book focuses on one, the Strategy Change Cycle, which is presented in some detail in the next chapter. The approach is generic and must be tailored in an ongoing way to fit specific purposes and circumstances. It is also important to keep in mind that strategic planning is just one of the ways in which important strategy change is brought about; those using the process must be attentive to other sources and avenues of positive change and figure out ways for the strategic planning effort to make use of or complement them.

Similarly, there are many different approaches to designing a strategic management system in practice, where the approach again must be tailored in an ongoing way to fit specific purposes and circumstances. Seven different major approaches are listed in Exhibit 1.1, of which the most important is perhaps the last: hybrid models. Because purposes and circumstances are often so situation-specific, most effective strategic management systems are hybrids of two or more of the other approaches. All seven approaches are discussed in Chapter 10. To summarize, this book is mainly but not exclusively about strategic planning, but I will always emphasize the need to do the planning with the requirements for, and functions of, implementation and strategic management kept clearly in mind.

Three Examples of Strategic Planning Throughout this book, the experiences of three organizations (one public, one nonprofit, and one multiparty collaboration) are used to illustrate key points about strategic planning— including its capacity for accommodating procedural, substantive, and political rationality. Each of these organizations used a variant of the strategic planning process outlined here, explicitly or implicitly adapting it for their own purposes. I had some direct or indirect involvement in each effort though the extent of my involvement varied greatly. Each of these projects represented a kind of action research project in which the aims included developing theory and guidance for practice (Eden & Huxham, 1996).

The three organizations described here are the City of Minneapolis, a municipal government; the Metropolitan Economic Development Association, a nonprofit organization; and the International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI), an international nonprofit organization linked to the United Nations consisting of the chief accountability offices of 194 member nations. The U.S. General Accountability Office is the supreme audit institution for the United States.

The City of Minneapolis. Minneapolis and St. Paul are known throughout the country as the

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Twin Cities. Indeed, the local major league professional baseball team is known as the Minnesota Twins. Minneapolis is the larger of the two cities with approximately 420,000 people in 2017; St. Paul has slightly more than 300,000. Both cities are growing after significant declines in the latter part of the twentieth century. The metropolitan area continues to grow as well and, at 3.5 million people, is the sixteenth largest metropolitan area in the country.

The “City of Lakes” is known for its economic vitality as the economic hub of the state, which has 5.5 million people. The city is also known for its vibrant cultural scene featuring many theatres, museums, and music venues and for its award-winning park system that includes the city's 13 lakes. The city has become increasingly diverse over the decades. In 2017, approximately 60 percent of the population is white, 20 percent is black or African American, 11 percent is Hispanic or Latino, 6 percent is Asian, and the rest is from other races or of mixed races.

The city has an unusual “weak mayor” government structure that is often referred to as a “three-legged stool.” The three legs are the mayor, city council, and city coordinator's office (CCO). The city's diffuse political authority and complex departmental chain of command make achieving consensus on directions and plans a challenge but also mean that power is widely shared.

The mayor has limited formal powers but is the presiding officer of the city council, which is the governing body. The mayor has the power to nominate department heads and make specific appointments, such as the chief of police. The mayor also proposes policy directions and the annual operating and capital budgets.

The city council is the legislative body for the city. Council members are elected by wards, with each representing approximately 32,000 residents. The city adopts local laws and city budgets, provides policy direction, has oversight responsibility of the city's administration, and monitors policy implementation.

The CCO acts as an advisor and consultant to the mayor and city council. The coordinator carries out administrative services, including planning, budgeting, fiscal management, and program monitoring. As part of carrying out these assignments, the coordinator oversees a specific set of “nonstatutory” departments (i.e., IT, human resources, finance and property services, communications, neighborhood and community relations, 311, 911, the Convention Center, intergovernmental relations, and emergency management). The CCO carries out the city's strategic planning and results management efforts. The coordinator is appointed by the mayor for a two-year term with the option of being reappointed.

The city has been engaged in ongoing performance management efforts for some time. It began producing strategic plans on a four-year cycle starting in 2006. We will focus on the process that produced the 2014 strategic plan and how it was implemented. The presentation benefits greatly from a series of student team papers produced as part of my yearly strategic planning class at the Humphrey School and by regular contact with city staff (Andreason et al., 2016; Arbury et al., 2014; Christ et al., 2009; Dickens et al., 2015).

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The Metropolitan Economic Development Association. The Metropolitan Economic Development Association (MEDA) is a nonprofit organization that was established in 1971 in the aftermath of the civil unrest in Minneapolis in the late 1960s. MEDA's purpose is to help entrepreneurs of color and minority-owned businesses succeed. The founders of MEDA included members of the civic and business elites of the metropolitan area. They believed— and the organization still believes—that supporting minority businesses is “a positive, achievable and market-based approach to create wealth in Minnesota's communities of color and provide equal economic opportunity” (MEDA, 2015, p. 3). We will focus on the process that produced the 2016–2010 strategic plan.

MEDA's mission in 2014 was “helping entrepreneurs of color succeed. And communities grow.” The vision was “thriving communities through equal economic participation.” Values included excellence, customer focus, integrity, and respect.

MEDA offered programs in three categories: business consulting, financial services, and creating market opportunities. In the business consulting area, MEDA provided management consulting and mentoring, help with taking businesses to scale, and specialized support for businesses working in the construction industry. In the finance area, MEDA offered its own loan fund, managed funds for external partners, and partnered with community lenders, commercial banks, and the State of Minnesota to help clients acquire capital. Finally, in terms of market opportunities creation, MEDA had four centers designed to help clients connect with corporate and government contracting opportunities, assist with registrations and certifications, and provide educational and training workshops.

In 2014, MEDA served more than 1,600 clients across its three program areas and throughout the state. Not all of these clients were minority entrepreneurs or minority-owned businesses. MEDA helped its clients secure more than $650 million in contracts. In the Twin Cities metropolitan area, it helped 55 minority-owned firms secure nearly $26 million in financial capital. As a result of these contracts and financial capital, approximately 200 new jobs were created with an average wage of $22 per hour.

According to MEDA's 2014 Annual Report, MEDA had total assets of $9,164,604 and total liabilities of $5,260,831 for total net assets of $3,903,773. MEDA's revenue, including lending capital and multiyear operational grant awards, was $4,126,097, and total expenses were $3,279,620 for net assets of $846,477. The total expense that included program services was $3,279,620. There were 28 staff members.

The year included a major leadership transition. Gary Cunningham succeeded Yvonne Cheung Ho, who had served as the president and CEO of MEDA for 15 years. The board of directors selected Cunningham for his passion and strong vision for MEDA's work and asked him to “take MEDA to the next level.” Previously, he held a number of senior management positions, including vice president for operations of the Northwest Area Foundation, head of North Point Health and Wellness Center in Minneapolis, and director of the Office of Planning and Development for Hennepin County, Minnesota (the county that contains Minneapolis).

Although the board wanted a transformation, they did not specify what that meant. Cunningham

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knew MEDA was a successful organization, but he also wanted to greatly increase its impact. Although he knew a strategic planning process would be necessary, he also wanted to know more about MEDA before he began one. Three weeks after assuming his new position in August 2014, Cunningham and I began coteaching a Fall 2014 course on performance management at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs. We focused the class on MEDA and what moving to the next level might mean. Insights the class developed helped clarify a number of issues facing MEDA and helped Cunningham better understand how to push ahead with a formal strategic planning process. That effort began in 2015 with consulting support from the Minneapolis office of Accenture, the global consulting firm. I have served as a strategic planning advisor throughout.

The International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions. The International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI) is an “autonomous, independent, professional, and nonpolitical organization,” which is legally a nongovernment organization (NGO) (INTOSAI, 2010, p. 2). It was founded in 1953 as the overarching association of supreme audit institutions (SAIs) for the United Nations' member countries. Currently, the organization includes SAIs from 194 countries and five associate members. An SAI is a country-level government agency whose purpose, at least in theory, is to ensure transparency, accountability, and efficiency within the bureaucratic operations of a government. SAIs go by different names in different countries; for example, auditor general, comptroller general, or chief financial controller. The U. S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is the national SAI representing the United States. In addition, there are some associate organizational members such as the World Bank. INTOSAI carries out its work in five official languages— Arabic, English, French, German, and Spanish—and is headquartered in Vienna with the Austrian Court of Audit. The organization has special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the United Nations.

INTOSAI's current mission, which is broadened somewhat from the 2011–2016 mission, states that it will “provide mutual support; foster the exchange of ideas, knowledge, and experiences; act as a recognized voice of supreme audit institutions within the international community; provide high quality auditing standards for the public sector; promote good governance; and foster SAI capacity development and continuous performance improvement.” INTOSAI's current vision is to “promote good governance by enabling SAIs to help their respective governments improve performance, enhance transparency, ensure accountability, maintain credibility, fight corruption, promote public trust, and foster the efficient and effective receipt and use of public resources for the benefit of their citizens.” The organization operates on the core values of interdependence, integrity, professionalism, credibility, inclusiveness, cooperation, and innovation. The current strategic plan modifies and elaborates on the goals in the previous strategic plan. The major change is that the plan is meant to guide its SAI members as they support their governments in achieving the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The 17 SDGs were adopted by the UN General Assembly in September 2015 and seek to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure prosperity for all as part of a new sustainable development agenda (United Nations Development Program, 2015). The new plan provides a framework for INTOSAI and its member SAIs to follow up and

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review national sustainable development initiatives in accord with individual SAI mandates, priorities, and capabilities.

The effort to produce INTOSAI's third strategic plan, the 2017–2022 Strategic Plan, is the case reported on here. The new plan was adopted by INTOSAI's governing board, the International Congress of Supreme Audit Institutions, in the United Arab Emirates in December 2016. The head of U.S. GAO, the comptroller general of the United States, chaired the Task Force on Strategic Planning. GAO staff played a central role as a champion and facilitator of the effort. The previous edition of this book was one of the sources for advice on the process that ensued. In addition to publicly available documents, the entries about the case draw heavily on Huff (2017), which grew out of a Humphrey School student team paper that was prepared in cooperation with, and reviewed by, U.S. GAO staff.

COMPARISONS AND CONTRASTS These three organizations and their strategic planning efforts offer a number of comparisons and contrasts. Two are Minnesota-based, and one is quite emphatically international. They differ in size, staff, budgets, and legal status. The City of Minneapolis is a unit of local government. MEDA is an independent nonprofit organization. INTOSAI is also formally a nonprofit but is essentially a self-governing network of government organizations served by a network administrative organization located in Vienna, Austria (Provan & Kenis, 2009).

The strategic planning effort for these organizations differed in the extent to which it focused directly on the organization and what it should do or what should happen in the community of which the organization is a part. The Minneapolis process focused on both organizational and community planning. MEDA focused on itself but also highlighted ways of changing the entire ecology of support for minority-owned businesses. INTOSAI's effort focused on itself but especially on what the SAIs could do to help their nations' governments achieve goals that involved far more than what governments could do directly. In short, for these organizations, the boundary between what was “inside” and what is “outside” the organization was not always clear.

In addition, the three organizations engaged in strategic planning for different reasons. Minneapolis and INTOSAI both were following a very regular cycle for updating strategic plans, but the circumstances surrounding the updates were quite different. Minneapolis began its process knowing the political leadership of the city would change significantly midway through the process. INTOSAI used the scheduled update to significantly repurpose the plan to focus on helping achieve the UN's SDGs. And MEDA also knew the time had come for a new strategic plan but wasn't sure what transforming the organization—which both the board and the new president and CEO wanted—might mean.

There are similarities among the three cases as well. First, each organization succeeded because it had leaders willing to act as process sponsors to endorse and legitimize the effort. The sponsors were not always particularly active participants, nor were they always at the top of the organizational hierarchy, but they did let it be known that they wanted important decision

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makers and managers to give the effort a good try. Second, each organization had process champions committed to making the process work. These champions did not have preconceived ideas about what specific issues and answers would emerge from the process, though they may have had some good hunches. They simply believed that the process would result in good answers and pushed until those answers emerged (Bryson & Roering, 1988, 1989).

Third, each organization ultimately developed a fairly clear understanding and agreement among key decision makers about what strategic planning was and what they expected from the process. Fourth, each followed a reasonably structured strategic thinking, acting, and learning process. Fifth, each had a decision-making body to oversee the process. Sixth, each had a strategic planning team to manage the process, collect information and prepare for meetings, engage in serious strategic dialogue, and draft a strategic plan. Seventh, each identified critical issues that required effective action if the organization were to capitalize on important opportunities, avoid being victimized by serious threats, or both. Eighth, each worked hard to develop strategies that created public value and were politically acceptable, technically workable, administratively feasible, and ethically responsible. Ninth, each relied on outside assistance of various kinds to help with the process. And finally, each gained many of the potential benefits of strategic planning outlined above

SUMMARY This chapter has discussed what strategic planning is and why it is important. Its importance stems from its ability to help organizations and communities anticipate and respond to change in wise and effective ways. Not only have the environments of public and nonprofit organizations and communities changed dramatically in the recent past, but more upheaval is likely in the future as well. Continuous progress can hardly be taken for granted. In fact, we should expect periods of stability and small changes that are interrupted by instability and significant change. We should expect uncertainty, ambiguity, and equivocality, happy surprises but also unhappy jolts—and occasional terror. In the past century and into this one, we experienced world wars, big booms, big busts, modernism, postmodernism, poststructuralism, and new major roles for government and nonprofit organizations. Within living memory, the United States experienced the effects of the Korean War; the civil rights movement; the women's movement; the environmental movement; the disastrous war in Vietnam; the antiwar movement; the environmental movement; the collapse of the Soviet Union; dramatic shifts in the dominant political ideology in the United States; the HIV/AIDS crisis; lengthy but inconclusive wars in the Middle East; a rise in terrorism; growing public distrust and cynicism; staggering new technologies; unprecedented economic growth with a continuation of sometimes brutal business cycle downturns; the emergence of the European Union, China, and India as serious economic competitors; a dramatic spread of democracy and some noteworthy retreats from it; and globalization—plus all the other changes noted in the opening paragraphs of this chapter.

It all reminds me of a quotation attributed to Lord Salisbury (Robert Gascoyne-Cecil), three-

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time British prime minister in the nineteenth century: “Change, change, who needs change? Aren't things bad enough already?” Or this chapter's opening epigram: a handwritten sign on a tip jar in a coffee shop in Portland, Oregon: “If you don't like change, leave it here.” If only it were that simple!

Strategic planning is one way to help organizations and communities deal with their changed circumstances. Strategic planning is intended to enhance an organization's ability to think, act, and learn strategically. It can help organizations clarify and resolve the most important issues they face. It can help them build on strengths and take advantage of major opportunities while they overcome or minimize weaknesses and serious challenges. It can help them be much more effective in what seems to be a more hostile world. If it does not do that, it probably was not worth the effort, even though it may have satisfied certain legal mandates or symbolic needs.

The ABCs of Strategic Planning presented in Figure 1.1 showed how strategic planning can help an organization (or other entity) deliberate about how it might get from where it is to where it wants to be. Figure 1.4 shows another way to think about strategic planning that more forcefully demonstrates its importance in terms of purposes and functions—namely, that strategic planning is meant to help public and nonprofit organizations and communities create public value through meeting their mandates and fulfilling their missions. To do so, it must help produce fundamental decisions and actions that shape and guide what the organization is, what it does, and why it does it. Producing those decisions and actions requires an interconnected set of activities that organizes effective participation; creates meritorious ideas for mission, goals, strategies, actions, and other strategic interventions; builds a winning coalition; implements strategies; and builds capacity for ongoing implementation, learning, and strategic change.

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Figure 1.4. Purposes and Functions of Strategic Planning and Management. Source: Adapted from Bryson, 2004, p. 28.

Strategic planning clearly is a leadership and management innovation that is likely to persist because, unlike many other recent innovations, it accepts and builds on the nature of political decision making. Raising and resolving important issues is the heart of political decision making and the heart of strategic planning. Strategic planning seeks to improve on raw political decision making, however, by helping to ensure that issues are raised and resolved in ways that benefit the organization, its key stakeholders, and society.

Chapter 2 presents my preferred approach to strategic planning for governments, public agencies, nonprofit organizations, boundary-crossing collaborations, and communities. Subsequent chapters will discuss how to apply the process to help public and nonprofit organizations, collaborative networks, and communities create public value, fulfill their missions, meet their mandates, and serve their stakeholders effectively, efficiently, and responsibly. The good news in this book is of two sorts: There is lots of good work to do, and strategic planning can help you do it. The bad news is also of two sorts: Strategic planning is not necessarily easy, and there is no guarantee of success.

Indeed, it may be helpful to consider the words of Samuel Beckett, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, in Worstward Ho: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better” (1983). Beckett's words are helpful because often failure of various sorts prompts the strategic thinking, acting, and learning necessary for success (Bryson & Crosby, 2008; Weick, Sutcliffe, & Obstfeld, 2005). The key is to use a deliberative, disciplined process that allows strategic thinking, acting, and learning to be joined for the ultimate benefit of those

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involved or affected. The next chapter presents such a process.

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CHAPTER TWO The Strategy Change Cycle: An Effective Strategic Planning and Management Approach for Public and Nonprofit Organizations No, I can't say as I ever was lost, but once I was bewildered pretty bad for three days.

—Daniel Boone

Make-believe is at the heart of play, and also at the heart of so much that passes for work. Let's make-believe we can shoot a rocket to the moon.

—Diane Ackerman, poet and essayist

This chapter presents my preferred approach to strategic planning and management for public and nonprofit organizations, collaborations of various sorts, and communities. This generic approach, called the Strategy Change Cycle, does what public and nonprofit scholars assert planning should do—if it is to be strategic planning (Bryson, Edwards, & Van Slyke, 2017). Specifically, planning that is strategic will demonstrate:

Close attention to the particulars of context, including the decision-making context, when designing the strategic planning approach

Careful thinking about purposes, goals, and situational requirements (e.g., political, legal, administrative, ethical, and environmental requirements)

An initial focus on a broad agenda and a later move to a more selective action orientation

An emphasis on systems thinking—that is, working to understand the dynamics of the overall system being planned for as it functions, or ideally should function, across space and time, including the interrelationships among constituent subsystems

Careful attention to stakeholders, including elected, appointed, and career officials—in effect making strategic planning an approach to the practical politics of gaining legitimacy, buy-in, and credible commitments; typically, multiple levels of government and multiple sectors are explicitly or implicitly involved in the process of strategy formulation and implementation

A focus on strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, as well as competitive and collaborative capabilities and advantages

A focus on the future and how different strategies might be used to influence it, in part by attending to decision making in the present in light of its future consequences

Careful attention to implementation challenges as strategies are formulated; strategy that cannot be operationalized effectively to fit the implementation context is hardly strategic

A clear realization that strategies are both deliberately set in advance and emergent in

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practice

The Strategy Change Cycle becomes a strategic management process—and not just a strategic planning process—to the extent that it is used to link planning and implementation and to manage an organization in a strategic way on an ongoing basis (see Exhibit 1.1). As Poister and Streib (1999, pp. 311–312) argue, “The overall purpose of strategic management is to develop a continuing commitment to the mission and vision of the organization (both internally and in the authorizing environment), nurture a culture that identifies and supports the mission and vision, and maintains a clear focus on the organization's strategic agenda throughout all its decision processes and activities.” The Strategy Change Cycle draws on a considerable body of research and practical experience, applying it specifically to public and nonprofit organizations. Subsequent chapters will provide detailed guidance on moving through the cycle to make use of its logic in specific situations.

The epigraphs at the beginning of this chapter help make the point that strategic thinking, acting, and learning are more important than any particular approach to strategic planning. Consider the humorous statement in the opening epigraph of Daniel Boone, the famous eighteenth- and nineteenth-century American frontiersman (Faragher, 1992, p. 65): When you are lost in the wilderness—bewildered—no fixed plan will do. You must think, act, and learn your way to safety. Boone had a destination of at least a general sort in mind but not a route. He had to wander around reconnoitering, gathering information, assessing directions, trying out options, and in general thinking, acting, and learning his way into where he wanted to be. As Weick, Sutcliffe, and Obstfeld (2005, pp. 412–413) put it, he had to “act thinkingly…[knowing] there are truths of the moment that change, develop, and take shape through time” and that “may signal a progression from worse to better.” Ultimately—but not initially or even much before he got to where he was going—Boone was able to establish a clear destination and a route that worked to get him there. Thus, he had a strategy of purposeful wandering, and it is true that he was not exactly lost; rather, he was working at finding himself where he wanted to be. So wandering with a purpose is an important aspect of strategic planning, in which thinking, acting, and learning clearly matter most.

Diane Ackerman's statement makes the point that almost anything is possible with enough imagination, ambition, direction, intelligence, competence, education and training, organization, resources, will, and staying power. A long list, to be sure, but sometimes they can be assembled and the triumph attained: Humans have been to the moon and have sent spacecraft to Mars, Venus, and a host of other places. As citizens of the world, we have won world wars and cold wars, ended depressions and avoided others, seen dramatic reductions in poverty worldwide, virtually eliminated smallpox, unraveled the human genome, watched a reasonably united and integrated Europe emerge and weather various crises, and seen democracy spread—though not without setbacks.

Now let's think about what complementary or collaborative efforts of governments, businesses, nonprofit organizations, and civil society more generally might do to provide good jobs for everyone, adequate food and housing for everyone, fully universal health care coverage at a reasonable cost, drastically reduced crime and incarceration, effective educational systems,

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secure pensions and retirements, a dramatic reduction in greenhouse emissions, the elimination of weapons of mass destruction, the elimination of HIV/AIDS, the realization in practice of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and so on. There is plenty of necessary, good, and exalting work to do, but it will take contributions from all sectors and many different kinds of people to get it done. Committed leaders and followers from all sectors can create institutions, policies, programs, projects, products, and services of lasting public value by drawing on diverse talents—and have done so again and again throughout history (Hacker & Pierson, 2016; Light, 2002). And they can use strategic planning to help think, act, and learn strategically—to figure out what is desirable and why and how to get it. Think of strategic planning as the organization of hope—as what makes hope reasonable.

A 10-STEP STRATEGIC PLANNING PROCESS Now, with the caution that strategic thinking, acting, and learning matter most, let us proceed to a more detailed exploration of the 10-step Strategy Change Cycle. The process (presented graphically in Figure 2.1) is more orderly, deliberative, and participative than the process followed by an essayist such as Ackerman or a wanderer like Boone. The process is designed to organize effective participation; create meritorious ideas for mission, goals, strategies, actions, and other strategic interventions; build the winning coalition needed to adopt and protect strategies during implementation; provide needed guidance and resources for implementation; and build competence and knowledge to sustain implementation and engage in the next round of strategic planning (see Figure 1.4). The Strategy Change Cycle is now a widely used approach to identifying and responding to challenges in which a leadership group establishes overall purposes of the process, provides important guidance, manages the main activities in the process, and often leaves much of the content of the responses and implementation methods to others. The 10 steps (or occasions for deliberation and decision) are as follows:

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1. Initiate and agree on a strategic planning process

2. Identify organizational mandates

3. Clarify organizational mission and values

4. Assess the external and internal environments to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats

5. Identify the strategic issues facing the organization

6. Formulate strategies to manage the issues

7. Review and adopt the strategic plan or plans

8. Establish an effective organizational vision

9. Develop an effective implementation process

10. Reassess strategies and the strategic planning process

These 10 steps should lead deliberatively to actions, results, evaluation, and learning. It must be emphasized that these outcomes should emerge at each step in the process. In other words, implementation and evaluation should not wait until the end of the process but rather should be

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an integral and ongoing part of it.

The process is applicable to public and nonprofit organizations, collaborations of various sorts, and communities. The only general requirements are a dominant coalition, or at least a coalition of the willing able to sponsor and follow the process, and a process champion or champions willing to push it. For small organizations, well-informed strategic planning teams that are familiar with, believe in, and are committed to the process should be able to complete most of the steps in two or three workdays with an additional workday scheduled three to four weeks later to review the resulting strategic plan. Responsibility for preparing the plan can be delegated to a planner assigned to work with the team, or the organization's chief executive may choose to draft the plan personally. More time may be needed for additional reviews and signoffs by key decision makers or to secure information or advice for specific parts of the plan, especially its recommended strategies.

For large organizations, however, more time and effort are likely to be needed for the process. And when applied to a collaboration or community, the effort is likely to be considerably more time-consuming in order to promote the involvement of substantial numbers of leaders, organizations, and, in a community, citizens, and to develop necessary agreements to proceed.

As you learn more about the steps of the Strategy Change Cycle, note that in practice it bears little resemblance to the caricature of strategic planning occasionally found in the literature as a rigid, formal, overly analytic, and detached process (for example, Ferlie and Ongaro, 2015, pp. 13–23; Mintzberg, Ahlstrand, & Lampel, 2009, pp. 49–84). Instead, the Strategy Change Cycle is intended to enhance strategic thinking, acting, and learning. It does so by engaging key actors with what is and what can be; by engaging with the most important details while abstracting the strategic messages within them; and by linking strategy formulation with implementation in ways that are wise, technically and administratively workable, politically intelligent, and legal, moral, and ethical—and, not least, that create enduring public value.

Step 1: Initiating and Agreeing on a Strategic Planning Process The purpose of the first step is to negotiate agreement among key internal (and perhaps external) decision makers or opinion leaders about the overall strategic planning effort and the key planning steps. The support and commitment of key decision makers are vital if strategic planning in an organization is to succeed. Further, the involvement of key decision makers outside the organization usually is crucial to the success of public and nonprofit programs if implementation will involve multiple parties and organizations (Emerson & Nabatchi, 2015; Fernandez & Rainey, 2006; Sandfort & Moulton, 2015).

Obviously, some person or group must initiate the process. One of the initiators' first tasks is to identify who the key decision makers are. The next task is to identify which people, groups, units, or organizations should be involved in the effort. These two steps will require some preliminary stakeholder analysis, which is discussed in more detail below. The initial agreement will be negotiated with at least some of these decision makers, key opinion leaders, groups, units, or organizations. In practice, a series of agreements typically must be struck among various parties as support for the process builds and key stakeholders and decision

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makers sign on. Strategic planning for a public or nonprofit organization, collaboration, or community is especially likely to work well if an effective policy- and decision-making body is in place to oversee the effort.

The agreement turns a general approach into a specific process design. Creating an effective specific design requires the negotiators of the initial agreement to think strategically about the strategic planning process. The agreement should cover:

The purpose of the effort

A statement of desired outcomes (however sketchy) to be achieved

Preferred steps in the process and the way ongoing feedback and learning will be accomplished

The form and timing of reports

The role, functions, and membership of any group or committee empowered to oversee the effort, such as a strategic planning coordinating committee (SPCC)

The role, functions, and membership of the strategic planning team

A general sense of how stakeholders will be engaged over the course of the process (see Resource A)

A general sense of how the information and communication technology (ICT) and social media will be used to help the process along (see Resource B)

The likely requirements for success

Any important limitations or boundaries on the effort

Commitment of resources necessary to proceed with the effort

As noted, at least some stakeholder analysis work will be needed in order to figure out whom to include in the series of initial agreements. A stakeholder is defined as any person, group, or organization that can place a claim on an organization's (or other entity's) attention, resources, or output or that is affected by that output. Examples of a government's stakeholders are citizens, taxpayers, service recipients, the governing body, employees, unions, interest groups, political parties, the financial community, other businesses, and other governments. Examples of a nonprofit organization's stakeholders include members, clients or customers, third-party payers or funders, employees, the board of directors, volunteers, other nonprofit organizations providing complementary services or involved as coventurers in projects, banks holding mortgages or notes, and suppliers.

Attention to stakeholder concerns is crucial: The key to success in public and nonprofit organizations (and communities) is the satisfaction of key stakeholders according to their criteria, or at least ones they can accept (Fernandez & Rainey, 2006; Rainey, 2014). A stakeholder analysis is a way for the organization's decision makers and planning team to immerse themselves in the networks and politics surrounding the organization. An understanding of the relationships—actual or potential—that help define the organization's

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context can provide invaluable clues to identifying strategic issues and developing effective strategies.

In this regard, note that the stakeholder definition is deliberately quite broad for both practical and ethical reasons. Thinking broadly, at least initially, about who the stakeholders are is a way of opening people's eyes to the various webs of relationships within which the organization exists and of ensuring the organization is alerted to its ethical and democratic accountability responsibilities because they always involve clarifying who and what counts (Lewis & Gilman, 2012).

For many public and nonprofit organizations these days, the label customer will be given to their key stakeholder (Thomas, 2012). The customer label can be useful, particularly for organizations that need to improve their customer service. In other situations, this language actually can be quite problematic. One danger is that focusing on a single customer may lead these organizations inadvertently to ignore other important stakeholder groups. Another danger is that providing public services is typically not a matter of simply buying by the customer and selling by a producer, but of coproduction in which the service recipient is an active participant in the creation of the service (Voorberg, Bekkers, & Tummers, 2015). Another danger is that the customer label can undermine the values and virtues of active citizenship (Denhardt & Denhardt, 2015; Thomas, 2012). The public sector is not as simple as the private sector; there typically are many “bottom lines” (Rainey, 2014). Many community-based nonprofit organizations and those relying on government funding also face very complex stakeholder environments.

Resource A at the end of the book provides an overview of a range of stakeholder identification and analysis techniques, and Chapter 3 provides more detail on how to get started. The organizers of the planning effort should count on using several different techniques, including what I call the basic stakeholder analysis technique. This requires the strategic planning team to brainstorm a list of the organization's stakeholders, identify their criteria for judging the performance of the organization (that is, their stake in the organization or its output), and assess how well the organization performs against those criteria from the stakeholders' points of view. If there is time, additional steps (perhaps involving additional analysis techniques) should be considered, including understanding how the stakeholders influence the organization, identifying what the organization needs from its various stakeholders (e.g., money, staff, political support), and determining in general how important the various stakeholders are. Looking ahead, a stakeholder analysis will help clarify whether the organization needs to have different missions and perhaps different strategies for different stakeholders, whether it should seek to have its mandates changed, and in general what its strategic issues are.

Step 2: Identifying Organizational Mandates The formal and informal mandates placed on the organization consist of the various “musts” it confronts—that is, the various requirements, restrictions, expectations, pressures, and constraints it faces. Actually, it is surprising how few organizations know precisely what they

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are (and are not) formally mandated to do. Typically, few members of any organization have ever read, for example, the relevant legislation, policies, ordinances, charters, articles, and contracts that outline the organization's formal mandates. Even if they have read these materials, too many strategic plans do not include explicit reference to many of the applicable formal mandates, so they may be overlooked (Rosenbloom, 2007, 2014). In addition, many organizational members do not understand the informal mandates—typically political in the broadest sense—that the organization faces.

It may not be surprising, then, that most organizations make one or more of three fundamental mistakes. First, by not articulating or knowing what they must do, they are unlikely to do it. Second, they may believe they are more tightly constrained in their actions than they actually are. And third, they may assume that if they are not explicitly told to do something, they are not allowed to do it.

Step 3: Clarifying Organizational Mission and Values An organization's mission, in tandem with its mandates, provides the organization's most obvious raison d'être and social justification for its existence. An organization's mission and mandates also point the way toward the ultimate organizational end of creating public value at reasonable cost. This ultimate end corresponds to Aristotle's final cause, where final comes from the Latin word finis or end, corresponding to the Greek word telos or goal. A final cause thus provides the explanation for change by pointing to the goal (telos) on account of which, or for the sake of which, the changes are undertaken (Vella, 2008, p. 77). The English saying “rally round the cause” captures the idea.

The Strategy Change Cycle thus represents a primarily teleological—meaning goal- or purpose-oriented—theory of change (Van de Ven & Poole, 1995) in which actions are undertaken and justified in terms of their efficacy for achieving goals or purposes (which will often be more intermediate than final because ultimate ends may not be clearly understood at the beginning of the process). Causation in the Aristotelian sense is thus broader than our modern conception: “For Aristotle, a cause is an explanation or a reason why something is the case” (Vella, 2008, p. 48). Deliberations informed by the Strategy Change Cycle are thus guided by the need for choices based on reasons in order to achieve ends. The goal-oriented nature of strategic planning places a premium on ongoing feedback and learning because they provide information necessary to stay on track (or perhaps to revise the goals) (Simon, 1996).

For a government, government agency, or nonprofit organization, this means there must be identifiable social or political demands or needs that the organization seeks to fill. Viewed in this light, organizations must always be seen as a means to an end (finis), not as an end in and of themselves (Rosenbloom, 2015). For a collaborative, it means identifying the collaborative advantage to be gained by working together—that is, what can be gained together that creates public value that cannot be achieved alone (Huxham & Vangen, 2005). Communities, too, must justify their existence based on how well they meet their stakeholders' social, political, economic, and environmental needs—including the stakeholders' need for a sense of community. Communities, however, are less likely to think they have a mission; they are more

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likely to talk about their purposes, values, and identity.

Identifying the mission or purpose of the organization, however, does more than justify the organization's existence. Clarifying purpose can eliminate a great deal of unnecessary conflict in an organization and help channel discussion and activity productively (Thompson, 2014). Agreement on purpose also defines the arenas within which the organization will collaborate or compete and, at least in broad outline, charts the future course of the organization.

Moreover, an important and socially justifiable mission is a source of inspiration and guidance to key stakeholders, particularly employees (Kouzes & Posner, 2017). Indeed, it is doubtful whether any organization ever achieved greatness or excellence without a basic consensus among its key stakeholders on an inspiring mission (Goodsell, 2010; Rainey & Steinbauer, 1999).

I think that some careful stakeholder analysis work should precede development or modification of an existing mission statement so that attention to purpose can be informed by thinking about purpose for whom. The mission statement itself might be very short—perhaps not more than a paragraph or a slogan—but development of the mission statement should grow out of lengthy dialogue about the organization's identity, its abiding purpose, desired responses to key stakeholders, its philosophy and core values, and its ethical standards. These discussions may also provide a basic outline for a description of the organization in the future, or its vision of success, described in Step 8. Considerable intermediate work is necessary, however, before a complete vision of success can be articulated.

Step 4: Assessing the Organization's External and Internal Environments The planning team should explore the environment outside the organization to identify the opportunities and challenges (or threats) the organization faces (Step 4a). It should explore the environment inside the organization to identify strengths and weaknesses (Step 4b). Basically, “outside” factors are those the organization can't control, whereas “inside” factors are those it can (Pfeffer & Salancik, 1978). Opportunities and challenges usually (though not necessarily) are more about the future than the present; strengths and weakness are more about the present than the future (Nutt & Backoff, 1992). Note that communities are more likely to think in terms of assets rather than strengths (McKnight & Block, 2010). The analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and challenges (or threats) will be referred to in this book as a SWOC/T analysis. An instructional guide to performing a very basic SWOC/T analysis can be found at https://www.hubertproject.org/hubert-material/438/.

Monitoring a variety of forces and trends—including political, economic, social, educational, technological, and physical environmental ones—can help planners and decision makers discern opportunities and challenges. Unfortunately, organizations all too often focus only on the negative or threatening aspects of serious challenges and not on the genuine opportunities they may present, so care must be taken to ensure a balanced view (Ackermann & Eden, 2011). In other words, attending to challenges and weaknesses should be seen as an opportunity to build strengths and improve performance (Weick & Sutcliffe, 2015).

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https://www.hubertproject.org/hubert-material/438/

Other than monitoring trends and events, the strategic planning team also should monitor particularly important external stakeholder groups, especially those that affect resource flows (directly or indirectly). These groups would include customers, clients, payers or funders, dues-paying members, regulators, and relevant policy bodies. The team also should attend to competitors, competitive forces, and possible sources of competitive advantage, as well as to collaborators, collaborative forces, and potential sources of collaborative advantage.

One important technique that can be very useful, especially for government agencies, is policy field analysis. Stone and Sandfort (2009, p. 1056) define a policy field as “an identifiable set of elements in a specific environment that directly shape local public service provision. These elements include the structures created by institutions involved in the delivery of particular substantive programs and the ways in which state and local actors interact with these structures.” And they go on to say, “The policy field framework helps one analyze how actual relationships among major institutions and key stakeholders influence the exertion of power and the flow of resources, such as money, information, and clients. The framework also details how these relationships and networks influence the work of [public and] nonprofit organizations themselves.” The technique allows users to gain a better understanding of the overall system within which they are operating. A brief video overview of policy field analysis can be found at https://www.hubertproject.org/hubert-material/314/.

A policy field analysis also sets the stages for a careful assessment of actual and potential collaborators, as well as the forces that might prompt or inhibit competition or collaboration. Affirmations of existing relationships with other organizations or entities might result but so might an awareness of other possibilities.

The organization might construct various scenarios to explore alternative futures in the external environment, a practice typical of much strategic planning in large business organizations (Marcus, 2009). Scenarios are particularly good at demonstrating how various forces and trends are likely to interact and which are amenable to organizational influence. Scenarios also offer an effective way of challenging the organization's “official future” when necessary. The “official future” is the presumed or taken-for-granted future that makes current strategies sensible. Organizations unwilling to challenge this future are the ones most likely to be blindsided by changes. Communities also may wish to develop scenarios.

Members of an organization's governing body (particularly if they are elected) are often better at identifying and assessing external opportunities and challenges (particularly present ones) than are the organization's employees. This is partly due to a governing board's responsibility for relating an organization to its external environment and vice versa. Unfortunately, neither governing boards nor employees usually do a systematic or effective job of external scanning. As a result, most organizations are often like ships trying to navigate troubled or treacherous waters without benefit of human lookouts, global positioning systems, radar, or sonar. All too often the result is a very unwelcome surprise (Weick & Sutcliffe, 2015).

Because of this, both employees and governing board members should consider relying on a somewhat formal external assessment process to supplement their informal efforts. The technology of external assessment is fairly simple and allows organizations to cheaply,

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https://www.hubertproject.org/hubert-material/314/

pragmatically, and effectively keep tabs on what is happening in the larger world that is likely to have an effect on the organization and the pursuit of its mission. Basically, there are three steps: scanning the environment to identify key trends, analyzing trends to interpret their importance and identify issues, and providing reports that are useful for planning and decision making. RSS (rich site summaries) feeds, listserv queries, monthly or quarterly discussion groups, and periodic retreats, for example, might be used to explore forces and trends and their potential impact. The key, however, is to avoid being captured by existing categories of classification and search because they tend to formalize and routinize the past rather than open one to the surprises of the future (Alvesson & Spicer, 2012; Weick & Sutcliffe, 2015).

Attention to opportunities and challenges, along with a stakeholder analysis, can be used to identify the organization's critical success factors (CSFs). These may overlap with mandates in the sense that they are the things the organization must do, or criteria it must meet, in order for it to be successful in the eyes of its key stakeholders, especially those in the external environment. Ideally, the organization will excel in these areas and must do so in order to outperform or stave off competitors. In the private sector, CSFs are often discussed in relation to specific products and services (Johnson, Whittington, Regnér, Scholes, & Angwin, 2017); here, we are using the term more broadly as a category of requirements for success in addition to those that emanate from mission and mandates.

To identify internal strengths and weaknesses, the organization might monitor resources (inputs), present strategy (process), and performance (outputs). Most public and nonprofit organizations, in my experience, have substantial information on many of their inputs, such as salaries, supplies, physical plant, and full-time equivalent (FTE) personnel. Unfortunately, fewer organizations have a very clear idea of their philosophy, core values, distinctive competencies, and culture, a crucial set of inputs both for ensuring stability and managing change.

Organizations also tend to have an unclear idea of their present strategy, either overall, by subunit, or by function. And typically they cannot say enough about their outputs, let alone the effects or outcomes, those outputs create for clients, customers, or payers though this, too, is changing. For example, traditionally schools have been able to say how many students they graduate—an output—but most cannot say how educated those students are. National and state requirements for standardized testing at different grade levels are an attempt to measure outcomes in order to remedy this shortcoming. We know tests of this sort are almost always imperfect, but the need to demonstrate accountability for performance to politicians and the citizenry virtually requires that believable testing of some sort be used. As Moynihan (2008) argues, much of the value of performance information is the dialogue that it prompts with stakeholders about performance.

A lack of performance information presents problems both for the organization and for its stakeholders. Stakeholders judge an organization according to the criteria they choose, which are not necessarily the same criteria the organization would choose. For external stakeholders in particular, these criteria typically relate to performance. If an organization cannot effectively meet its stakeholders' performance criteria, then regardless of its “inherent” worth, the

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stakeholders are likely to withdraw their support. An absence of performance information may also create—or harden—major organizational conflicts. Without performance criteria and information, there is no way to evaluate with reasonable objectivity the relative effectiveness of alternative strategies, resource allocations, organizational designs, and distributions of power. As a result, organizational conflicts are likely to occur more often than they should, serve narrow partisan interests, and be resolved in ways that don't further the organization's mission (Flyvbjerg, 1998; Thompson, 2014).

The difficulties of measuring performance are well-known (Talbot, 2010; Van Dooren, Bouckaert, & Halligan, 2015). But regardless of the difficulties, organizations are continually challenged to demonstrate effective performance to their stakeholders. Employees of government agencies and nonprofit organizations receiving government funds might see the public's desire to limit or decrease taxation and funding as selfishness, which it may be for some. Alternatively, one might interpret these limitations on public expenditure as an unwillingness to support organizations that cannot demonstrate unequivocally effective performance. The desire for demonstrable performance was clearly behind the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) of 1993 (Public Law 103-62) and the Government Performance and Results Modernization Act (GPRMA) of 2010 (Public Law 111-352), which require all federal agencies to complete a strategic plan based on outcomes rather than inputs or throughputs. The assessment of the effectiveness of these laws is mixed (Moynihan, 2013; Moynihan & Kroll, 2016), but the impulse behind the act will remain. Many states and large numbers of local governments embrace performance management as well (National Performance Advisory Commission, 2010).

A consideration of the organization's strengths and weaknesses can also lead to an identification of its distinctive competencies (Selznick, 1957) or core competencies (Ackermann & Eden, 2011). The precise meanings of these terms differ, but in general, they indicate the organization's strongest abilities that draw on resources (broadly conceived) and underpin effective strategies and actions that allow the organization to routinely perform well. What makes these abilities distinctive is the inability of others to replicate them easily, if at all, because of the way they are interlinked with one another (Bryson, Ackermann, & Eden, 2007; Eden & Ackermann, 2010). Finally, a consideration of how inputs, process, and outputs are linked can help the organization more clearly understand what its strategies are and precisely what the value proposition is that the organization offers its stakeholders. In other words, what story does it or can it tell about the logic model (McLaughlin & Jordan, 2015) or public value chain (Alford & Yates, 2014) that the organization pursues to convert inputs into outputs that meet its mandates, fulfill its mission, satisfy its stakeholders, and create public value?

Being clear about what is can be an extraordinarily helpful prelude to discerning what ought to be (Weick et al., 2005). For one thing, standing back and understanding what the strategy is in practice can help open people's eyes to what is going on in the environment more generally. As Mintzberg et al. (2009, p. 19) note in reference to strategies' ability to put blinders on people, “the very encouragement of strategy to get on with it—its very role in protecting people in the organization from distraction—impedes their capacity to respond to changes in the environment.” Said more bluntly, sometimes the way organizations are designed and pursue

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their strategies can unfortunately make them “stupid” (Alvesson & Spicer, 2012). Understanding the current strategy also can sensitize people to the ways in which integrating human resources management, information and communication technology, and financial management might be used to sustain, strengthen, and protect desirable strategies.

Step 5: Identifying the Strategic Issues Facing an Organization Together the first four elements of the process lead to the fifth, the identification of strategic issues. Strategic issues are fundamental policy questions or critical challenges affecting the organization's mandates, mission and values, product or service level and mix, clients, users or payers, costs, financing, organization, or management. Finding the best way to frame these issues typically requires considerable wisdom, dialogue, and deep understanding of organizational operations, stakeholder interests, and external demands and possibilities. The first four steps of the process are designed deliberately to slow things down so that there is enough information and interaction to inform deliberations so that needed wisdom might emerge. More colloquially, the process is designed to increase deliberators' knowledge so as to avoid too much bullshit. As Frankfurt (2005, p. 63) notes, “Bullshit is unavoidable whenever circumstances require someone to talk without knowing what he [or she] is talking about.” The process is designed, in other words, to unfreeze people's thinking so that knowledge exploration, development, and learning might occur (Burke, 2013). This knowledge will be exploited in this and later phases (Crossan, Lane, & White, 1999; March, 1991).

Strategic planning focuses on achieving the best fit between an organization and its environment. Attention to mandates and the external environment, therefore, can be thought of as planning from the outside in. Attention to mission and organizational values and the internal environment can be considered planning from the inside out. Usually, it is vital that pressing strategic issues be dealt with expeditiously and effectively if the organization is to survive and prosper. An organization that does not respond to a strategic issue can expect undesirable results from a threat, a missed opportunity, or both.

The iterative nature of the strategic planning process often becomes apparent in this step when participants find that information created or discussed in earlier steps presents itself again as part of a strategic issue. For example, many strategic planning teams begin with the belief that they know what their organization's mission is. They often find out in this step, however, that one of the key issues the organization faces is exactly what its mission ought to be. In other words, the organization's present mission is found to be inappropriate given the team members' new understanding of the situation the organization faces, and a new mission must be created. The organization must be repurposed.

Strategic issues, virtually by definition, involve conflicts of one sort or another. The conflicts may involve ends (what); means (how or how much); philosophy (why); location (where); timing (when); and who might be advantaged or disadvantaged by different ways of resolving the issue (who). In order for issues to be raised and resolved effectively, the organization must be prepared to deal with the almost inevitable conflicts that will occur. Conflict, shifts in understanding, and shifts in preferences will all evoke participants' emotions (Weick &

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Sutcliffe, 2015). It is therefore in this stage that the importance of emotion will become dramatically apparent, along with the concomitant need for emotional and social intelligence on the part of participants if emotions are to be dealt with effectively (Heifetz, Linsky, & Grashow, 2009).

A statement of a strategic issue should contain three elements. First, the issue should be described succinctly, preferably in a single paragraph. The issue should be framed as a question that the organization can do something about. If the organization cannot do anything about it, it is best not to think of it as an issue for the organization; it is simply a condition or constraint. An organization's attention is limited enough without wasting it on issues it cannot address effectively. The question also should have more than one answer—as a way of broadening the search for viable strategies. Too often, organizations “jump to solutions” without fully understanding what else might be possible and without learning more about the issue by understanding more about the range of possible answers (Ackermann & Eden, 2011; Nutt, 2002).

Second, the factors that make the issue a fundamental challenge should be listed. In particular, what is it about the organization's mandates, mission, values, or internal strengths and weaknesses and external opportunities and challenges that make this a strategic issue for the organization? Listing these factors will become useful in the next step, strategy development. Every effective strategy builds on strengths and takes advantage of opportunities while minimizing or overcoming weaknesses and challenges. The framing of strategic issues is therefore very important because it will provide much of the basis for the issues' resolution (Bolman & Deal, 2013; Fairhurst, 2010).

Finally, the planning team should prepare a statement of the consequences of failure to address the issue. This will help organizational leaders decide just how strategic, or important, various issues are. If no consequences will ensue from failure to address a particular issue, then it is not a strategic issue. At the other extreme, if the organization will be destroyed or will miss a valuable opportunity by failing to address a particular issue, then the issue is clearly very strategic and is worth attending to immediately. Thus, the step of identifying strategic issues is aimed at focusing organizational attention on what is truly important for the survival, prosperity, and effectiveness of the organization.

Once statements of the issues are prepared, the organization will know what kinds of issues it faces, just how strategic they are, and what some of the important requirements are for their successful resolution. There are several kinds of strategic issues:

Issues that alter the organization and especially its core business and those that do not. Heifetz (1994) refers to the former as adaptive challenges and the latter as technical problems. Adaptive challenges involve a fundamental change in mission (and perhaps mandates), products or services, customers or clients, service or distribution channels, sources of revenue, identity or image, or some other aspect of the organization. They also are issues for which there is no real organizational precedent. In other words, the resolution of these issues may well hinge on clarifying a new vision, mission, set of goals, and accompanying strategies. Deep dialogue almost certainly will be needed to sort these

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issues out (Scharmer, 2016). Technical issues, on the other hand, involve less ambiguity because most of the aspects of the organization's mission, goals, and overall strategy will not change. Resolving these issues is more likely to require reprogramming strategies, rather than vision, mission, goals, and whole new strategies.

Issues that are on the horizon and are likely to require some action in the future and perhaps some action now. For the most part, these issues can be handled as part of the organization's regular strategic planning cycle.

Issues that require no organizational action at present but that must be continuously monitored.

Issues that require an immediate response and, therefore, cannot be handled in a more routine way.

In Chapter 6, eight basic approaches to the identification of strategic issues will be discussed. The direct approach goes straight from a discussion of mandates, mission, and SWOC/Ts (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and challenges or threats) to the identification of strategic issues. The indirect approach begins with brainstorming several different kinds of options before identifying issues. Each option is put on a separate card or self-adhesive label. The options include actions the organization could take to meet its mandates, fulfill its mission, and create public value; to meet stakeholders' performance expectations; to build on strengths, take advantage of opportunities, and minimize or overcome weaknesses and challenges; and to incorporate any other important aspect of background studies. These options are then merged into a single set of potential actions and clustered into potential issue categories. The categories' names highlight the nature of each issue.

The goals approach starts with goals (or CSFs or key performance indicators) and then identifies issues that must be addressed before they can be achieved. And the vision of success approach starts with at least a sketch of a vision of success in order to identify issues that must be dealt with before the vision can be realized. This approach is most likely to be necessary in situations involving adaptive challenges—where fundamental change is needed but the organization lacks a precedent (Nutt, 2001; Patton, 2011). For example, development of a vision is often recommended for organizations about to engage in a serious way in e- government or e-commerce (Lee & Kwak, 2012). In addition, many community strategic planning efforts use a visioning approach to identify issues (Albrechts & Balducci, 2013; Walzer & Hamm, 2012).

The visual strategy mapping approach involves creation of word-and-arrow diagrams in which ideas about actions the organization might take, how it might take them, and why are linked by arrows indicating the cause–effect or influence relationships between them. In other words, the arrows indicate that action A may cause or influence B, which in turn may cause or influence C, and so on; if the organization does A, it can expect to produce outcome B, which in turn may be expected to produce outcome C. These maps can consist of hundreds of interconnected relationships, showing differing areas of interest and their relationships to one another. Important clusters of potential actions may comprise strategic issues. A strategy in

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response to the issue would consist of the specific choices of actions to undertake in the issue area, how to undertake them, and why (Bryson, Ackermann, & Eden, 2014). The approach is particularly useful when participants are having trouble making sense of complex issue areas, time is short, the emphasis must be on action, and commitment on the part of those involved is particularly important.

The tensions approach was developed by Nutt and Backoff (1992) and elaborated in Nutt, Backoff, and Hogan (2000). These authors argue that there are always four basic tensions around any strategic issue. These tensions involve human resources, especially equity concerns; innovation and change; maintenance of tradition; productivity improvement; and their various combinations. The authors suggest critiquing the way issues are framed using these tensions separately and in combination in order to find the best way to frame the issue. The critiques may need to run through several cycles before the wisest way to frame the issue is found.

Systems analysis can be used to help discern the best way to frame issues when the system contains complex feedback effects and must be formally modeled in order to understand it (Lusk & Birks, 2014; Mulgan, 2009). Finally, the alignment approach addresses problems of misalignment of the organization's mission, mandates, goals, strategies, actions, and systems— or misalignment of other features or requirements for proper functioning—that are inhibiting success. By stating that there are eight different approaches to the identification of strategic issues, I may raise the hackles of some planning theorists and practitioners who believe you should always start with either issues, goals, vision, or analysis. I argue that what will work best depends on the situation and that the wise planner should choose an approach accordingly. What matters most is simply that those involved have as clear a picture as possible of the challenges facing the organization.

Step 6: Formulating Strategies and Plans to Manage the Issues A strategy is defined as a pattern of purposes, policies, programs, projects, actions, decisions, or resource allocations that define what an organization is, what it does, and why it does it. Strategies can vary by level, function, and time frame and obviously in terms of how well they perform against expectations or requirements. Strategies are developed to deal with the issues identified in the previous step.

This definition is purposely broad in order to focus attention on the creation of consistency across rhetoric (what people say), choices (what people decide and are willing to pay for), actions (what people do), and the consequences of those actions. Effective strategy formulation and implementation processes link rhetoric, choices, actions, and consequences into reasonably coherent and consistent patterns across levels, functions, and time (Ackermann & Eden, 2011). They also will be tailored to fit an organization's culture, even if the purpose of the strategy or strategies is to reconfigure that culture in some way (Ferlie & Ongaro, 2015).

The definition makes clear that every organization has strategies in the sense that there is always some sort of pattern across purposes, actions, resource allocations, and so on. But the pattern may not be a very good one. Indeed, most public and nonprofit organizations seem to

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have issues with misalignment, which is why one of the approaches to strategic issue identification is to discern misalignments. These alignments often become painfully apparent during times of resource shortages.

Draft strategies, and perhaps drafts of formal strategic plans, will be formulated in this step to articulate desired patterns. These may also be reviewed and adopted at the end of this step if the strategic planning process is relatively simple, small scale, and involves a single organization. (Such a process would merge this step and Step 7.)

There are numerous approaches to strategy development (Bryson & Edwards, 2017; Ferlie & Ongaro 2015). I generally favor three approaches. The first is a five-part, fairly speedy process based on the work of the Institute of Cultural Affairs (Spencer, 1996). The second, called visual strategy mapping, can be used if there is a need or desire to articulate more clearly the relationships among multiple options—to show how they fit together causally as part of a pattern. This is the approach I use most frequently. The third is principles-based strategizing and is particularly useful for multiorganizational collaborations trying to figure out how to proceed in novel situations.

A Five-Part Strategy Development Process. The first part of the five-part process begins with identification of practical alternatives and dreams or visions for resolving the strategic issues. Each option should be phrased in action terms—that is, it should begin with an imperative, such as “do,” “get,” “buy,” “achieve,” and so forth. Phrasing options in action terms helps make the options seem more “real” to participants.

Next, the planning team should enumerate the barriers or constraints to achieving those alternatives, dreams, or visions (that is, possible goals), and not directly on how to achieve these things. Focusing on barriers at this point is not typical of most strategic planning processes, but doing so is one way of ensuring that any strategies developed deal with implementation difficulties directly rather than haphazardly (Goldratt, 1999).

Once alternatives, dreams, and visions, along with barriers to their realization, are listed, the team develops major proposals for achieving these goals directly, or else indirectly through overcoming the barriers. (In a variant to this step, the team might solicit proposals from key organizational units, various stakeholder groups, task forces, or selected individuals.) For example, a major Midwest city government did not begin to work on strategies to achieve its major ambitions until it had overhauled its outmoded personnel system. That system clearly was a barrier that had to be changed before the city government could have any hope of achieving its more important objectives. As another example, a major West Coast city fire department did not begin strategic planning until many of its employees had visited excellent fire departments elsewhere so that their views were less parochial, their imaginations were enhanced, and their sights were raised about what was possible.

After major proposals are submitted, two final tasks remain in order to develop effective strategies. Actions that must be taken over the next two to three years to implement the major proposals must be identified. And finally, a detailed work program for the next six months to a year must be spelled out to implement the actions. These last two tasks shade over into the

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work of Step 9 of the Strategy Change Cycle, but that is good because strategies should always be developed with implementation in mind, including necessary resources (Sandfort & Moulton, 2015). In some circumstances, Steps 6 and 9 may be merged—for example, when a single organization is planning for itself. In addition, in collaborative or community settings, implementation details must often be worked out first by the various parties before they are willing to commit to shared strategic plans (Emerson & Nabatchi, 2015; Huxham & Vangen, 2005). In situations such as these, implementation planning may have to precede strategy or plan adoption.

Visual Strategy Mapping (ViSM). The second method is called visual strategy mapping (ViSM). (In previous editions of the book, I called it action-oriented strategy mapping.) The method involves listing multiple options to address each strategic issue, where each option is written in imperative action terms. The options are then linked by arrows indicating which options cause or influence the achievement of other options. An option can be a part of more than one chain. The result is a “map” of action-to-outcome (cause–effect, means-to-an-end) relationships; those options toward the end of a chain of arrows are possible goals or perhaps even mission statements. Presumably, these goals can be achieved by accomplishing at least some of the actions leading up to them though additional analysis and work on the arrow chains may be necessary to determine and clearly articulate action-to-outcome relationships. The option maps can be reviewed and revised and particular action-to-outcome chains selected as strategies. See Ackermann and Eden (2011); Bryson, Ackermann, and Eden (2014); and Bryson, Ackermann, Eden, and Finn (2004) for more information on how to develop maps of this sort, including many variations on the basic approach. I have produced an instructional video on the basic approach (not all its variations) that may be found at https://www.hubertproject.org/hubert-material/402/.

Principles-Focused Strategizing. Principles-focused strategizing is a very useful approach when facing adaptive challenges in a complex, shared-power system characterized by many feedback effects, the involvement of many organizations, unclear goals, and unproven technologies. In such situations, top-down strategizing clearly doesn't work. Instead, bottom-up adaptive management is required; strategy is emergent based on innovation, rapid prototyping, and ongoing learning. Developmental evaluation is required because there is no preexisting model to be implemented with the help of formative or summative evaluations (Patton, 2011). The challenge is to invent the model of what works via a process on ongoing trial and error and built-in learning experiences.

Although there may not be goals, there at least can be principles that can embody values, provide direction, and inform choices. The selection of principles should be informed by experience and judgment and point to desired change process features, consequences, outcomes, and impacts. The principals can serve as standards against which choices and results can be evaluated (Patton, McKegg, & Wehipeihana, 2015). Principles can and should be adapted to unfolding situations as actions are taken and evaluated and learning builds. Establishing principles can be used to set the stage for use of the five-step or visual strategy mapping process or some other method.

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https://www.hubertproject.org/hubert-material/402/

In short, strategizing can be messy. Effective strategies typically are less messy, but they can vary greatly in their form depending on the nature of the issues to be addressed, the context of application, the tasks to be performed, and what kind or kinds of organizations are doing the implementing. An effective strategy thus can take many different forms, but ultimately, it should meet several criteria. It should be technically workable and administratively feasible, politically acceptable to key stakeholders, and results-oriented. It also must fit the organization's philosophy and core values even if the purpose is to change them. In addition, it should be ethical, moral, and legal, and it should further the creation of public value. It must also deal with the strategic issue it was supposed to address and create significant public value at reasonable cost.

All too often I have seen strategies that were technically, administratively, politically, morally, ethically, and legally impeccable but did not deal with the issues they were presumed to address, nor did they create much public value. Effective strategies thus meet a rather severe set of tests. Careful, thoughtful deliberation—and often bargaining and negotiation—among key decision makers who have adequate information and are politically astute are usually necessary before strategies can be developed that meet these tests. Some of this work typically must occur in this step; some is likely to occur in the next step.

Step 7: Reviewing and Adopting the Strategies and Plan Once strategies have been formulated, the planning team may need to obtain an official decision to adopt them and proceed with their implementation. If the strategies are part of a formal strategic plan, this will almost certainly be needed. This decision will help affirm the desired changes and move the organization toward reorganizing in the new pattern, where the knowledge exploration of the previous steps can be exploited.

When strategies and plans are developed for a single organization, particularly a small one, this step actually may merge with Step 6. But a separate step will likely be necessary when strategic planning is undertaken for a large organization, collaboration, or community. The SPCC will need to approve the resulting strategies or plan, but relevant policy- and decision- making bodies and other implementing groups and organizations are also likely to have to approve the strategies or plan, or at least parts of it, in order for implementation to proceed effectively.

In order to secure passage of any strategy or plan, it will be necessary to continue to pay attention to the goals, concerns, and interests of all key internal and external stakeholders. Finding or creating inducements that can be traded for support can also be useful. But there are numerous ways to defeat any proposal in formal decision-making arenas. So it is important for the plan to be sponsored and championed by actors whose knowledge of how to negotiate the intricacies of the relevant arenas can help ensure passage (Crosby & Bryson, 2005).

Step 8. Establishing an Effective Organizational Vision In this step, the organization develops a description of what it should look like once it has successfully implemented its strategies and achieved its full potential. This description is the

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organization's vision of success. Few organizations have such a description or vision, yet the importance of these descriptions has long been recognized by well-managed companies, organizational psychologists, and management theorists (Kouzes & Posner, 2017; Mulgan, 2009). Such descriptions can include the organization's mission, its values and philosophy, basic strategies, its performance criteria, some important decision rules, and the ethical standards expected of all employees. The description, to the extent that it is widely circulated and discussed within the organization, allows organization members to know what is expected of them without constant managerial oversight. Members are free to act on their own initiative on the organization's behalf to an extent not otherwise possible. The result should be a mobilization of members' energy toward pursuing the organization's purposes and a reduced need for direct supervision.

Some might question why developing a vision of success comes at this point in the process rather than much earlier. There are two basic answers to this question. First, it does not have to come at this point for all organizations. Some organizations are able to develop a clearly articulated, agreed-upon vision of success much earlier in the process. Communities, in fact, often start with visioning exercises in order to develop enough of a consensus on purposes and values to guide issue identification and strategy formulation efforts (Walzer & Hamm, 2012). Figure 2.1 therefore indicates the many different points at which participants may find it useful to develop some sort of guiding vision. Some processes may start with a visionary statement. Others may use visions to help them figure out what the strategic issues are or to help them develop strategies. And still others may use visions to convince key decision makers to adopt strategies or plans, or to guide implementation efforts. The further along in the process a vision is produced, the more likely it is to be more fully articulated.

Second, most organizations typically will not be able to develop a detailed vision of success until they have gone through several iterations of strategic planning—if they are able to develop a vision at all. A challenging yet achievable vision embodies the tension between what an organization wants and what it can have (Scharmer, 2016; Senge, 2006). Often, several cycles of strategic planning are necessary before organizational members know what they want, what they can have, and what the difference is between the two. A vision that motivates people will be challenging enough to spur action, yet not so impossible to achieve that it demotivates and demoralizes people. Most organizations, in other words, will find that their visions of success are likely to serve more as a guide for strategy implementation than strategy formulation.

Further, for most organizations, development of a vision of success is not necessary in order to produce marked improvements in performance. In my experience, most organizations can demonstrate a substantial improvement in effectiveness if they simply identify and satisfactorily resolve a few strategic issues. Most organizations simply do not address often enough what is truly important; just gathering key decision makers to deal with a few important matters in a timely way can enhance organizational performance substantially. For these reasons, the step is labeled optional in Figure 2.1.

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Step 9: Developing an Effective Implementation Process Just creating a strategic plan is not enough. The changes indicated by the adopted strategies must be incorporated throughout the system for them to be brought to life and for real value to be created for the organization and its stakeholders. Thinking strategically about implementation and developing an effective implementation plan are important tasks on the road to realizing the strategies developed in Step 6.

For example, in some circumstances, direct implementation at all sites will be the wisest strategic choice, whereas in other situations, some form of staged implementation may be best (Crosby & Bryson, 2005). In still other situations in which strategy necessarily is emergent, faithfulness to principles meant to guide action, rapid prototyping and experimentation, and further investment in what works is key (Patton, 2011). In all cases, implementation plans should include ways of building capacity for sustained implementation, goal achievement, and ongoing learning and readjustment based on that learning (Sandfort & Moulton, 2015). The process should also include building capacity for the next round of strategic planning.

Again, if strategies and an implementation plan have been developed for a single organization, particularly a small one, or if the planning is for a collaborative or community, planning aspects of this step may need to be incorporated into Step 6, strategy formulation. On the other hand, in many multiunit or intergovernmental situations, a separate step will be required to ensure that relevant groups and organizations do the action planning necessary for implementation success.

Action plans should detail the following:

Implementation roles and responsibilities of oversight bodies, organizational teams or task forces, and individuals

Expected results and specific objectives, requirements, and milestones; or alternatively, clear principles to guide the effort in situations of high complexity and significant feedback effects

Specific action steps and relevant details

Schedules

Resource requirements and sources

A communication process

Review, monitoring, and midcourse correction procedures to build in capacity for ongoing learning

Accountability procedures

It is important to build in enough sponsors, champions, and other personnel—along with enough time, money, attention, administrative and support services, and other resources—to ensure successful implementation. You must “budget the plan” wisely to ensure that implementation goes well. In collaborative or community situations, it is almost impossible to

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underestimate the requirements for communications, the nurturance of relationships, and attention to operational detail (Agranoff, 2012; Bryson, Crosby, & Stone, 2015).

It is also important to work quickly to avoid unnecessary or undesirable competition with new priorities. Whenever significant opportunities to implement strategies and achieve objectives arise, they should be taken. In other words, it is important to be opportunistic as well as deliberate. And it is important to remember that what actually happens in practice will always be some blend of what is intended with what emerges along the way (Ferlie & Ongaro, 2015).

In collaborative settings, successfully implemented and institutionalized strategies result in the establishment of a new regime, consisting of a “set of implicit or explicit principles, norms, rules, and decision-making procedures around which actors' expectations converge in a given area” (Krasner, 1983, p. 2; see also Emerson & Nabatchi, 2015; Morgan & Cook, 2014). Regime building is necessary to preserve gains in the face of competing demands. Unfortunately, regimes can outlive their usefulness.

Step 10: Reassessing Strategies and the Strategic Planning Process Once the implementation process has been under way for some time, it is important to review the strategies and the strategic planning process as a prelude to a new round of strategic planning. Much of the work of this phase may occur as part of the ongoing implementation process. However, if the organization has not engaged in strategic planning for a while, this will be a separate phase. Attention should be focused on successful strategies and whether they should be maintained, replaced by other strategies, or terminated for one reason or another. Unsuccessful strategies should be replaced or terminated. The strategic planning process also should be examined, its strengths and weaknesses noted, and modifications suggested to improve the next round of strategic planning.

Effectiveness in this step really does depend on effective organizational learning, which means taking a hard look at what is really happening, being open to new information, wisely assessing the situation, and committing to mindful organizing. Mindful organizing is based on five principles: really trying to understand what might count as failure, reluctance to simplify, sensitivity to operations, commitment to resilience, and deference to expertise (Weick & Sutcliffe, 2015).

Learning and mindfulness of this sort also involve capacity building, attention to resilience and sustainability, and most important, ongoing learning. Recall that strategic learning was defined as any change in a system which, by better adapting the system to its environment, produces a more or less permanent change in its capacity to pursue its purposes. Viewing strategic planning as a kind of action research or utilization-focused evaluation can help embed learning into the entire process and make sure the kind of information, feedback, dialogue, and deliberation necessary for learning occur (Patton, 2008, 2011).

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TAILORING THE PROCESS TO SPECIFIC CIRCUMSTANCES The Strategy Change Cycle is a general approach to strategic planning and management. Like any planning and management process, strategic planning must be tailored carefully to specific situations if it is to be useful (Ferlie & Ongaro, 2015). A number of adaptations—variations on the general theme—are discussed in this section. Before proceeding, however, it is useful to clarify what kind of process the Strategy Change Cycle is and how it might be useful (I am grateful to Michael Barzelay for many ideas in this and the subsequent three paragraphs). As noted, the Strategy Change Cycle is a generic reference approach—and not the specific strategic planning process design that will be negotiated during the initial agreement step. Instead, the cycle presents the central, rather abstract case for what strategic planning is about as a kind of response to challenges. I believe the cycle is the best way of exemplifying the argument, and although the cycle includes quite a few elements and links, that detail is needed to ground the argument in a reasonable way. The detail helps clarify what is important and what requires deliberation. In short, the Strategy Change Cycle provides an idealized conceptual process, and I will make suggestions about how to use it as a reference point in particular circumstances.

The most important thing about the cycle is that it sets up a way of thinking about the logic and requirements of a successful strategy change process. In general, the requirements typically flow from the end of the process toward the beginning and especially the initial agreement— meaning that what is required at the end should affect what you do at the beginning. For example, successful strategy implementation requires workable strategies that will be supported by key internal and external stakeholders; this need (among other requirements) should have an influence on the process of negotiating the initial agreement and its content.

More generally, the Strategy Change Cycle's causal logic is as follows: (1) desired outcomes (including creating public value) (2) can be produced or facilitated by actions (for example, issue identification, strategy formulation, and implementation activities), (3) whose production or facilitation in turn is guided by process design features (for example, the design of forums for deliberation, choices regarding stakeholder engagement, guidelines and limits on analysis, connection to decision points, and specific planning steps), (4) which are tailored to process context features (relevant aspects of the internal and external environment). This means that upstream process design—and particularly that which is embodied in the initial agreement to proceed—should be tailored to the context and informed by downstream requirements for success, including those linked directly to achieving desired outcomes.

Thus, there are implications in the Strategy Change Cycle about the basic logic of how to start, what to do next, and why. The logic is always there; it doesn't get weaker as the nature of the situation changes. Situations create challenges that require a response—and responses vary because situations vary. The Strategy Change Cycle as a reference approach can help leaders, managers, and planners think about what might be done in any particular situation to gain the advantages of the cycle's logic. Said differently, there are a variety of ways and degrees of

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meeting the requirements for a successful strategy change process, but they are still requirements, and the Strategy Change Cycle can be used to help think about what they are and how to meet them.

The Strategy Change Cycle is, therefore, not a recipe, cookbook, computer program, algorithm, or type of auto repair manual. It is more like a guide to collaboratively and deliberatively design a vehicle and the journey you will take using the vehicle, including deciding (ultimately, if not initially) exactly where you want to go. The Strategy Change Cycle is also not a take-it- or-leave-it proposition. Instead, it is a referent approach (or conceptual artifact as presented in Figure 2.1) that will help you keep in mind the logic of strategic planning so that you can adapt and make use of that logic in specific situations as circumstances demand and warrant. The Strategy Change Cycle as an abstract approach helps you work deliberatively with other people to make change; what the approach means in practice will be worked out via participation and deliberation with others over the course of the process.

Specifically, the Strategy Change Cycle will help remind you of the importance of:

Having a process sponsor(s) and a process champion(s)

Carefully designing and using a series of settings for deliberation—formal and informal forums, arenas, and courts

Emphasizing the development of the initial agreement(s)

Intensely attending to stakeholders via careful analysis and effective engagement

Gaining clarity about mission and mandates and knowing the difference between the two

Understanding the organization's internal and external environments

Focusing on the identification and clarification of strategic issues and knowing there is an array of available approaches for doing so

Seeing strategies as a response to strategic issues and knowing there are many approaches to formulating strategies, including incorporating useful aspects of existing or emerging strategies

Attending to the requirements for successful strategy implementation and evaluation

Building capacity for ongoing implementation, learning, and strategic change

Periodically reassessing strategies and the strategic planning process as a prelude to the next round of strategic planning

Remaining flexible throughout the process while still paying attention to all necessary requirements that must be met along the way and the logic that links them

Sequencing the Steps Although the steps (or occasions for deliberation and decision) are laid out in a linear sequence, it must be emphasized that the Strategy Change Cycle, as its name suggests, is

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iterative in practice. Participants typically rethink what they have done several times before they reach final decisions. Moreover, the process does not always begin at the beginning. Organizations typically find themselves confronted with a new mandate (Step 2), a pressing strategic issue (Step 5), a failing strategy (Step 6 or 9), or the need to reassess what they have been doing (Step 10), and that leads them to engage in strategic planning. Once engaged, the organization is likely to go back and begin at the beginning, particularly with a reexamination of its mission. (Indeed, in my experience, it does not matter where you start—you always end up back at the mission.)

In addition, implementation usually begins before all of the planning is complete. As soon as useful actions are identified, they are taken as long as they do not jeopardize future actions that might prove valuable. In other words, in a linear, sequential process, the first eight steps of the process would be followed by implementing the planned actions and evaluating the results. However, implementation typically does not, and should not, wait until the eight steps have been completed. For example, if the organization's mission needs to be redrafted, then it should be. If the SWOC/T analysis turns up weaknesses or threats that need to be addressed immediately, they should be. If aspects of a desirable strategy can be implemented without awaiting further developments, they should be. And so on.

As noted earlier, strategic thinking and acting and learning are important, and all of the thinking does not have to occur before any actions are taken. For one thing, often action is necessary so that real learning can occur. Or as Mintzberg et al. (2009, p. 76) note, “Effective strategy making connects acting to thinking which in turn connects implementation to formulation. We think in order to act, to be sure, but we also act in order to think. We try things, and the ones that work gradually converge into patterns that become strategies.” Strategic planning's iterative, flexible, action-oriented nature is precisely what often makes it so attractive to public and nonprofit leaders and managers.

Making Use of Vision, Goals, and Issues In the discussion of Step 8, I noted that different organizations and communities may wish to start their process with a vision statement. Such a statement may foster a consensus and provide important inspiration and guidance for the rest of the process, even though it is unlikely to be as detailed as a statement developed later in the process. As indicated in Figure 2.1, there are other points at which it might be possible to develop a vision statement (or statements). Vision thus may be used to prompt the identification of strategic issues, guide the search for and development of strategies, inspire the adoption of strategic plans, or guide implementation efforts. The decision to develop a vision statement should hinge on whether one is needed to provide direction to subsequent efforts; whether people will be able to develop a vision that is meaningful enough, detailed enough, and broadly supported; and whether there will be enough energy left after the visioning effort to push ahead.

Similarly, as indicated in Figure 2.1, it is possible to develop goals in many different places in the process (Borins, 2014; Mulgan, 2009). Some strategic planning processes will begin with the goals of new boards of directors, elected policy bodies, chief executive officers, judges, or

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other top-level decision makers. These goals embody a reform agenda for the organization (or network, or community). Other strategic planning processes may start with goals that are part of mandates. For example, legislation often requires implementing agencies to develop plans that include results and outcome measures that will show how the intent of the legislation is to be achieved. A starting goal for these agencies, therefore, is to identify results and outcomes they want to be measured against that also are in accord with legislative intent. The goal thus helps these agencies identify an important strategic issue—namely, what the results and outcomes should be. Subsequent strategic planning efforts are then likely to start with the desired outcomes the organization thinks are important.

Still other strategic planning processes will articulate goals to guide strategy formulation in response to specific issues or to guide implementation of specific strategies. Goals developed at these later stages of the process are likely to be more detailed and specific than those developed earlier in the process. Goals may be developed any time they would be useful to guide subsequent efforts in the process and when they will have sufficient support among key parties to produce desired action.

In my experience, however, strategic planning processes often start neither with vision nor with goals. In part, this is because strategic planning rarely starts with Step 1. Instead, people sense something is not right about the current situation—they face strategic issues of one sort or another or they are pursuing a strategy that is failing or about to fail—and they want to know what to do (Ackermann & Eden, 2011; Borins, 2014). One of the crucial features of issue- driven planning (and political decision making in general) is that you do not have to agree on goals to agree on next steps (Innes & Booher, 2010; Patton, 2011). You simply need to agree on a strategy that will address the issue and further the interests of the organization (or collaborative or community) and its key stakeholders. Goals are likely to be developed once viable strategies have been developed to address the issues. The goals typically will be strategy-specific.

Articulating goals or describing a vision may help provide a better feeling for where a strategy or interconnected set of strategies should lead (Lusk & Birks, 2014; Mulgan, 2009). Goals and vision are thus more likely to come toward the end of the process than the beginning. There are clear exceptions—and process designers should think carefully about why, when, and how—if at all—to bring goals and vision into the process.

Applying the Process across Organizational Subunits, Levels, and Functions on an Ongoing Basis Strategic thinking, acting, and learning depend on getting key people together; getting them to focus wisely, creatively, and deliberatively on what is really important; and getting them to do something about it. At its most basic, the technology of strategic planning thus involves deliberations, decisions, and actions. The steps in the Strategy Change Cycle help make the process reasonably orderly to increase the likelihood that what is important is actually recognized and addressed and to allow more people to participate in the process. When the process is applied to an organization as a whole on an ongoing basis (rather than as a one-shot

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deal), or at least to significant parts of it, usually it is necessary to construct a strategic management system (see Exhibit 1.1). The system allows the various parts of the process to be integrated in appropriate ways and engages the organization in strategic management, not just strategic planning. In the best circumstances, the system will include the actors and knowledge necessary to act wisely, foster systems thinking, and prompt quick and effective action, given that inclusion, systems thinking, and speed are increasingly required of public and nonprofit organizations (e.g., Behn, 2008; Emerson & Nabatchi, 2015; Mulgan, 2009).

The process might be applied across subunits, levels, and functions in an organization as outlined in Figure 2.2. The application is based on an integrated units of management (or layered or stacked units of management) system used by many corporations. The system's first cycle consists of “bottom-up” development of strategic plans within a framework established at the top, followed by reviews and reconciliation at each succeeding level. In the second cycle, operating plans are developed to implement the strategic plans. Depending on the situation, decisions at the top of the organizational hierarchy may or may not require policy board approval (which is why the line depicting the process flow diverges at the top). The system may be supported by a set of performance indicators and strategies. (See Chapter 10 for more detail.)

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Figure 2.2. Strategic Planning System for Integrated Units of Management.

Strategic planning systems for public and nonprofit organizations usually are not as formalized and integrated as the one outlined in Figure 2.2 (though in some circumstances, that may be changing). More typical is a strategic issues management system, which attempts to manage specific strategic issues without seeking integration of the resultant strategies across all subunits, levels, and functions (Mulgan, 2009). Tight integration is not necessary because most issues do not affect all parts of the organization, are subject to different politics, and are on their own time frame.

Baltimore, Maryland; Minneapolis, Minnesota; the State of Virginia; and a number of other cities and states have institutionalized strategic issues management through use of a CitiStat or PerformanceStat system (Behn, 2008). In these systems, typically a central analysis staff uses

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data (often geographically coded) to spot trends, events, and issues that need to be addressed by line departments. The heads of the relevant units meet regularly with the mayor and his or her key advisers, including the heads of finance, human resources, and information technology, to examine the data and address the issues face to face. Actions and follow-up procedures are agreed upon on the spot. Notable successes have occurred that produced better outcomes, saved money, and enhanced teamwork and competence, or all three.

Other common public and nonprofit strategic planning systems include contract models, portfolio management approaches, collaboration models, goal or benchmark models, and hybrid models combining two or more of the above approaches. These will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 10.

If the organization is fairly large, then specific linkages will be necessary in order to join the process to different functions and levels in the organization so that it can proceed in a reasonably orderly and integrated manner. One effective way to achieve such a linkage is to appoint the heads of all major units to the strategic planning team. All unit heads can then be sure that their units' information and interests are represented in strategy formulation and can oversee implementation in their units.

Indeed, key decision makers might wish to form themselves into a permanent strategic planning committee or cabinet. I certainly would recommend this approach, if it appears workable for the organization, as it emphasizes the role of line managers as strategic planners and the role of strategic planners as facilitators of decision making by the line managers. Pragmatic and effective strategies and plans are likely to result. Temporary task forces, strategic planning committees, or a cabinet can work; but whatever the arrangement, there is no substitute for the direct involvement of key decision makers in the process (Borins, 2014; Mulgan, 2009).

Applying the Process to Functions That Cross Organizational Boundaries, Collaborations, and Communities When applied to a function or collaboration that crosses organizational boundaries, or to a community, the process probably will need to be sponsored by a committee or task force of key decision makers, opinion leaders, “influentials,” or “notables” representing important stakeholder groups. Additional working groups or task forces probably will need to be organized at various times to deal with specific strategic issues or to oversee the implementation of specific strategies. Special efforts will be needed to engage traditionally underrepresented groups (Emerson & Nabatchi, 2015). Because so many more people and groups will need to be involved, and because implementation will have to rely more on consent than authority, the process is likely to be much more time-consuming and iterative than strategic planning applied to an organization. On the other hand, more time spent on exploring issues and reaching agreement may be made up later through speedy implementation (Deyle & Weidenman, 2014; Innes & Booher, 2010). Strategic planning in an organization typically involves a mixture of lateral collaboration and vertical hierarchy. In interorganizational collaborations, lateral collaborative processes overshadow hierarchy, yet attention to the hierarchical structure and power differences that exist within the collaboration and in its

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participating organizations will be vital in developing and implementing a strategic plan (Bryson, Crosby, & Stone, 2015).

In addition, when a community is involved, special efforts will be necessary to make sure that important connections are made, and incompatibilities resolved, between strategic plans and the community's comprehensive plan and the various devices used to implement it, such as the government's capital improvements program, subdivision controls, zoning ordinance, and official map. The fact that these connections should be made, however, should not unduly hamper the process. Strategic planning and comprehensive planning can be complementary, and efforts should be made to ensure that they are if the community's best interests and those of its various stakeholders are to be advanced (Albrechts, Balducci, & Hillier, 2016; Burby, 2003).

Roles for Planners, Decision Makers, Implementers, and Citizens Planners can play many different roles in a strategic planning process. In many cases, the planners are not people with the job title of planner but are in fact policymakers or line managers (Mintzberg et al., 2009). The people with the title of planner often act primarily as facilitators of decision making by policymakers or line managers, as technical experts in substantive areas, or both. In other cases, planners operate in a variety of different roles. Sometimes the planner is an “expert on experts” who eases different people with different expertise in and out of the process for different purposes at different times. At still other times, they are finders of strategy, who do their job by interpreting existing actions and recognizing important patterns in the organization and its environment; analysts of existing or potential strategies; catalysts for promoting strategic thought and action; or, finally, strategists themselves (Mintzberg, 1994, pp. 361–396).

Because the most important thing about strategic planning is the development of strategic thought, action, and learning, it may not matter much which person does what. However, it does seem that the strategic planning most likely to be implemented is that done by policymakers, line managers, or both. (Line managers in government are not usually charged with making important political trade-offs—politicians are. Therefore, an effective government strategic planning process probably needs participation by both line managers and policymakers.)

Public organizations involved in strategic planning—including as part of multiorganizational collaborative efforts—often have little citizen participation in the planning process other than that of elected or appointed policy board members though clearly there are exceptions (e.g., Albrechts et al. 2016; Epstein, Coates, Wray, & Swain, 2005). One reason may be that the organization may already possess the necessary knowledge and expertise in-house; therefore, citizen involvement may be redundant and excessively time-consuming. In addition, insiders typically are the chief implementers of strategies; thus, their ownership of the process and resultant decisions may be what is most crucial. Further, citizen participation may not be necessary to legitimize the process because an elected or appointed policy board already is directly involved in keeping with the idea that the United States is a representative, rather than direct, democracy. The absence of participation by ordinary outsiders would parallel much of

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corporate planning practice.

However, it is easy to be wrong about how much one knows, or needs to know, and how much perceived legitimacy the process needs. Interviews, focus groups, and surveys of outsiders, including citizens, and external sounding boards of various sorts, often are worth their weight in gold when they open insiders' eyes to information they have missed, add legitimacy to the effort, and keep them from reaching the wrong conclusions or making the wrong decisions. So a word of caution is in order: Remember, as the Greeks believed, that nemesis always walks in the footsteps of hubris!

Program-focused strategic planning—including multiorganizational collaborative efforts— appears to be much more likely to involve citizens, particularly in their capacity as “customers” or “coproducers.” Citizen involvement in program planning thus is roughly analogous to extensive consumer involvement in private sector marketing research and development projects. For example, transportation planning typically involves a great deal of citizen participation. Citizens may provide information concerning travel needs and desires, reactions to various transportation system design alternatives, and advice on ways to resolve conflicts that arise during the process. Planning for individual parks also typically involves substantial citizen participation. Unfortunately, because the use of transportation systems or parks by citizens is generally broad-based, users and citizens at large are often equated. This is hardly ever justified, however, as it masks the great variety in stakeholder concerns about and contributions to the process. A careful stakeholder analysis can help keep the various citizen interests and contributions analytically separate.

Finally, planning on behalf of a community almost always involves substantial citizen participation. Unfortunately, community-focused strategic plans often treat all citizens alike and assume that all citizens are interested in the community as a whole—two assumptions at odds with most studies of political participation (e.g., Jacobs, Cook, & Delli Carpini, 2009). Application of the stakeholder concept to community strategic planning would help avoid some of these errors. Beyond that, broad citizen involvement usually results in better plans and implementation processes (e.g., Bryson & Schively Slotterback, 2016; Burby, 2003).

SUMMARY This chapter has outlined a process called the Strategy Change Cycle for promoting strategic thinking, acting, and learning in governments, public agencies, nonprofit organizations, networks, communities, or other entities. Although the process is presented in a fairly linear, sequential fashion for pedagogical reasons, it proceeds iteratively as groups continuously rethink connections among the various elements of the process, take action, and learn on their way to formulating effective strategies. In addition, the process often does not start with Step 1 but instead starts elsewhere and then cycles back to Step 1. The steps also are not steps precisely but occasions for deliberation, decisions, and actions as part of a continuous flow of strategic thinking, acting, and learning; knowledge exploration and exploitation; and strategy formulation and implementation. Mintzberg et al. (2009, p. 204) assert that “all real strategic

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behavior has to combine deliberate control with emergent learning.” The Strategy Change Cycle is designed to promote just this kind of strategic behavior.

Figure 2.3 shows how the Strategy Change Cycle is designed to help create the desired outcomes noted in Figure 1.4 by helping orchestrate the major categories of action (or functions) needed to accomplish the outcomes. Figure 2.3 also helps demonstrate graphically the likely iterative nature of the process as advocates work to organize participation, create ideas of strategic significance, build a winning coalition, implement the ideas so that the organization meets its mandates, fulfill the organization's mission, create real public value, and build the knowledge and competence for ongoing implementation and the next round of strategic planning.

Figure 2.3. Strategic Planning and Management Outcomes, Actions, Design Features, and Context.

At first glance, Figures 2.1 and 2.3 may make the Strategy Change Cycle seem overwhelming. But let me assure you that you have been doing strategic planning—at least on an individual level—most of your life, so you already know much of what you need to know and understand. For example, for much of your life, you have engaged in thinking, acting, and learning about:

Your situation, purpose, and things you must do

Your strengths and competencies, weaknesses, opportunities, and challenges or threats

The big issues you face and what might be done about them

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What strategies have worked for you and which have not

What success might mean for you

My purpose in this book is to scale that kind of thinking up to the group, organizational, collaborative, and community level to help you understand more about what works and why and how to make things work better for you, your colleagues, and the people you serve. I want to add to your understanding by bringing to bear a common language and some of what social science has to offer, along with what I take from my own practical experience. With this approach, the tension between science and practice lessens; they move closer together (Mulgan, 2009; Romme, 2003). The book and the Strategy Change Cycle are meant to help people deliberate with others using a common language and orienting framework to guide a strategic planning and strategy change journey.

As previously mentioned, my colleague Farnum Alston and I have prepared a strategic planning workbook designed to help individuals, teams, groups, and organizations work through the process and, in particular, work on developing a strategic plan (Bryson & Alston, 2011). The workbook should not be used without this book, however, because the process typically requires careful tailoring to specific circumstances. Owing to space limitations, the workbook contains little advice on how to adapt the process to different situations, whereas this book offers a great deal of the advice and guidance necessary to design and manage a successful process. In addition, my colleague Sharon Anderson and I, along with Farnum, have developed a workbook to help organizations sustain implementation of their strategies (Bryson, Anderson, & Alston, 2011). And my colleagues Fran Ackermann and Colin Eden and I have developed a new workbook meant to facilitate visual strategy mapping, the most powerful single technique I know of for developing clarity about mission, goals, strategies, and actions (Bryson, Ackermann, & Eden, 2014). An Internet-based instructional guide may be found at https://www.hubertproject.org/hubert-material/402/.

In Chapter 3, I will discuss how to negotiate an initial agreement among key internal (and perhaps external) decision makers or opinion leaders on the purpose and process of a strategic planning effort. The agreement will shape the nature and direction of deliberations, decisions, and actions designed to deal with what is truly important to the organization or community.

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https://www.hubertproject.org/hubert-material/402/

PART TWO KEY STEPS IN THINKING, ACTING, AND LEARNING STRATEGICALLY The 10-step strategic planning process is presented in detail in Part Two. It is a reasonably orderly, deliberative, and participative approach to facilitating strategic thought, action, and learning by key decision makers. (Note that in Chapter 2, I will say that the steps are not really steps but instead are more like occasions for dialogue and deliberation around an agenda summarized by the “step's” name.)

Chapter 3 covers the initial agreement phase, the plan for planning. Chapter 4 focuses on clarifying organization mandates and mission. Chapter 5 describes how to assess an organization's strengths and weaknesses, as well as the opportunities and challenges it faces. Chapter 6 discusses strategic issues—what they are, how they can be identified, and how to critique them. Chapter 7 is devoted to formulating and adopting effective strategies and plans.

The final three chapters in Part Two move from planning to management. Chapter 8 covers development of the organization's vision of success, a description of what the organization should look like as it fulfills its mission, meets its mandates, and achieves its full potential for creating public value. Chapter 9 focuses on implementing strategies and plans and Chapter 10 on reassessing them.

An organization that completes this Strategy Change Cycle should be well on its way toward improving and maintaining its effectiveness, pursuing its mission, meeting its mandates, creating genuine public value, and building its capacity for continuing to do so in the future. It should be clearly focused on satisfying key stakeholders in ways that are politically acceptable, technically and administratively workable, and legally and ethically defensible.

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CHAPTER THREE Initiating and Agreeing on a Strategic Planning Process The beginning is the most important part of the work.

—Plato, The Republic

The purpose of the first step in the Strategy Change Cycle is to develop an initial agreement about the overall strategic planning effort and main planning steps among key internal decision makers or opinion leaders (and, if their support is necessary for the success of the effort, key external leaders as well). This agreement represents a plan for planning—or specific process design—intended to point the way toward the ultimate end of creating significant and enduring public value. As Nobel Prize winner Herbert Simon (1996, p. 111) says, “Everyone designs who devises a course of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones.”

The support and commitment of key decision makers are vital if strategic planning and change in an organization are to succeed. They also supply information vital to the planning effort: who should be involved, when key decision points will occur, key requirements for a successful process, and what arguments are likely to be persuasive at various points in the process. And they can provide critical resources: legitimacy, staff assignments, a budget, and meeting space.

Every strategic planning effort is in effect a drama that must have the correct setting; themes; plots and subplots; actors; scenes; beginning, middle, and ending; and interpretation (Bryant, 2015). Only key decision makers will have access to enough information and resources to allow for the effective development and direction of such a drama. But unlike a normal play, the end is not known to anyone in advance. The end may well be as much “emergent” as it is intentional. Indeed, strategic planning and management at their best involve “real learning [that] takes place at the interface of thought and action, as actors reflect on what they have done; in other words, strategic learning must combine reflection with result….[They] involve crafting the subtle relationships between thought and action, control and learning, stability and change” (Mintzberg, Ahlstrand, & Lampel, 2009, pp. 205–217).

PLANNING FOCUS AND DESIRED IMMEDIATE OUTCOMES The initial agreement will outline the important design features of the planning process. Ideally, the step will produce agreement on several issues:

1. The purpose(s) and worth of the strategic planning effort

2. Project organization, including who the sponsors and champions are

3. The organizations, units, groups, or persons who should be engaged and in what ways

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4. The specific steps to be followed, how information and communication technologies and social media will be used, and the way ongoing feedback and learning will occur

5. The form and timing of reports

6. Resource commitments to begin the effort

7. Key requirements for a successful effort

Finally, a strategic planning coordinating committee and a strategic planning team probably should be formed and given a charge statement or charter.

As a general rule, the strategic planning effort should focus on that part of the organization (or function, program, collaboration, or community) controlled, overseen, or strongly influenced by the key decision makers interested in engaging in strategic planning. In other words, only under unusual circumstances would it make sense to develop strategic plans for organizations or parts of organizations over which the key decision makers involved in the effort have no control or for which they have no responsibility.

The exception to this rule is externally initiated reform programs designed to demonstrate how an organization might conduct itself if it took the reformers' aims seriously. For example, candidates running for elective office often include in their campaign platforms proposed new strategies for the governments they wish to lead. Editorial and opinion pages of newspapers, public affairs books and magazines, and think tank reports also often include what are in effect reformers' strategic plans for public or nonprofit organizations.

The agreement also should make clear what the “givens” are at the beginning of the process. In other words, what is it about the organization's history, arrangements, and practices that will be off-limits, at least for the time being, and what is open for revision? On the one hand, if everything is a candidate for far-reaching change, potential participants may be scared off and resistance to change within the organization may harden. On the other hand, if everything is sacred, then there is no reason for strategic planning. There should be enough tension to prompt change and make it worth the effort but not so much that it paralyzes potential participants with fear and anxiety.

The process of reaching an initial agreement is straightforward in concept but often rather circuitous in practice. It usually proceeds through the following stages:

1. Advocating for a strategic planning process

2. Developing an understanding among key actors about what it can mean in practice

3. Thinking through in additional detail some of its more important implications in terms of necessary commitments and other requirements for success

4. Developing a commitment to strategic planning

5. Reaching an actual agreement

The more numerous the decision makers who must be involved and the less they know about (or the worse their experience with) strategic planning, the more time-consuming the process

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will be and the more indirect the route to agreement. Indeed, typically a series of agreements must be reached before the strategic planning process can begin in earnest.

DESIRED LONGER-TERM OUTCOMES A number of significant longer-term outcomes flow from a good initial agreement. They involve laying the groundwork for what Innes and Booher (2010, pp. 36–39) call “system adaptations”—changes that help the organization or collaboration create a better fit with its environment, including the possibility of changing the environments in important ways. The first is simply that the purpose and worth of the strategic planning effort are likely to be widely recognized by the affected parties, leading to broad sponsorship and legitimacy. Broad sponsorship dispels any suspicion that the effort is a power play by a small group. And it ensures that the results of the efforts are likely to be seen as objective (that is, not manipulated to serve narrow partisan interests). Broad sponsorship also is a source of psychological safety that can help people address what otherwise might be highly threatening, anxiety- or guilt- producing prospects for change (Heifetz, Linsky, & Grashow, 2009).

Legitimacy justifies the occasions, content, and timing of the discussions and ensuing actions in the next stages of the planning process. Such discussions—particularly when they involve key decision makers across functions, levels, and organizational boundaries of various sorts—are unlikely to occur without prompting. And they are unlikely to be prompted without authorization.

Authorization of such discussions is an enormous resource to the planners who organize them because they gain considerable control over the forums in which they occur, the agenda, the information provided, and the framework for discussion. And because the deliberations are typically cross-functional rather than under the control of any unit or department, planners gain leverage as the facilitators of these deliberations. Control of this sort is not manipulative in a partisan sense; instead, it ensures that the organization is looked at and discussed as a whole rather than its separate parts only (Crosby & Bryson, 2005).

A well-articulated initial agreement also provides a clear definition of the network to be involved and the process by which it is to be maintained. A good network management process will provide involved or affected stakeholders with a sense of procedural justice—that is, with the sense that both the procedures used to reach decisions and the decisions themselves are fair (Page, Stone, Bryson, & Crosby, 2015).

For example, adopting a doctrine of no surprises can be a good idea when developing a network and moving toward major decisions. Major stakeholders are at least kept informed of progress, events, and impending decisions and are perhaps even consulted or involved in decision making. Nothing is dropped on them “out of the blue.” This appears to be particularly necessary when the need for cooperation and the risks of failure are high (Weick & Sutcliffe, 2015). The doctrine of no surprises may be best in other situations as well—even when there seem to be good reasons for keeping certain stakeholders in the dark. In an era when a basic characteristic of information seems to be that it leaks, full and prompt disclosure may be

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advisable. As Benjamin Franklin used to say, “Three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead.” Or consider Elvis Presley's view: “The truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away.”

A good initial agreement also includes an outline of the general sequence of steps in the strategic planning effort, the way information and communication technologies and social media will be used to facilitate the process, and the way in which ongoing feedback and learning will be incorporated. Ongoing feedback and learning are indispensable means of keeping the process on track in pursuit of desired purposes. As management guru Ken Blanchard famously said, “Feedback is the breakfast of champions.”

The sequence should contribute to stakeholders' sense that the process is procedurally rational. This means that the process steps cohere and relate to prior and future steps. The work of each step is reasonably thorough without being too hurried and, importantly, allows for cognitive and emotional commitment (Ackermann & Eden, 2011; Page et al., 2015). As a result, any decisions made are seen to be the outcome of appropriate deliberation (Page et al., 2015). To be effective, the sequence of steps must ensure that the process is tied to key decision-making points in arenas such as budget decisions, elections, and the rhythm of the legislative cycle. Time in organizations is partly chronological, but key junctures also matter (Albert, 2013). And the most important junctions are decision points.

To return to our drama metaphor, a good initial agreement names the actors and their roles, describes the general character of the story and themes to be followed, spells out as much of the plot as is possible to know in advance, specifies the way the drama will be broken into acts and scenes, states how interactions among the actors will be designed and governed, designates the stage on which it will be played, and clarifies who the audience is. Thus, the initial agreement step is important because what follows depends significantly on the specifics of the beginning. The opening epigraph captures the fatefulness embodied in this early work, particularly in systems prone to unpredictable or at least partly chaotic behavior (Kingdon, 2010; Patton, McKegg, & Wehipeihana, 2015).

Moreover, as noted earlier, the agreement should specify exactly what is to be taken as given— at least at the start. For example, an organization's existing legal commitments, mandates, personnel complements, organizational designs, mission statements, resource allocations, job descriptions, or crucial cultural aspects may need to be taken as given in order to gain agreement. If what is off-limits for the exercise is unclear from the start, several key decision makers are unlikely to participate. With too much up for grabs, the process will be too threatening or dangerous, result in unconstructive or downright damaging conflict, or produce a strategic plan that is useless because it lacks adequate support. On the other hand, the more that must be taken as given, the less useful strategic planning is likely to be (Scharmer, 2016). It is important, therefore, to find the right tension between given-ness and possibility.

A good agreement also provides mechanisms, such as a strategic planning task force or coordinating committee, for deliberation, buffering, consultation, negotiation, or problem solving among units, groups, or people involved in or affected by the effort. Without these mechanisms, conflicts are likely to stymie or even destroy the effort. These mechanisms also

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will allow errors to be detected and corrected throughout the process. A strategic planning task force or coordinating committee can make needed midcourse corrections. A task force also will be a valuable sounding board for ideas. An important function of such a group will be to keep attention focused on strategic concerns while referring operational matters to appropriate groups and individuals.

A good initial agreement also guarantees necessary resources. Money typically is not the most needed resource for strategic planning; the time and attention of key decision makers are more important. Staff time will also be needed to gather information and provide logistical and clerical support (probably one part-time staff person in a small organization, several people in a larger organization).

A good agreement should provide useful preparation for any major changes that may be forthcoming. For example, if initiators envision pursuing a big win of some sort—ultimately, if not initially—rather than a series of small wins, the groundwork will probably need to be laid in this phase. A big win may mean changing the conceptual frame underpinning current strategy, dramatically changing goals or guiding visions, changing basic technologies, altering dominant coalitions, or some other fundamental change. Needed groundwork may involve having people other than the “usual suspects” on the planning committee or planning team; highlighting or separating off the planning effort in such a way that its power and influence are increased; gaining authorization for a range of background studies, such as benchmarking analyses, reengineering studies, or system analyses; arranging for visits to, and interviews at, innovative organizations; and so forth. Such groundwork can lead to undesirable fear and rigidity among stakeholders, so how it is undertaken must be thought through carefully.

Finally, a good initial agreement signifies the political support of key decision makers or opinion leaders at several levels in the organization, and it helps maintain that support at different points in the process. For strategic planning to work, a coalition must develop that is large enough and strong enough to formulate and implement strategies that deal effectively with key strategic issues. Such coalitions typically do not develop quickly (particularly in interorganizational or community planning efforts; see Emerson & Nabatchi, 2015). Instead, they coalesce around the important strategic ideas that emerge from the sequence of deliberations, consultations, mutual education, and reconceptualization that are at the heart of any strategic planning effort (Jenkins-Smith, Nohrstedt, Weible, & Sabatier, 2014).

GETTING CLEAR ABOUT THE PURPOSE One of the most important principles of leadership and management in general, and of strategic planning in particular, is to let purpose be your guide. But what should your purpose be? An important technique for discovering the answer to this question is purpose mapping. Purpose maps are statement-and-arrow diagrams that indicate what actions might lead to (result in, cause, or produce) what outcomes. In other words, they are abbreviated versions of the strategy maps discussed in Chapter 2. The technique is adapted from Ackermann and Eden (2011). Guidelines for using the technique are found in Exhibit 3.1.

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Exhibit 3.1. Purpose Mapping Technique Guidelines. Purpose mapping is a very useful technique for helping groups figure out what they are really trying to accomplish—in other words, what the mission, goals, purposes, aspirations, or overarching reasons for doing something are.

Purpose maps are causal maps consisting of statements phrased as actions beginning with a verb (get, buy, create, do, provide, etc.) linked by arrows in which the arrow goes from a cause to its likely effect. An arrow from A → B indicates that if you do A, the result might be B. The map thus shows the connections between actions and outcomes, means and ends, or influences and results.

Purpose maps will typically have 10 to 25 statements linked by arrows. The maps typically show a network of statements because the same statement may have more than one arrow leading into or out of it. The real or overarching purposes are likely to be found near the ends of the chains of arrows. The group using the technique will have to use dialogue and deliberation to decide what the most important purposes are.

Supplies:

Flip chart pad

Flip chart marker for each participant

Sharpened pencil with an eraser for each group member (or a mechanical pencil with an eraser)

Sticky notes that are from 2.5″ × 2.5″ to 3″ × 5″ in size

Colored stick-on dots

A room big enough to include everyone you'd like involved

A wall space large enough to accommodate an uninterrupted mapping surface consisting of two rows of flip chart sheets two to three sheets wide

Masking tape

Participants:

Assemble the appropriate stakeholders into groups of five to seven.

If a large organization is involved, participants should come from different departments and/or levels to enhance a clear understanding of relevant perspectives.

Consider involving external stakeholders as well.

Process:

Before the session, consider having participants watch the purpose mapping instructional video found on the Hubert Project website, www.hubertproject.com.

Before the session, create a purpose mapping surface on a wall that consists of two

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rows of flip chart sheets two or three flip chart sheets wide.

Gather the group and give them general instructions for the process.

Give each person a pad of sticky notes, a flip chart marker, and a pencil.

Ask participants to brainstorm what they think the initiative's purposes/goals/aspirations/desired outcomes might be. For example, in the initial agreement phase of a strategic planning process, ask participants what the possible purposes of the process might be.

Engage the group in deciding how the various purposes are causally connected to one another. The facilitator can ask the group to help him or her create the resulting purpose network, or else the group can make the connections. Draw the links in with a pencil.

To work down a chain of arrows, keep asking: “How would I do that?” or “What would it take to do that?” The arrows should lead from how you would do something to “what” you want to accomplish.

To work up a chain of arrows, keep asking: “What would happen if I did that?” or “What would the consequences be if I did that?” The arrows should go from “what” you might do to the consequences of doing it.

Have the group explore the network of statements to determine what the real purpose(s) of the initiative is (are). The conversation often can be advanced by having participants as individuals, not as a group, place colored stick-on dots on the three to five statements they think capture the most important purposes of the initiative. Sometimes it makes sense to first remove statements that are not relevant or geared toward the group's discussion.

Finalize the map by drawing over the pencil arrows with a flip chart marker.

Take a picture of the final map and share it with the group.

The facilitator or a volunteer from the group should then transfer the finalized map into an electronic version that can be shared with others.

An example of a purpose map is presented in Figure 3.1, which shows the purpose map for a potential strategic planning effort aimed at addressing the challenges posed by the wave of asylum seekers from the Middle East and Africa into Europe and, in particular, into the city of Utrecht in the Netherlands. The map draws on Geuijen's (2016) study of the Utrecht response and is featured in an online instructional video about purpose mapping, which can be found at www.hubertproject.com.

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Figure 3.1. Possible Purposes to Be Served by the City of Utrecht in Addressing the Challenges of Housing and Integrating Asylum Seekers.

Strategic planning in the Utrecht case is prompted by the need to manage conflicts among competing public values and political interests with the major logistical complications of accommodating large numbers of mostly non-Dutch-speaking immigrants. The overarching purpose of the strategic planning effort is the statement at the top of the map: “Establish better security and well-being.” This combines several different streams of cause–effect relations. One stream on the right side of the map involves the need to “Strengthen crime prevention,” which is a concern of many native Dutch people and of the asylum seekers themselves. Another stream that starts on the right side just below the crime prevention stream is “Improve daily life at Asylum Seeker Centers (ASCs).” ASCs are often crowded and located at a distance from population centers. Conditions often border on inhumane and hardly help asylum seekers integrate into Dutch society. A third stream on the left side of the diagram aims to “Integrate asylum seekers with the local Dutch environment.” And a fourth stream is in the middle and involves efforts to “Stimulate economy.” This would be beneficial in that it would provide jobs for asylum seekers and reduce opposition to asylum seekers stemming from the belief they would take away jobs from native Dutch people. In the lower right-hand corner in a box is a premise guiding the planners' work: “Make asylum seekers' lives better than ‘sober but humane,’” in which “sober but humane” is a statement the Dutch parliament made about their hopes for ASCs.

Purpose mapping is particularly useful for ensuring espoused purposes actually are the ends to be served and not just the means to some unarticulated (and perhaps not great) end. In my experience, the mistaking of means for ends occurs quite often. The purpose mapping technique

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therefore can and should be used when it is important to clarify purposes to be served.

DEVELOPING AN INITIAL AGREEMENT So far we have covered the purpose and desired short- and longer-term outcomes of this first step in the strategic planning. Now we can go into greater depth on specific aspects of the process of developing an initial agreement.

Whose Process Is It, and Who Should Be Involved? Important process design considerations include deciding who owns the process and who should be involved. Obviously, some individual or group must initiate and champion the process and make this initial decision—knowing the decision may change later. If the strategic planning process is going to affect the entire organization, then the organization's key decision makers (and perhaps representatives of some of the external stakeholders) should be involved.

Indeed, many strategic planning processes take a multitiered approach to involvement. For example, in a reasonably large nonprofit membership organization, the first tier might consist of the executive director and board. The second tier would be the strategic planning team and perhaps have some board representation. The third tier would consist of the board and staff as a whole entity that engages in a strategic planning retreat. And the fourth tier would include task forces of organizational insiders and outsiders to look at different strategic issue areas. Finally, the organization's membership would be informed of the process and asked for their ideas. The board would be the final decision-making body, as it is legally responsible for the organization, but it also would have chosen to consult widely as a way of informing its decisions and building buy-in and commitment from important constituencies.

For organizations, it may be advisable to involve insiders from three levels of the organization as well as key outsiders. (Note that elected or appointed policy board members can be outsiders as well as insiders.) These include top policy and decision makers, middle management, and technical core or frontline personnel (Scott & Davis, 2006), who should be involved for several reasons. First, they are formally charged with relating the organization to its domain. Second, because of their responsibilities, they are often highly effective boundary spanners with links to many organizations and people both inside and outside the organization. Third, they are often among the first to perceive mismatches between the organization and its environment and therefore the most responsive to external threats and opportunities affecting the organization (Kettl, 2015b). Finally, they control the resources necessary to carry out the strategic planning effort and implement the recommendations that grow out of it. It is simply very difficult to plan around these people, so they should be included from the start when possible (Fernandez & Rainey, 2006).

In governments and public agencies, this initial group is likely to include members of an elected or appointed board as well as high-level executives. In council-manager cities, for example, the initial agreement typically is negotiated among council members, the city manager, and key department heads.

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Middle management personnel should be included for their vital role in translating policies and decisions into operations. Further, they are likely to bear the brunt of any managerial changes that result and therefore should be involved to reduce unnecessary resistance and to make transitions smoother (Fernandez & Rainey, 2006).

Technical core or frontline personnel also may need to help fashion an initial agreement. Again, there are several reasons to consider involving them or their representatives (Sandfort & Moulton, 2015). First, they are in charge of the day-to-day use of the core technologies contributing to, or affected by, strategic change. As a result, they are likely to be the most knowledgeable about how the organization's basic technologies work in practice, and they are also most likely to be immediately helped or hurt by change. Their early involvement may be necessary to ensure that needed changes are understood, wise changes implemented, and resistance to change minimized. Second, technical or frontline personnel are likely to be asked for their opinions by key decision makers anyway, so anything that can make them receptive to strategic change is a plus. Finally, because of their technical knowledge or their daily contact with customers, clients, or users, these personnel can severely hamper strategic changes they do not support. In extreme cases, they might undermine or even sabotage change efforts. Coopting these groups early on can be an important key to strategic planning success.

An important caveat is in order. If it is clear from the start that strategic planning will result in the elimination of certain positions, work groups, or departments—such as in major reengineering efforts—then it may be both unnecessary and downright harmful to involve people in those positions. The effective and humane approach may be to involve these people in planning for their transition to new jobs, including retraining, placement, and severance arrangements (Nutt & Hogan, 2008).

Finding the Right People Typically, some initial stakeholder analysis work needs to be done before the “right” group of people can be found to forge an effective initial agreement. The purpose of such an analysis at this point is to help process sponsors decide who should be involved in negotiating an initial agreement because either they have information that cannot be gained otherwise or their support is necessary to ensure successful implementation of initiatives built on the analyses.

But a prior strategic question involves first figuring out who should be involved in doing the stakeholder analyses and how. Fortunately, the choice can be approached as a sequence of choices in which an individual or small planning group begins the effort and then others are added later as the advisability of doing so becomes apparent (Bryson, 2004).

One way to approach the task is as a five-step process in which a decision can be made to stop any time after the first step (see Exhibit 3.2). Stopping might be advisable because enough information and support to proceed has been gained, timelines are short, or the analyses are too sensitive or for some other good reason.

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