Plan the Work, Work the Plan
I am by now fully recovered (I think) from my annual New England road trip that takes me to various corners of the region to 1) engage folks in leadership workshops, 2) put my ear to the ground, so to speak, to discover what’s happening in our museum community, and 3) consume my limit of nachos, spinach dip, and wings at post-workshop meetups.
This year’s workshops were called “Plan the Work, Work the Plan: Strategic Success for Museum Leaders,” and focused on the rarified art of strategic planning. Like last year, we encouraged participation of executive directors, senior staff, and trustees so we could engage robust discussion among key planning teams. We held six workshops, in which more than 100 museum folks participated.
Here are a few takeaways, based on observations I made in between bites of nacho:
- There seems to be a consensus that traditional strategic planning processes are a lot of work, cost a lot of money, and are hard to implement. This so-called “linear model” of planning is not quite dead (funders still sometimes require them), but it’s changing rapidly. Not so long ago the horizon of a strategic plan was five years; today it usually focuses on two or three years. The pace of cultural change is accelerating and our planning needs to keep up.
- The newer “integrative model” of planning appears to be gaining traction, especially among smaller museums. (Although larger places are adopting this method too.) The idea here is to create a flexible planning process that is constantly reviewed and updated, embedding planning into operations much more seamlessly. This results in greater creativity, nimbleness, and entrepreneurship.
- A good resource for integrative planning is The Nonprofit Strategy Revolution by David La Piana. (My favorite bit is in Chapter 5 where he describes how to create a “strategy screen” to assess new ideas on the fly.)
- Strategic planning consultants can be expensive, but the cost is worth it, some folks say. They earn their fee when resolving conflicts between stakeholders about vision or goals, acting as more-or-less neutral arbiters. One participant noted that if it weren’t for the consultant they would have had no consensus, and therefore no strategic plan.
- Strategy and tactics tend to be conflated under the banner of “strategic planning.” But strategies are all about higher-level goals and tactics are the means of achieving them. Strategy is to land your plane safely in order to arrive at a destination. Your tactics include adjusting speed, altitude, direction, etc. (“What’s your vector, Victor?”) Strategic plans often include both, but the strategy part should be only one or two pages of top-level goals.
- To all those museums procrastinating on strategic planning because of cost, lack of bandwidth, or indecision about what model works best for them, I say, “Just do it!” Get started by engaging stakeholders (staff, board, donors, community members, etc.) in conversation about the value of your organization. The rest will follow naturally.
- What’s better than creating a strategic plan? Fostering a strategic mindset. A strategic mindset means that staff at all levels, from the ED to the front desk, are clear and united about goals and direction. It means that board meetings are productive and rewarding, providing an on-going feedback loop in which policies and activities are analyzed, challenged, and fine-tuned. Everyone is open to new ideas, eager to analyze results. A strategic mindset allows the museum to be entrepreneurial, flexible, and adaptive to whatever challenges arrive. It sets the stage for success.
- Of all the things that define the culture of a museum, I have discovered that exhibiting a strategic mindset is most influential. You can have the most fantastic collection in the world, the most awesome professional staff in the world, the most dedicated board and volunteers, the most poetic mission statement, the nicest visitors and the cleanest bathrooms, but you are never going to reach your full potential as an institution if you don’t have an ongoing strategy.
- How do we develop a strategic mindset? Some of our participants agreed that we need to set aside some time regularly to read, study trends, and think the big thoughts. (One of my mentors once told me I should be spending 25% of my time strategically. Yikes!) We need to give ourselves permission to do this. Maybe more important, leaders should give their teams permission to do this.
- I really loved observing trustees from different museums comparing notes in breakout sessions. They seemed to have a lot of fun discovering that their challenges are not so different than everyone else’s.
- Metrics and evaluation are a sticking point. The usual measures of strategic success are cost/benefit, visitation, and other “hard” measures. But those seem to fall short of truly reflecting what museums accomplish strategically. We need to find creative ways to move beyond these. Resource: Measuring Museum Impact and Performance by John Jacobsen, which will inspire you with more than 1,000 performance indicators that museums use.
- Another sticking point: implementation. Museums sometimes find it difficult translating their strategy into a work plan. It’s crucial to create linkages between the 30,000 foot level and the daily work. The annual budget is a good catalyst to make that happen.
Many thanks to our workshop hosts for making the events possible: Clark Art Institute, Gore Place, Hill-Stead Museum, International Tennis Hall of Fame and Museum, Maine Historical Society, and Monadnock Center for History and Culture.
Dan Yaeger