Transforming strategic & organizational foundations

What if the transformation all around us was for us?

Transforming strategic & organizational foundations

Our world is changing. We feel the changes everyday: the unsettling shifting foundations of modern life from labor automation to  exponential technologies to ossified social and economic inequality to fragmenting community attachment to hyperpolarized politics to dysfunctional governance systems seemingly designed not to serve people.

Imagine that these changes are for us rather than against us...
Believe that they are meant to expand our lives not limit them...
What if instead of anxiety, what we felt was anticipation…

How would we live differently, organize differently, lead differently?

Working with companies, social-impact organizations, and political groups on the strategic and organizational transformation necessary to embrace modern communications, data, and analytics and to better align work with mission.

Often building on the inspiration from the Workshops to take new perspectives to the next level through a structured process to produce clear strategic foundations and plans for implementation.

Building and rebuilding organizations follows a structured four-phase process of assessment, discovery, visioning, crafting, and planning to bridge present and future with strong foundations and clear plans as the bridge.

Phase 1: Current State

OUTCOMES
A clear, humble view of our current skills, sectors, successes and failures, and understanding of impact to date and impact potential based on the overall landscape on which to design and create the rest of the building blocks necessary for a vibrant organization.

ACTIVITIES

  • Conduct Kickoff workshop(s): at least 1 team session to align on process and stakeholders
  • 5-10 50-minute internal and external stakeholder interviews
  • Review of existing annual reports, data, and impact narratives

DELIVERABLES

  • Landscape Assessment
  • Impact Assessment
  • Inventory of Organization and Assets

Phase 2: Future State Vision

OUTCOMES

Clarity on highest potential opportunities based on Current State Review, our goals, and basic understanding of work and gaps in the spaces we are in and the communities we hope to participate with.

ACTIVITIES

  • Conduct workshop(s): at least 1 with leadership, 1 with full team, and 1 with limited advisors/leadership to facilitate creative thinking about the horizon 
  • Digest and assess current engagement brand and narrative
  • Survey organizations and opportunity areas in the space and adjacent spaces

DELIVERABLES

  • Future Vision - 1,000-word memo and presentation summarizing the future state of capacity, capability, and delivery

Phase 3: Foundations

OUTCOMES

With a clear understanding of the horizon we are striving for, we need strong strategic and organizational foundations on which to develop the plans that will carry us forward: what we believe, who we are, what outcomes we seek, what we will take responsibility for, and how those elements connect.

ACTIVITIES

  • Conduct Discovery workshop(s): at least 1 team session to align on intentions and language
  • Conduct Foundation workshop(s): at least 1 with leadership, 1 with team, and 1 with limited advisors/leadership to facilitate creative thinking about the horizon 
  • Draft and co-author documents with teams that will own working versions of Deliverables (generally Leadership for the Manifesto, Strategy Team for ToC, and People Team for Working Assumptions)

DELIVERABLES

  • Theory of Change – logic model connecting between values, mission, strategy, and tactics
  • Manifesto – 100 words that represent the core moral pillars of our identity 
  • Working Assumptions – internal culture and process foundations

Phase 4: Strategy & Implementation 

OUTCOMES

Clear outlines of the Strategy workstreams moving forward to follow and build on the new Foundations from Phase 3. This phase is also the handoff of the leadership of the work to the team where our work transitions from production of to support of Deliverables.

DELIVERABLES

    • Team Model – diagrams that explain and express the relationship between teams along with basic definitions of areas of responsibility
    • Culture Plan
    • Brand Architecture
    • Strategy Architecture
    • Growth Outline
    • Resources & Growth Model