New Clients for Pacific NW Consulting

The next few months should be exciting ones. In addition to the several clients who use my services I will be traveling to Saipan to work with the Community Development Agency for the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. I'm taking on NAI DG Hart, a premier commerical real estate firm in midtown Manhattan. In January I will be in Tampa working with CCIM to update their strategic plan and speaking at the annual meeting of the Oregon Dairy Farmers Association. During the winter I'll be returning to NAI MLG Commercial in Milwaukee to assist their investment division in developing a strategic plan compatible with the plan that has brought such success to the brokerage.

So what is strategic planning?

Strategic planning is a process and a management tool. As a process it involves the management and staff (and sometimes clients) of a business in a discussion about the kinds of future you will face and a vision of what you would like that future to be. What makes planning strategic is the agreement among executive management that gives direction and priority to the choices the firm faces in the next few years.

Good plans demand a careful analysis of the organization’s present strengths and weaknesses and future challenges and opportunities and an attention to detail to see that action follows planning.

The results of the planning should be more than a report. Of equal need with a written record of the analyses and recommendations is agreement about how the business will be conducted in the future. There has to be a blueprint. Staff will fill in the details, but there has to be a clear sense of what is of highest priority to your firm and how it will shift its operations to meet those priorities. In sum, the plan should be the catalyst, inspiration and direction for future operations.

How to conduct planning?

Strategic planning is a responsibility of a board of directors and/or executive management team. Sometimes to include new perspectives in the planning process, it is common to appoint a committee to complete a draft plan which the board and management team ultimately reviews and approves for implementation.

If you prefer, all of the work can be done with you exclusively, or we could draw others into all or part of our discussions.

Even if it is just the two of us, we need is to articulate your firm’s mission, vision and goals for the future. An effective plan must address three crucial questions:

1. What must we do to fulfill our mission and to maintain our integrity?

1. What do we want to do to secure our market position and advance our standing?

1. What can we do given realistic limitations on resources (including time, money, market position), and external limitations (such as competition, governmental regulation or demographic trends)?

The first question is one of mission, the second vision and the third addresses on-going problems and challenges.

Strategic planning becomes a continual process of raising questions, seeking answers, reflecting upon those answers and making recommendations as to what should be done. In strategic planning parlance, the task is to continually “scan” the future for opportunities (or threats) and to assess the organization’s strengths and weaknesses. Out of such intense inquiry come the options to address the future.

What do I do?

My work is to set the agenda for the questions that need to be answered to determine the best strategy for the firm’s growth. Since there are many ways to achieve growth, I will assist in isolating the strategies that are seen as best given your vision.

Having set a strategic course, I will assist in developing a plan of prioritized goals and objectives whose accomplishment will lead to the future you envision for the company. In the final stages of this process we will create a specific action directives with timelines, budgets and performance measures to assure the plan is implemented.

It is important that we recognize our respective, but independent roles in this process. This is your plan. You will have to develop it and implement it. I am in charge of the process, assuring that we examine right questions thoroughly and that the plan you develop is realistic and achievable. I need to make sure all the pieces are in place; you need to make sure that they work.

Schedule

This is, I assure you, hard and intense work. There are two ways to approach this.

Some clients take the time to develop a complete plan, which usually takes six or seven full day sessions spread out over a three month period. This plan is focused on a 3 to 5 year horizon, yet produces specific goals and action plans phased in over the next 36 to 60 months.

Other clients focus on goals for the next 18 months, which can be done in two, two-day sessions. This is when we would take a look at two key issues: market viability and organizational capacity. By the end of this session we will have a clear sense of what needs to be achieved to achieve the vision.

Either approach works, the level and amount of planning you choose depends on the readiness of you and everyone in the firm to focus on the future and the importance of having a clear workplan tied to future budgets. I have worked with some organizations long enough to see them start with the shorter session to set strategic goals, then come back two years later and do a comprehensive strategic plan.

What would this cost?

To be an effective planner requires good preparation and follow-up. To facilitate a productive process I need to understand in some detail the important issues your firm faces. I need to review relevant corporate documents and materials from external, journalistic sources to get a better idea of where the company has come from and where it is headed. You may find it useful for me to conduct interviews with others you believe have keen insight into your operations and future. I’ll also handle the paperwork, writing and editing the plan for your review.

To develop a strategic plan costs $5,000 to $50,000 depending upon the amount of preparation required, the level of involvement of staff and whether you are interested in developing goals for one year or five into the future.

Conclusion

Strategic planning is the most important task leadership of an organization can undertake. The process should examine every aspect of the firm’s future, investigate the widest range of strategic options and make tough decisions that shape its success. It is hard, but worthwhile, work and I would be honored to join you in leading your firm through the process.

Welcome to Duke's Blog!

A little about me and this site. I am a professor of sociology at the Evergreen State College in Washington State. For the last 20 years I helped organizations develop, implement and evaluate strategic plans.

From the beginning I wanted to work with a diverse clientele because I wanted to learn as much about organizations as I can. I've been fortunate enough to work in the private, public and non-profit sectors.

The diversity in experience has allowed me to develop a comprhesive understanding of what businesses, agencies and associations are all about and what it takes to help them move to higher levels of performance. Along the way I've developed some effective tools for analyzing organizations' capabilities, strategic options and critical success factors.

Never one to pass up a challenge, I was drawn to organizations where there are strong differences of opinion as to where they were going and how they could get there. I discovered a talent for finding a shared vision out of disagreement. I learned how to leverage diversity in opinion and background as a strength for organizational development.

I'm proud that my clients introduce me as "a friend of the organization," because that's exactly what I am: someone who cares about the welfare of an organization and all those who are part of it. I set out to build organizations that are satifying to all who come into contact with them, be they shareholders, employees or customers and I am proud of the portfolio of agencies, associations and businesses who are more effective and efficient because they used my processes.