A few years ago in a post titled Strategic Resolve Leads to Better Tactics I wrote “Much of what we do in the name of strategic planning is a about as effective as making New Year’s resolutions (in other words nice ideals for a few months but then little change by year-end).” Now that we are almost one month into 2012 (hard to believe), how is your strategic plan looking? Are you still resolved to complete it?
Author David Maister refers to resolve as Strategy and the Fat Smoker. A fat smoker knows he or she should quit smoking, exercise, diet and lose weight. The resolve to do that, however, is not always there. Think about it. If it was that easy, there would be no drug addicts, alcoholics or bad marriages in the world. It’s the same with business strategy. The necessary outcome of strategic planning is not analytical insight. It’s resolve.
Here are four areas you might need resolve with your strategic plan:
(1) Budget Resolve
How committed are you to completing all the tactical items on your strategic plan? The real answer to that question lies in your budget. If you don’t commit budget dollars to certain projects, then don’t bother putting them on your plan. For example, your credit union may need to rebrand itself. Did you give your marketing department extra dollars to complete this key strategic task? If not, why bother having it in the plan at all? It’s the same with IT issues. Implementing technology initiatives (mobile banking, live web chat, etc.) costs money. Your budget will show your resolve.
(2) Staff Resolve
Some areas don’t just need more money—they need more staff. Yes, every department at your credit union is overworked (what area couldn’t need more help?). However, when you are focusing on your strategy, you probably know of particular areas that need more people. It may be collections, loans, technology, business development, marketing, or some other area. The trick is knowing when a department has tipped (especially if it is back office when there is no immediate positive impact with members). One great example of staff resolve is social media. One of the two “Ss” of social media is staff. Don’t expect your current staff to magically produce social media without help. Your hiring will show your resolve.
(3) Time Resolve
It’s great to establish many strategic goals. However, when are you realistically going to have time to do all the action items? When Steve Jobs was running Apple, he was extremely diligent about focusing on no more than three initiatives: he felt people could not adequately focus on more than three big issues. That is the same principle in place with time: odds are you won’t have enough hours in the day to accomplish an entire laundry list of items. You may want to ask, “What Should Your Credit Union Stop Doing?” How you spend your time will show your resolve.
(4) Culture Resolve
Culture is a hot topic in many planning sessions. Statements like “we need to implement a sales and service culture,” “we need to change our culture,” or “what is our culture,” are uttered in almost every credit union. Those are easy statements to say and many times some form of “culture change” works its way into the strategic plan. But that is when it gets hard. Actually changing the DNA of your credit union probably takes years (truly a long-term process). In the post Changing Your Credit Union’s Culture, Matt Monge offers some great advice on how your credit union can go from talking to acting on your desire to change. How you plan to implement your culture will show your resolve.
Your credit union’s strategic plan may be filled with research. It may have keen insight. It may be a work of genius. But those things don’t matter if your strategic plan doesn’t have the most important thing of all: resolve.
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