According to Hamel and Prahalad (1989),“..strategic intent
is more than simply unfettered ambition.” Strategic intent is slightly different
than, yet related to, strategic planning, which can be defined by the Balanced
Scorecard Institute as, “an organizational management activity that is used to
set priorities, focus energy and resources, strengthen operations, ensure
that employees and other stakeholders are working toward common
goals, establish agreement around intended outcomes/results, and
assess and adjust the organization's direction in response to a changing
environment.” With all of those tasks to focus on, strategic planning clearly
takes a lot of work!
Strategic intent “also encompasses an active management
process that includes: focusing the organization’s attention on the essence of
winning; motivating people by communicating the value of the target; leaving
room for individual and team contributions; sustaining enthusiasm by providing
new operational definitions as circumstances change; and using intent
consistently to guide resource allocations” (1989). In short, it’s about
winning. Anyone who knows anything about team sports knows that most are all
about hard work and strategy. Regardless of how big, fast, or strong you are,
if there is not a central goal all members are willing to work together to
achieve, the team will not win.
When I set out to build my student organization I was not
focused on the sustainability of the chapter. I knew I would be at my
university for four years and would do what I could in that time to be the best
president I could be in order to help as many people as possible. My goals were
short term. I didn’t listen when our advisor asked us about succession planning.
We were doing fine! It occurred to me, finally, only after older executive
board members began talking about graduation, that we had some serious thinking
to do. I panicked. Who would replace them? How do we train new members? What
happens when I and my co-founder leave?
Our response was to begin strategic planning. With our
advisor’s help, we started having intentional, structured conversations about
the growth of our organization. We had to address the following:
Mission
What was our specific reason for existence? Why were we
unique compared to chapters at other colleges? What was our basic philosophy?
What would serve as our reference point for years to come?
Vision
We needed to develop a vision statement and draft out what
the long range vision for our organization in the context of our university
was. We discussed where we wanted to go, combined our shared values, and then set
the direction for our movement.
Define strategic issues
Personality/work type conflicts and competing pictures of
what our organization could become began to arise. As our numbers grew, the number
of ideas grew. We had begun to develop relationships with departments on campus
and we needed to nurture those stakeholders and analyze the benefits of each.
Obviously, a student organization is not a large nonprofit
agency, but it is a great example of the importance of strategic planning. One
can watch student organizations flourish and experience crisis in such a short
amount of time. My suggestions would be for the current leadership to pay
greater attention to assessing the needs of the community, the factors of its external
environment, and the workings of the internal organization, especially person
to person. I would recommend they take part in a SWOT analysis to map out their
strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to better understand how to go
about planning for the future. I hope for the continued success of what we
planted four years ago and, in whatever we set out to do, I hope we win.
Harvard Business Review (Hamel & Prahalad, 1989)
United Way of Dane County, Strategic Planning Process
