Global Mission Driven Performance Institute

I attended and presented at the 3rd Annual Global Mission Driven Performance Institute, March 8-10, 2011 in Washington DC. The other presenters include Drs. Robert Kaplan and David Norton, the founders of the balanced scorecard approach to strategic planning; Tom Harrington, Associate Deputy Director of the FBI; Ellen Liston, Deputy City Manager, City of Coral Springs, Florida, Monica Niemi, Development Manager of Folkhalsan of Finland; and more.

Several things really hit home for me.

1. Using the balanced scorecard has deeply changed the way many organizations approached both their strategic planning AND the implementation of that plan.
   
2. Those organizations that have regular measurement meetings and whose leadership regularly talk about strategy are more effective in achieving their mission.
   
3. Leadership is key - if you leave your strategy management to middle management it is a long development process and becomes too operationally focused.
   
4. Drive execution of the strategy plan through communication.
5. Communication - 7 times 7 ways this was a mantra repeated over and over in the presentations
6. Motto from the FBI - We do, we learn, we do better, we learn more. (I love this!!)
7. There is tremendous power in clear choices and focus.
   
8. Great leadership spends 30% of their time EACH DAY on strategy.
9. Organizational change and transformation requires consistent change and communication over the course of 5-10 years.
10. Measurement is extremely important in non-profits because it creates accountability that is often lacking.
    
11. Recognize that outcome measures for social change are hard, not impossible, but hard.
12. Each year the FBI picks 10 key initiatives and those initiatives are fully funded; their strategy runs the budget - the budget does not run the strategy.
    

Dr. Kaplan delivered a talk on the six step strategy execution closed loop system.

1. Develop strategy based on your mission, vision, and values - should be 10-15 years out for non-profits with measurable objectives. This should not be about what you do but what you want to accomplish. Do some AS IS modeling: we're here what do we have to do to become XYZ.
   
2. Plan your strategy map - executive committee has to create clarity, consensus, and commitment. Then create alignment, educate and communicate, develop feedback loops, and create real accountability.
3. Align Organization - it is not important if you have 8 great units if you don't have 8 great units that work together well. Leadership aligns and synchronizes the organization.
4. Plan your operations - map your key processes in detail to drive real results
5. Improve operationally - monitor and learn. Review your operational dashboards, ask questions (don't blame), separate operation meetings from strategy meetings. Measures should only be questioned one time per year, agree on them, then use them, once you have the measures discuss the data from them. Make it safe for people to report problems
6. Test and adapt - keep asking, how will we know when we are successful.

It is extremely important to understand the diagnostic piece of the puzzle before getting to the design and deliver piece. This is where I think we often fail as an organization - we are so hot to develop a solution we don'ttake the time to understand the problem we are trying to solve.

This conference continues to be an inspiring conference for understanding the power of the balanced scorecard to create meaningful strategic results.