It seems that most leaders that we talk to are engaged in various stages of planning to review and evolve their organizational strategy.

And when you have completed that process, to ensure your organisation is fit for purpose, it is a really proud moment. Ta-da! You have a fabulous new strategy.

And proud you should be.

There is a great sense of satisfaction associated with the inclusive process; the alignment of thinking; the sound rationale and commitment to delivering real change for your beneficiaries – that is your strategic plan.

Considering the recognized high level of cognitive load that many leaders have been under in recent months, finding the headspace for strategic planning in the final quarter of 2020 is no mean feat!

A recent article by Christian Jarrett explains this phenomenon beautifully: ‘Cognitive Load Theory: Explaining our fight for focus’

Speaking of headspace.. how do we even start to get our head around what ‘fit for purpose’ actually means in such a constantly evolving landscape?

As the strategy is signed off, the real work is just beginning. The ‘how to’ questions need to be answered, particularly in regard to the agility - and discipline - required for your strategic goal setting:

• How do we set realistic yet agile goals across all levels of the organization to deliver our strategy?
• How will we know 90-Days from now, or 180-Days from now, whether progress has been made towards our strategic priorities?
• How will we measure success and how ready are we to respond if the parameters change?
• How do we ensure every team member feels ownership of their ‘piece’ of the strategy and connected to its success?
•  How do we control the constant ‘busyness’ of our environment to enable deep thinking, so that team members have the headspace needed to bring our strategy to life?
•  How do we balance business as usual and build a culture of strategic prioritisation in 2021?

Goal setting has always been the fundamental accountability tool that we use with our NPA Leadership network. But as Covid hit.. many of our Members expressed a lack of time and headspace to think about their goals. And, to be honest, we were worried that if our leaders were struggling to focus on their strategic goals.. the chances of their teams being focused on what was needed to deliver on organisational success were diminished.

So we developed Goal Tracker – not just for our Leaders, but for their teams.

Using the wise words of Stephen Covey: “The key is to schedule your priorities, not to prioritise your schedule” and Goal Tracker can help you do that through easy to use dashboards where your team track their priority goals over time (as opposed to their to-do list!).

There are a plethora of fantastic online tools for project management; to-do lists; and whiteboards for collaboration on the market, such as Trello; Monday.com; Miro; Asana to name a few. These are excellent project management tools - if that is what you need.

But measuring success against strategic goal setting (as opposed to tasks) seemed to be the missing element. The ‘what next’ after the organizational strategy has been written – to ensure it gets implemented across all areas of the organization. The go-to dashboard to use in team planning; WIP and coaching sessions – the place where the purpose lives! The tool that ladders up and down to deliver on strategy.

We were incredibly lucky this year to work with the fantastic team at Digital Armour Corporation who helped us turn our Goal Setting framework into a real-time online tool for leaders and teams, that did all that.

We have also added some really important aspects such as a ‘Confidence Barometer’ and ‘Greatest Challenge’ to pick up on how your team is feeling in the remote and hybrid working environments.

We would love to show you how it might help you implement your strategy. Contact us for a free demo anytime.

Define your Goals; believe in them; share them.. you’re already halfway there!

Kind regards

Carmel Molloy, CEO and Co-Founder
The NonProfit Alliance

NPA provides team training on Goal Tracker and sets up your team’s individual profiles including: individual names, titles, photos and organisation logo. To find out more visit NPA Goal Tracker or email jane@nonprofitalliance.com.au or contact Carmel on 0401710837 to book a free demo.

The NonProfit Alliance (www.nonprofitalliance.com.au) was established in 2015 to enhance the strategic business skills and leadership capabilities of senior executives in Australia’s social sector. It is now recognised as the sector’s leading peer2peer network, bringing CEO’s and senior executives together through innovative, sophisticated and well-structured leadership programs that build capability.