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The Governance Corner

A forum for discussing issues in Independent School governance in the third decade of the 21st Century

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Backcasting to the Future: Meeting your strategic challenges

11/26/2013

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Strategic Planning is by definition: a systematic process of envisioning a desired future, and translating this vision into broadly defined goals and a sequence of steps to achieve them.

In the context of an independent school, or any not for profit institution, the strategic planning process has three main components which are directly tied to the mandate of the Board. They are: to preserve the Vision (philosophy and overall mission of the organization); to understand the present (be grounded in the current realities of the school); and, to construct the future (the Strategic Plan must not only dream, but must also outline a path to make that dream a reality). In contrast to long-range forward planning which is a process to build on present conditions in a systematic fashion through forecasting future needs; strategic planning begins with the ultimate end in mind and through the process of backcasting works backwards through all of the intermediary steps back to present realities. Educators understand the concept of backwards design with respect to curriculum development, but often forget its implications for strategic growth as well. What exactly is backcasting? Backcasting takes forecasting to a new level. Where forecasting looks at current trends and tries to analyze what they mean for future conditions (like a weather forecast); backcasting looks at a possible future and then works backwards to determine what factors or interventions will be necessary to construct the future that we desire. Environmentalists use both methods, constructing models of future degradation based upon business as usual and contrasting that with the preferred future and then determining the actions that society needs to take to get there.
The second path is the one that we want to take in our Strategic Planning.


It is important to remember that the real strength of Strategic Planning is in its capacity to create dissonance in people - to upset old views, identify new possibilities, and pose new questions. In that sense it is more than just a planning tool but is, rather, a process of changing and transforming the organization.

If you have this model in your mind when you undertake the Strategic Planning process then it is easy to distinguish between the two components of the initial stage of your discussions: Vision and Mission.

In a nutshell, your Vision Statement outlines where you want to be and embodies both the values and the aspirations of your school. It talks about your future and provides the inspiration for change. By contrast, your Mission Statement defines your purpose and primary objectives and talks about how you are going to get to where you want to me. The Mission contains both your concrete goals and an operating framework to achieve them. In most cases, your Mission "objectives" will be measurable, shorter term steps towards a realization of your Vision. A key part of your review and/or refreshing of your Vision and Mission statements will involve some careful analysis of where you are now and where you would like to be in the future. This will involve detailed reflection by the Board, Senior Leadership and key friends of the school; it will involve consulting with your stakeholder groups: parents, staff, students, alumni etc.; and it may take some outside research into emergent societal and educational trends, new models of delivery of service, or potential demographic changes. This analysis and fact-finding will help you to clarify what your role is in the community and what should be next on the horizon.

Once you have articulated your Vision, and defined the Mission for the next three to five years, then you are ready to begin, using backcasting, to create a strategic road map of the route to lead the school from the present to its desired future. The "road map" will have milestones (or benchmarks) along the way that will identify critical success factors that are well-defined and quantifiable measures of success that will help to assess your progress as you implement the plan.

You will notice that so far I have not mentioned designing an "action plan" for implementation. Although this is where many Boards often focus their planning (building new facilities; changing programme models; adding technology; etc.), in actual fact these are the relatively unimportant details that you should leave for your "activity planners" (Head and Senior administrators) to research and present back to you. Your interest should be in being convinced that their proposed initiatives will actually ensure that you reach the performance goals that you have set out rather than having the "actions" become ends in themselves.

Finally, once you have refined, communicated and implemented your plan, it is essential that you establish regular reviews and reporting of your achievements based upon measurable, observable outcomes. You should be prepared to make mid-course corrections and expand your indicators to include unexpected new outcomes. The extent to which you effectively monitor your progress and determine that you are meeting those benchmarks will be the true indicator of the success of your plan and its implementation.

As I noted in my last post, you have a choice. You can either create a polished document that sits on the virtual shelf; or, you can initiate an organic process that propels you forward to your desired future.

Come to think of it, there really isn't any choice at all!

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To be strategic - you have to have a plan!

11/22/2013

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Boards are always exhorted to be "strategic" in their outlook and actions. While there is no question that this is a noble ideal, more often than not, they fall short in making it happen. This strategic shortfall is due not to a lack of will, but rather to a lack of precision and understanding about how they are supposed to make it work.

Over the past fifteen years, I have worked with a large number of school Boards (public and private) to support them in their Strategic Planning processes. Without exception, Boards enter into Strategic Planning with the best of intentions. They are thoughtful, reflective, and dedicated to creating a road-map to the future that will both move their institution forward and guarantee its long-term sustainability. There are many possible outcomes resulting from such an initiative, but the most common four are:

1. It loses momentum and is never completed - many Boards will leap with enthusiasm into the process, examining their Vision and Mission and setting lofty (and often vague) goals for the future. However, when you get into the tough grind of consulting with various constituencies; identifying concrete strategic goals and critical success factors; and drafting out the plan, they either lose interest or pass the leg work over to the professional staff to complete. What started as a Board initiative becomes just another administrative report to be read and shelved;

2. It gets completed and filed - If you placed the binders containing all of the unimplemented school strategic plans that have ever been written...well, actually I don't know how far they would stretch but I can guarantee that you could easily run a marathon on them without ever touching the ground! There are a couple of reasons for this. Sometimes, by the time that it is finalized many of the goals have already been implemented. Many Heads will jump on the bandwagon to get out ahead of the Board and begin to put their ideas into practice before they are finalized. The result is the appearance of action without the long- term context on which it is based. In addition, many of the high-sounding principles that are articulated in the report can sometimes run counter to actual present practice. It is easier to quietly set the report aside than it is to live up to its ideals. Finally, you might have a change of membership on the Board or a new Head whose ideas are at variance with the earlier vision. Any way you look at it, the strategic moment is lost;

3. Rather than setting goals and measurable outcomes, the Plan becomes a shopping list of "actions" and "initiatives" - Schools often fall into this trap. Rather than focus on outcomes that you want to see, the plan becomes an amalgam of "changes" instead. To be honest, administrators are a lot more comfortable with inputs (new programmes, new facilities, additional resources, etc.) than with measurable results. If they can steer the report towards a list of actions, then Board ends up just sitting back and checking off their "accomplishments" as soon as the administration puts them into effect. Although this kind of plan can galvanize people into action, at the end of the day there is no vehicle for assessing whether or not what was done had the desired effect. It is hard to hold the school Leadership team accountable for school improvement if all you are asking them to do is to implement a set of initiatives that you have thought up; or,

4. The Plan is written, implemented, and has the desired effect! - Obviously this is the option that everyone is looking for. A plan that is truly strategic, grounded in current realities, and that sets measurable goals and key performance indicators can truly transform a school or school district. 

Next blog we will take a look at how you can ensure that your plan is a number 4!


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Governance in Crisis: the Case of the Canadian Parliament

11/4/2013

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Although print media, television and cyberspace continue to remain fascinated with the fate of the Three Amigos (Duffy, Wallin, Brazeau - or the "Gang of Four" if you included retired Senator Mac Harb), it is not them who are on trial, or even the Senate, but rather it is the current state of Canadian governance that has its feet to the fire.
 
As discussed here many times, good governance is characterized by three key factors: accountability; oversight; and transparency. Currently, at the federal level, we are lacking in all three.  In the 19th century, the Senate was established to protect the regions (in particular the Maritimes but later the West and eventually Quebec) from abuses of power by a majority party in the House of Commons that might draw its electoral strength from elsewhere. Its job was to provide effective oversight of legislation originating in the Commons, giving it "sober" reflection away from the perceived extremes of partisan politics. For all of its faults, over the past 146 years it has played its part in modifying or stopping poorly conceived or inadequately framed bills before they became the law of the land. However, when the Senate merely becomes an extension of the party in power in the Commons, it can no longer play its intended role. There can be no "sober second thought" when the Senate is being whipped along party lines to rubber stamp the decisions of the Executive.

Having said that, the House of Commons is no better. Over 165 years after we achieved "responsible government" in which the executive council (Cabinet) became responsible to the legislative assembly (House of Commons), it appears that our parliamentarians can no longer hold the government to account. We have seen debate and question period devolve into trading off "talking points" and parliamentarians barking like trained seals at every perceived point scored. We have seen governments mislead or "under-inform" Parliament about military expenditures, questionable contracts and payments, and treatment of prisoners of war. We have seen committees disappear "in camera" to prevent an embarrassing "facts" from being made public. And, we have seen successive governments - regardless of their political stripes - depend upon denial and stonewalling to manage issues rather than openness and transparency. Finally, built-in safeguards for accountability like the Privacy Commissioner, or the Parliamentary Budget Officer are fought against tooth and nail to limit or totally stymie any transparent disclosure of expenditures, budget projections or proposed service cuts. 

Even within Parliament's own hallowed halls, the current Senate crisis is basically a product of a faulty or non-existent system for individual oversight. Both the Senate and the House have spent decades validating their own expenses behind closed doors. This lack of an arms-length approval process for the expenses of MPs and Senators has morphed into a national embarrassment. 


Let's be clear, the current sorry state of governance is not merely a product of the current government - although they have raised it to a fine art - it is a product of the slow attrition over decades of the power of individual MPs and Senators, the concentration of influence and information in the hands of a small (an often unelected) group of advisors and insiders, and the gradual disengagement of the public in the electoral and governing processes.  

The current governance crisis in Canada is an abject lesson for independent schools and not-for-profits everywhere. You ignore oversight, accountability and transparency at your peril! In most schools that I know, if the above situation was allowed to develop you would see the Head fired and the Board thrown out by some very irate parents. Either that, or they would quietly go out of business!

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    Author

    Dr. Jim Christopher
    has been working with Boards and Heads on Governance issues for the past 15 years. He is a former Superintendent of Schools, ED of the Canadian Association of Independent Schools and Canadian Educational Standards Institute and is the author of a number of books and articles of education and governance. His latest book, Beyond the Manual: A Realist's Guide to Independent School Governance is available on iTunes or at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/388729

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