How failure refreshed our board
When the leaders in your workplace send invitations to the annual strategic planning session, do you break out the Post-it Notes in anticipation or half-heartedly hide negative body language in resignation?
In the past, strategic planning looked a lot like the old whiteboard filled with ideas for growth or innovation and felt a lot like, “Where did those two days go and why did I eat so much food?”. These days, good leaders use strategic planning to reflect on what the organisation achieved, what it didn’t, what we as employees can learn, and where the organisation goes from here.
As Treasurer and Vice-Chair of Coastlink, a provider of disability services and aged care on the New South Wales Central Coast, I recently attended our annual two-day strategic planning session. But for the first time in a few years, I actually came away refreshed, enthusiastic and . . . optimistic.
Being a not-for-profit, Coastlink has seen many changes in the disability sector, particularly with the rollout of the National Disability Insurance Scheme. We’ve moved from receiving block funding to marketing ourselves to clients and providing fees for service. The challenges are not only dealing with the government but adapting with ever-shrinking budgets to the ever-growing needs of our clients.
The objective, then, at our strategic planning session was to review the year that was then review our chief executive officer’s research about how the future might look—this can be a challenge in the sector, particularly with the Royal Commissions into Aged Care Quality and Safety and Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability. So, what made this strategic planning session different? In a word: honesty.
We’d spent the previous six months working on a merger with a similar not-for-profit entity that provided transport for aged care and clients with a disability. But like a recent study from global audit, tax and advisory service KPMG shows, 83 per cent of mergers fail. We fell headfirst into that category, even though we followed all the right steps in the right order.
The honest conversations about the failure included reflections on the performance of each board member. You couldn’t ask for better professional development. It made a profound impact on the board members, the chief executive officer and the senior staff members. We all learnt invaluable lessons. These informed our thinking about what we would do differently in the future—we threw the whiteboard away and used only the research for ideas for growth or innovation. The result: a strategic plan with a clearer focus on where we see the future of the organisation, how we can better meet its needs, and what skill sets we need on its board.
Now the fun part begins: the implementation of the plan.
The list: five lessons for leaders
Here are five things you can learn from Associate Professor Lisa Barnes’ Coastlink experience.
- Focus on your core mission—don’t get sidetracked by possibilities rather than factual opportunities.
- Uphold the ethics of the board—identify and rectify unethical conduct.
- Understand the roles of board members—appreciate the experience of board members to guide decision making.
- Use client needs to guide service delivery—ask what’s best for your current clients, now and in the future?
- Learn from failure—it’s hard, but recognise when to walk away, accept and move on.
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