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More Money for More Mission Delivery Over the past few months, we have supported the realignment and optimization of the admissions and membership fees and programs for several colleagues. This critically important process has helped our clients identify new sources of operating revenues even without increases in visitation. We recently facilitated this Pricing Optimization Assessment for Membership on behalf of the Dallas Zoo. Through this process, the Dallas Zoo is positioned to realize:
Recognizing the importance of a strong and sound membership program that closely complements admissions, the Dallas Zoo leadership team worked to realign the membership program as a critical component of its overall financial stability. RS&S worked with the Dallas Zoo leadership team to facilitate this realignment with a focus on optimizing the interplay of membership and admissions. Using both qualitative and quantitative data, we facilitated a process that served to:
Armed with their new membership model, the Dallas Zoo has started to roll-out their newly aligned and optimized membership program. While this new approach will ensure that the Zoo is fully leveraging the program both for members and in support of the business model, the process also yielded several other benefits:
Building consensus helped to break down silos and create a more collegial dynamic between guest services and membership while simultaneously generating greater excitement around and support for driving membership. Efforts to realign, optimize, and coordinate the admission and membership fees and programs will result in the maximization of your earned revenues. We encourage you to engage in a similar process. Now is the ideal time to ensure that you are not leaving “money on the table” when it is needed more than ever AND also to leverage the public’s deeper understanding that the fees they pay support the sustainability of their most treasured community assets. Email us at [email protected] and we would be happy to provide greater detail on the specific Membership Study process used to “realign and optimize” the Dallas Zoo’s admissions and membership fees and programs.
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2020! What a year it was! As we are now fully into 2021, it is quickly becoming clear that many of the challenges of the past year will remain with us well into this year. While that is a difficult realization, it also presents opportunities – among them the chance to leverage these obstacles to continue to shape and evolve your volunteer leadership to ensure that it remains an engaged and contributing force for your organization.
As COVID-19 first made its way across the globe and communities faced shutdowns, significant job losses and historic and unforeseen impacts to daily personal and professional life, many leaders were forced to shutter their doors and/or shift to severe austerity measures to weather what was initially thought (or perhaps just hoped) to be a short-lived storm. While in this reactive mindset, many leaders found themselves leaning on their Boards in unprecedented ways, convening their most trusted advisors to collectively navigate these uncharted waters. The circumstances demanded previously unparalleled levels of engagement and participation from Board members while simultaneously providing Boards with first-hand knowledge of their passionate, resourceful, hard-working staff members. This new dynamic was intimate and reinforced a sense of trust, transparency, and open communication. Within this reinvigorated relationship, staff were at their best managing the day-to-day with the Board providing thoughtful counsel, tapping into their personal networks, and offering other forms of support as circumstances demanded and allowed. As we begin a new year and decade, it is imperative that the collaborative spirit between Boards and staff leadership only become stronger in the coming months. Elevated levels of Board engagement and leadership will be critical for the ongoing survival and success of our nonprofit colleagues. We encourage our clients and colleagues to consider how they can utilize the current global health crisis to continue to leverage their volunteer leaders. Staff leadership needs to be strategic, taking time to evaluate and identify key strategies and initiatives. To help frame this effort, we encourage you to read The Essence of Resilient Leadership: Business Recovery from COVID-19, written by Deloitte Global CEO Punit Renjen for Deloitte Insights. In the article, Mr. Renjen discusses how successfully navigating the global health crisis requires resilient leadership. He defines resilience in the following way:
The article discusses what resilient leaders do across three major time frames: “Respond”, “Recover”, and “Thrive”. When the pandemic and its shutdowns and initial impacts emerged, we were thrust into the “Respond” mode. Now, with some reflection, we can begin to think about shifting into the “Recover” mode while being prepared to “Thrive” when the health crisis is firmly in our collective rear-view mirrors. In thinking about positioning your organization for success, particularly in a way that fully maximizes the strengths of your volunteer leaders, we encourage organizations to reflect on 2020 and make a plan for this year and beyond, so that they may deftly and nimbly navigate the remainder of the health crisis while simultaneously positioning themselves to “thrive” in what will be a “new” normal. Strategic Analysis
Make a Plan The requirements of resilient leadership include trust, anticipating what success looks like when the crisis has come to an end, and then defining a set of smaller, successive steps that slowly move an organization to that defined success. After reflecting on 2020 and using these criteria for resilient leadership, now is the time to develop a plan or detailed strategy for the coming year. How can the deep trust that was strengthened or built with your Board while in “Respond” mode be maintained or further enhanced?
What does success look like for your organization when the global health crisis finally comes to an end?
To achieve that success, what are the “bite-sized” pieces that can be executed over time to get there?
As we have come to know all too well, the situation will continue to evolve and there may be more challenges that we can’t anticipate today. While we can’t prepare for every possibility, we can have a plan for how we respond in a crisis and how we continue to activate and engage our volunteer leaders. Doing so will allow us to pivot when necessary while also being ideally positioned to emerge from this global health crisis with the strongest, most engaged leadership possible, ready to serve at the helm of a thriving organization. Getting Back to Normal by Getting Back to Basics We at RS&S recently worked with Michele Smith and the Woodland Park Zoo (WPZ) team to outsource their food service and catering operations. We were wowed by her spirited management approach, so we reached out to her to discuss some of the strategies she and her team are employing to keep WPZ moving forward. We are pleased to share them with you here: Michele Smith, the CFO of the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, knows a thing or two about returning to normalcy after a cataclysmic event: she worked for United Airlines on 9/11. Getting through that devastating experience instilled in her a practical, action-oriented guiding philosophy that has roared into action as she helps to lead the Woodland Park Zoo’s efforts to operate through the COVID-19 pandemic. The steps Michele and her team took and her ongoing work to ensure that the Woodland Park Zoo is ready to welcome visitors back, as soon as given the clearance to open, offer lessons that could benefit every AZA institution. Know what you have and what you need. Back in 2017, in her first weeks at WPZ, Michele assessed the Zoo’s continuity plan and other existing plans and protocols for all types of situations – a kind of “health check” for how the Zoo’s operations were performing in general, as well as how well equipped they were to handle an emergency. The health check required active communication and input from all the departments under her purview and identified some gaps in their policies that they could address in a thoughtful and integrated manner. Through the health check, Michele and her team determined that WPZ had an excellent Emergency Response Plan for on-property emergencies like an animal escape or fire, but knowing how 9/11 affected United Airlines, Michele knew they needed to develop policies and processes to handle the effects of an off-property catastrophe. One of her first priorities was to ensure that WPZ was prepared to shift to flexible work conditions if ever necessary by talking to her IT staff about the tools and processes in place and what needed to be enhanced. Work from Home (WFH) capabilities were enacted, enabling working from the Cloud and using Microsoft 365 to provide the appropriate business management tools. Michele’s comprehensive health check of the existing plans prepared WPZ with tested and proven WFH capabilities before they were essential to their ongoing functioning, as has been the case these last few weeks. Replicating the work done to develop the WFH capabilities with her IT Team, Michele then focused on coordinated efforts involving the People and Culture, Commissary and Facility teams, reviewing plans for animal care, feeding, sanitation, maintenance and communication to troubleshoot potential weaknesses and plug any gaps. They addressed questions involving supply and storage of food, identifying essential workers, prioritizing workflow and developing effective ways to share information with all staff and stakeholders. Communication is key. Developing the plans was the necessary first step, but a close second was determining how to share it with all staff so that everyone would be well informed and prepared to act quickly and appropriately when needed. Woodland Park Zoo enacted a multi-tiered plan to be enacted in extraordinary situations based on changing conditions:
As COVID-19 hit the Seattle area earlier this year, WPZ was quick to respond and able to do so in a carefully controlled way due to the solid planning already in place and understood by the staff. Senior leadership worked together to establish the protocols and command chain in determining when to flex from one phase to the next, whether on a weekly or even daily basis. Since the start of COVID-19 and throughout this time, the executive team meets every week and they reach out to all employees on a weekly basis with updates and information. The Vice President of Engagement helped develop the communications plan that lays out a timeline running through October with four different audiences in mind – internal, external, Board and donors. Pivot for effectiveness. Since non-essential departments and staff members (those not responsible for animal care, vet or facilities) were able to move from “business as usual” to working from home fairly seamlessly, they were able to pivot quickly and responsively to the new situation. Pivots Marketing pivoted from traditional to strictly digital: The marketing department enacted digital outreach efforts to keep the community informed and engaged while the Zoo is closed. Development pivoted from campaign-focused efforts to care calls: Development staff continues to reach out to donors and friends, checking in with them and letting them know that the animals are being well cared for and are doing fine. They are not actively seeking solicitations during these calls but are asking donors to remember them. They have also established a relief fund to support the Zoo during these months of closure. Education pivoted from on-site, volunteer-driven activities and experiences to the creation of an online syllabus: Education staff worked to prepare and disseminate materials, resources and videos for virtual learning to support Pacific North West schools. Think ahead. The comprehensive advanced planning allowed for a streamlined and purposeful launch of the “new normal,” freeing up some bandwidth for leadership to prepare for future re-opening. With the knowledge that essential staff were caring for the animals and handling the necessary on-site upkeep while the WFH, non-essential staff were advancing the Zoo’s mission through their targeted departmental efforts, leadership could identify and address anticipated concerns that would impact the Zoo’s ability to re-open.With an eye on being prepared to re-open as soon as allowed, Michele and the leadership team focused on four main issues: 1. Ensuring Financial Stability: Relying on their financial contingency plan, WPZ is working with their bank to explore an increased line of credit, and is now reviewing the newly created SBA loans created from the recently passed CARES act to ensure enough liquidity to sustain their operations through these months of closure without tapping into their endowment or Board-designated funds for the time being. They are being thoughtful and targeted in their efforts to cut expenses while maintaining key functionality. 2. Understanding and Meeting City/County/State/CDC Guidelines: WPZ leadership maintains regular contact with local and regional authorities and leverages their Board members’ contacts to access and share information as appropriate. They are working to share their plans with the local health department so that they can be sure they are taking appropriate measures and to learn of any new requirements as soon as possible. They teamed up with their local aquarium partner to bolster their advocacy power in representing their interests and their willingness to serve as a community resource – lots of open space for people to safely walk and appreciate nature and wildlife as a respite from the stresses of the current situation. When the green light is given to re-open, WPZ will have done all in its power to be well-positioned to welcome back visitors in a safe and timely manner. 3. Enacting Social Distancing/Crowd Control Measures: Knowing that a re-opening may eventually be authorized first through a limited, phased approach, the leadership team has been taking proactive steps to enact crowd control measures that will ensure a safe and enjoyable experience for their visitors. Timed ticketing was an item already on their radar, but they have moved up their implementation timeline to be ready for re-opening and are considering other technological enhancements that limit hand-to-hand/person-to-person contact. They’ll set aside times just for members and use the timed ticketing process to ensure manageable crowd size. They also walked the property and marked off areas on their map where social distancing could be safely enforced, while designating other areas and buildings off limits due to concerns about crowd control and potential logjams. Finally, plans are being reviewed to develop signage to indicate the new crowd flow directions, sanitary facilities and to address new entry and food and retail processes including mobile phone ordering. They also plan to mimic standards recently enacted at grocery stores where necessary and possible, such as lines on floors to indicate safe distances, plastic barriers between people, food/registers, use of gloves, etc. 4. Preparing for Flexible Staffing: Building on their flexible staffing plans that address fluctuating seasonality needs, WPZ will rely on these standards to inform their decision making as they develop a hybrid staffing response upon re-opening. There will be active and ongoing communication with their staff to share plans and expectations in as timely a manner as possible in recognition of the toll that uncertainty takes on their highly valued employees. Through these efforts, Michele and her team at Woodland Park Zoo have stayed in front of the situation with their thoughtful leadership, proactive strategic planning and creative responses to a challenging situation. Woodland Park Zoo’s example may serve as a template for the AZA to consider for creating an emergency planning protocol as part of the accreditation process, including development of a business continuity checklist and guidelines with standards and best practices to guide AZA members during times like these. By sharing what works and promoting proactive planning, AZA members can support each other and ensure that we all emerge to welcome our visitors back, serve our communities and promote critical conservation messaging that is as important as ever. Relevant Strategies for Next-Level Action: Even though we focus on zoos and aquariums in this article, many of these strategies would apply equally well to organizations of all types. Successful leaders of nonprofit institutions - especially zoos and aquariums - have always been adept at thinking “outside the box” in developing plans to engage donors, provide novel guest experiences, and achieve financial and organizational goals. Through this creative thinking, many zoos have flourished over the years, becoming beloved and valuable community assets. Now, in these unprecedented times, we need to take it even further and think “outside the building” as we confront the challenges before us. Engaging in a new way of doing business now will enable us to marshal the resources necessary to emerge from the crisis intact - perhaps a little battered, but certainly not beaten – and ready to welcome back a community in need of the diversion and joy that our zoos and aquariums have always provided to our visitors. Below we have outlined 7 key “outside the building” thinking strategies nonprofit leaders should consider now: 1. Talk to your bankers. Money is cheap now, so consider borrowing and using endowment or reserve funds as collateral for the loan rather than drawing them down. Working with your banker, make a plan to cap off the loan and pay it back over the longest possible period of time. With a financing plan in place, determine how to proceed and don’t be afraid to invest – focus on core values and key re- opening initiatives as you move through this period of time. 2. Use your Board. Your Board is composed of community and business leaders who are there to support you, voted onto your Board because of specific experience, skills, connections or knowledge. Tap into it! Draw on their diverse skill sets and capabilities to support your planning efforts and contribute to new ideas. 3. Collaborate and communicate with partners. You’ve developed relationships with vendors, consultants, and colleagues over the years that should be leaned into now to both offer and provide support to each other.
4. Pivot to a four-day work week for essential staff. In an effort to avoid layoffs in other departments, develop a plan that guarantees 80% pay with additional vacation days. Be open and communicate with your staff. Include messages of team unity and camaraderie – “we are in this together” and “we will not forget you once we rebound.” 5. Develop a “Re-Opening Plan.” When the green light is given to re-open – and we will re-open! - zoos need to be up and running quickly, ready to welcome our guests back with open arms. Develop a plan to address free days, discounts/values, parking fees, new experiences, messaging, etc.
6. Keep the Zoo Engaged with Community. Empower your most creative staff to develop new ways of maintaining contact with your audience and nurturing those relationships. Look at the amazing work being done by zoos and aquariums around the country, which is being shared virtually. Create your own social media presence and tag it using #bringingthezootoyou and #closedbutstillcaring – join the industry’s efforts bringing our mission to our communities. 7. Get Creative with Donor Cultivation. Implement a creative cultivation plan utilizing all staff – but especially keepers and interpretive staffs – to connect with donors in fun and unexpected ways such as “Care Calls” where keepers tell donors how well the animals are doing. Support the staff with talking points and call hing as necessary so they are empowered to engage the donors with confidence. We at RS&S have been proud to work with the zoo and aquarium community for more than 3 decades. In that time, many of our relationships have grown from positive work collaborations into true friendships. We are here for you – for all of you. Whether engaged in active work with us right now, an old client, or a new friend we just haven’t met yet, feel free to email us: [email protected] or [email protected]. We are happy to discuss any of the ideas above or to serve as a sounding board for your creative thinking. Managing through the COVID-19 Crisis: An Institutional Leaders ACTION GUIDE Everyone is asking – how do we best proceed given our unprecedented situation? From our collective discussions, we would like to share eight actionable steps for leaders to consider as we navigate through these challenging times:
1. Do Plan. Do NOT Panic. Now is the time to work closely with your Board, drawing on members’ diverse skill sets and experiences to strategize and develop specific contingency plans based on different scenarios and timelines. 2. Commit to your Staff. Your employees are the foundation of everything you do, and they need as much support and reassurance as possible right now. Communicate with them regularly, providing as much information and clarity as possible. 3. Be Proactive, Not Reactive. Focus now on developing guidelines/policies/procedures that City/County/State and health officials will endorse relative to maintaining open hours and/or re-opening as soon as possible. Ensure that you are prepared to be among the first public venues ready to welcome visitors with safe and sound protocols. 4. Be Adaptive, Creative and Flexible. Knowing that the situation keeps changing, be ready for what’s next by engaging your staff in open discussions about what’s possible – virtual tours, live podcast keeper talks, webcams or other opportunities to connect with your community (e.g., Houston Zoo with goats and the Shedd aquarium with penguins). Consider using resources you already have - for example, traveling zoo/keeper experiences – and adjusting them to the present situation. For example, if you are the leader of a zoo or aquarium, consider arranging for pop-up, no-contact animal experiences in community parks or supermarket parking lots where people can feel hopeful and share in some fun through real and virtual animal experiences and keeper chats. 5. Hold Steady to Your Mission. Resist the temptation to start slashing costs through “budget cut fire drills” and “value- engineering” your mission by targeting seemingly “expendable” expenses like conservation programs. Budget adjustments will likely be required, but do not rush into decisions based on fear and uncertainty; allow some breathing room for a more measured and long-view approach. WE WILL RECOVER FROM THESE CHALLENGES! 6. Communicate! Determine the best ways to reach out to your community, focus your messaging and position your organization to welcome guests and engage your community as conditions allow.
7. Invite Partners to Help. Reach out to loyal friends, trusted supporters and local/regional corporate partners to support and help develop socially responsible initiatives to uplift the community, whether by ensuring safe opening conditions or developing outreach activities such as those listed above. Local pharmaceutical companies or health care providers may be equipped to offer professional expertise, access to information or even to establish a virus testing station at your organization as a community resource. 8. Support Each Other. We are all in this together, so be generous with your colleagues in sharing what’s working for you. Feel free to reach out to me at [email protected] with deas, questions or comments. We’re here to help.  Given the strange times that we are experiencing, the RS&S team wanted to offer some perspective…
Strange Days Indeed. Certain lines of John Lennon’s “Nobody Told Me” could have been written just for this time right now: Everybody’s talking and no one says a word…always something happening and nothing’s going on…everybody’s runnin’ and no one makes a move…everybody’s crying and no one makes a sound…nobody told me there’d be days like these…Strange days indeed… The uncertainty is extremely unsettling. We don’t know who will get sick or when, what the stock market is going to do, or when the kids will go back to school. Many of us feel adrift, with our normal routines pulled out from under us and new questions swirling daily: Should we cancel that business trip? How will we meet our goals? What should we be doing? Not to mention all of the tele-conferencing issues: How do I mute my mic? Do I really look like that? Can you hear me now? We can easily get lost in the wondering and worrying about it all. And while our concerns are understandable and unavoidable, we can look to each other for strength, inspiration and motivation to move forward within our individual lives with grace and purpose. Like the singers and musicians sharing the beauty of song with their quarantined neighbors, we each have the power to make things a little better in our own ways in our own worlds. How we rise to the challenges before us is what matters. We are all in this uncharted territory together. The days are strange because it feels like we have lost our way. The team here at RS&S urges you to remember your North Star. Hold that bright goal in your sights and keep moving forward. The way may not be smooth and straight, but with purpose and confidence we’ll come through and reach our destination. Be Safe! “Put your pants on, Joe!” Our planning team is never at a loss for colorful metaphors when it comes to making aspects of our work clear and relatable. This quality was on display at this year’s Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) annual meeting in September in New Orleans. Jill Macauley, our Director of Strategic, Business & Organizational Consulting, facilitated a panel discussion with four industry leaders, each representing a different perspective: Sean Greene, COO & Executive Vice President Park Operations, Dallas Zoo; Chris Pfefferkorn, President & CEO, Birmingham Zoo; Dr. Rebecca Snyder, Curator of Conservation & Science, Oklahoma City Zoo; and Andy Wood, COO, The Florida Aquarium. During the panel discussion, an audience member raised a concern about the difficulty of transitioning from the planning process to implementation. Specifically, she asked about who does that work of implementation and, in essence, how. While the panelists provided their perspectives, Jill added that the plan doesn’t tell you to first put your left pant leg on and then your right. Instead, it simply tells you to “put your pants on, Joe.” While that metaphor got quite a chuckle and even a suggestion for next year’s session title, it illustrates an important point: The plan doesn’t tell you how “to put your pants on” because every organization and even every staff member will implement the same steps in different ways. Your strategic plan and ultimately how you implement it needs to be tailored to fit your organization rather than being specifically prescribed by a facilitator. As one of our panelists said, “You need a plan that sets you up for success.” In a way, this colorful phrase was a theme of the session. There is ultimately no one or absolute right way to develop a strategic plan. It must reflect the organization and its unique culture in order to be a plan that will establish a realistic yet ambitious roadmap for an organization’s future. However, it became apparent through the session that while there is no one right way, there are some universal elements and considerations when it comes to developing a strategic plan. We are proud of Jill for facilitating a spirited and productive session and are grateful to our panelists who took the time out of their very busy schedules to share their perspectives. We captured the essence of the discussion in the summary below. We invite you to read the panelists’ insights and reflect on strategic planning processes in which you’ve been involved. Lessons Learned – Panel Discussion
Sean: We had the perfect storm in 2009, presented with an opportunity to privatize the Dallas Zoo quickly in about 4 months with many unknowns. In short-order we started a new company, added a new management Board to our existing Zoological Society Board, developed new HR policies and transferred more than 200 staff over to the Dallas Zoo Management company. At the same time, 75% of our executive leadership staff was new. Between 2009 and 2016, we were running full steam ahead with a high degree of success, but without a defined strategic roadmap. With the enormity of things to accomplish post-privatization, we were essentially driving our own cars 100 miles per hour towards the intended finish line. By 2016, looking in our rear-view mirror we had covered a lot of distance but in many ways were traveling different roads towards success. In 2016 we took the time to develop a true roadmap rooted in a new strategic plan that would get us in the same caravan headed towards that finish line together. Rebecca: We had several changes in senior leadership with a new Director, Deputy Director and Director of our Society. In addition, the mission hadn’t really been revisited for nearly 15 years so that also represented the right time to begin the planning process. Andy: The aquarium had brand new leadership. A year after new leadership was in place, we began strategic planning with the specific goal of understanding the business; now, we needed to lay out the roadmap. For us, the process was the most important and the timing was right to evaluate every aspect of what we do and why we do it and either reaffirm those aspects that were valuable and important or eliminate those that were inefficient and ineffective for the organization. Chris: We were also going through an executive leadership change. Within a year, our CFO and our COO retired. We had a Board Chair change and our CEO was working on his exit plan. The current strategic plan was also about 7 years old. The executive leadership change was a big prompt to get the plan going. It allowed us, with the new leadership, to create a team and work together and bring the Zoo together at a time when people were asking about our direction. All the people driving the ship were jumping the ship. We were able to develop a vision statement for the Zoo, which we hadn’t had in a long time. All of that set the zoo on the path to be successful.
Andy: We all get caught in what we do every day. For us, the strategic planning process didn’t just slam on the brakes for the executive leadership team, it did it for the entire organization. You can’t think big and bold when you are caught up in the day-to-day. Our CEO uses a phrase “make no little plans.” However, those are words – we needed a process and a strategic vision that allowed everybody to own those words.
Sean: What was supposed to be a 7-month process turned into a 12-month process, because once we started, we realized more conversations were needed to fully engage our various internal stakeholders. Our initial staff survey only garnered a 40% participation rate, so we added more time for surveying staff, volunteers, Board Members and the community. We layered in focus groups and Board retreats to make it as inclusive as possible. As a result, we established an employee advisory committee made up of 15 supervisor level staff to give us a pulse of the Zoo and discuss key issues we may have missed. They helped provide feedback and develop our core values which we have integrated into the Dallas Zoo’s onboarding process and hiring practices. The committee is still active today, under the name Zoonity. Chris: We had six strategic mandates with leaders over each. We had multi-disciplinary teams for each mandate that built out the associated objectives and strategies. At the same time, we surveyed volunteers, Board, staff and some city officials to get their input on our core values as well as test the mission and vision statements. It was a full team effort in putting our plan together. By doing that, we created ownership for our plan to the point where people now ask when an idea comes up, “How does that relate to our strategic plan?” Once you have your plan and are at the stage of massaging it, don’t do it in a room with your executive team. It has to come back to everybody because they are a part of the plan and you need to explain why certain changes were made. Then you have buy-in and then they will hold you, all the way up to the CEO, accountable for its implementation. At the end, we had an open house where people could talk to each mandate leader about the strategies and objectives. It gave even more people who weren’t as involved in the process the opportunity to really understand the plan.
Chris: I can speak to this on two levels: institutional and personal. On a personal level, I had always been on the animal side. When I went to the Birmingham Zoo as a Senior Vice President, I took on a lot more of the operational role. However, I was still seen as the animal person by the Board. Being able to lead the Zoo through strategic planning, reporting to the Board, involving the Board, involving the staff and involving the community, I got to show that I had an ability to lead. It gave me an opportunity to showcase my skills to the people making the hiring decision. On an institutional level, once the plan was adopted, it gave the executive search committee a guide for who they were looking for in their next CEO. When they adopted the plan, they knew what the Zoo would be doing and where it would be going and how it would do it – this allowed them to search for a leader that they felt could successfully implement the plan.
Andy: We had a Task Force with nine Board members and eight senior staff members. The Board was involved but were not driving the process alone. With staff on the task force, the Board had an opportunity to lead and engage but not feel the need to dictate the direction our organization should go. The Board also asked for community leaders to serve on the Task Force. Having those community members within the group was a gift because they shared ideas that we hadn’t previously thought about. They looked at us differently. They asked a lot of challenging questions, which was great to have in the process. Sean: We had 60% participation on the Board survey. We also had Board retreats and regular communication with the Board. It was more about them turning the lens inward to say, “How do I engage?” and “What do I want to take from this?” As part of that, the Board reduced its Committees from 16 down to 8 and revamped our nomination process, executive committee and term limits. [Audience Question] How do you manage your team within the process? Also, we are often criticized for always planning rather than executing. How do you wrap all of these elements into a concise presentation or communication to the Board? Chris: We spread out the workload so that it didn’t all fall on only a handful of people. That helped and got a lot more buy-in. I noticed that a lot of people were putting their job duties into the plan. We had to pull all of those out and distinguish between job responsibilities and the plan. We then looked objectively at the plan and considered whether the plan was too big and whether it was going to overburden the staff. We then pared it down to get a realistic plan. It was a big eye opener for much of the staff to see that on one hand there is their job and on the other, with the plan, is the clarity on why and how they do their jobs. Andy: It’s about timing too. Before starting this process, the Board told us they have done strategic plans before that end up as very nice printouts on a shelf. How do we make sure that doesn’t happen? We timed the process so that we would have a plan drafted in May because we launch our annual planning in June. We wanted staff to have a framework to build from and that would inform their annual planning efforts. So, the latest annual plan shows the strategic plan coming to life. Sean: Embedded in every staff member’s annual performance reviews are aspects of the strategic plan. Everyone can find themselves within the strategic plan. It also ensures that the plan doesn’t sit on a shelf and collect dust. You have to regularly revisit the plan and make sure everybody is executing the items assigned to them. The other piece is the measurable aspects of the plan. It is not always easy to do, but you need to show those accomplishments in measurable terms. [Audience Question] When you have so many different people working on the pillars/goals/mandates, how do you keep it cohesive? Chris: We brought all the mandate leaders together to review it all as a group. We had to take a step back and logically walk through each objective and consider whether it was achievable or more “pie in the sky.” You want to set up a plan for success. We did a 3-year plan and made a point not to put too much into it. We sifted as a group and then the mandate leaders then took the comments back to their groups and made changes. We then put it back together and reviewed once more. [Audience Question] Did any of you use an outside facilitator to work with you along the way or to kick start things? Chris: I would highly recommend a facilitator. You want to be able to focus on and be a part of the planning process rather than having to focus on the work of having to facilitate it. Doing that will spread you thin and be difficult. You need somebody to help you through the process. Plus, they are a great bridge to your Board, staff, volunteers or community. Sean: Strategic planning can be a scary process. However, you can’t hire somebody and not have thick skin and have there be things you aren’t willing to hear. If you want it facilitated, get someone with an expert opinion who can challenge your thinking. Without that, you aren’t going to grow, and you aren’t going to find your blind spots to understand what you don’t know. Andy: We used two facilitators. We had a facilitator who led the process at the Board level. A facilitator keeps you honest so that one person isn’t taking over the process. We had staff champions for each of our core pillars who were responsible for facilitating the process internally. We then brought in our second facilitator to take what we were building from our staff level, review it and make sure it was in-line with what we had originally laid out with the Board. It was a way to make sure we weren’t getting caught in our own little buckets. [Audience Question] How does the continuous evaluation of the plan work? Rebecca: The goals for all the employees are set based on the strategic plan. Every employee has at least quarterly check-ins with their supervisor about their progress. Every employee has an HR-related goal that ties directly to an action step in the strategic plan. That gives us the continuous evaluation as well as an opportunity to determine whether something in the plan needs to be changed. Jill: Often you will see annual Board retreats, which include a higher-level evaluation of the plan. Some organizations review the plan monthly and quarterly. Sometimes there are all-staff workshops to update the plan. There are a variety of tools, but each one of these organizations has some sort of dashboard that allows them to regularly monitor progress on the plan.
[Audience Question] There is a lot of support from the facilitator while developing the plan but after all that work is done, who is actually doing the work of implementing the plan? Chris: We have each objective assigned to an individual with the knowledge and ability to handle that objective. The mandate leader checks-in with everybody within their mandate to make sure things are getting done and to offer support. We had to identify people and make it a part of their jobs. It starts at the top, with our executive team, to hold each other accountable and that filters down. Sean: Initially our CFO and Senior Director of HR regularly updated the progress on the strategic objectives. It should be everybody and we continue to get better at everyone owning that responsibility. Rebecca: We have individuals or certain groups of individuals who are assigned to the objectives, each of which has a year attached to it. Those individuals are expected to report back on how things are going. It starts at the top, but filters down through every level of the organization so that every single person feeds into the objectives and action steps that are relevant to their job responsibilities.
Rebecca: It’s critical to have a facilitator. It’s equally important to include the staff as much as you can. Once you develop workgroups, it’s helpful to have them communicate with each other to make sure it’s cohesive. Sean: You don’t want this to die on the vine. You can demoralize staff quickly if you ask them to put in the work and then the plan sits on the shelf after you’ve gone through 7-12 months of effort. Chris: Don’t be afraid to make your plan achievable. You want to be successful so make sure your plan is logical, will work and is what your institution needs. Andy: I would add the community engagement at the beginning, but I would record those conversations. We serve a mission so everything we are talking about is a strategic plan to live our mission. Capturing that passion for the mission and being able to have that on-hand when times are difficult is a powerful piece of this.
Sean: The opportunity for staff feedback was important to the process. From that input came new engagement opportunities, core values and a restructured organizational chart. Jill: Without assigning people to objectives and action steps, the accountability gets lost. There is a lot of gray area because it’s never ultimately one person’s job but someone has to own it getting done. In many regards, strategic plans can become that rallying tool for staff because we are all in it together. We know what we want to achieve in the next several years. Last year, I wrote an article on the lessons I learned while attending my first annual AZA (Association of Zoos and Aquariums) Conference. Having now attended my second annual conference, I wanted to share again my takeaways and experiences as a young professional. This past year has been a particularly busy one and has led to significant personal and professional growth. One of the most significant contributors to that growth has been the mentorship of an experienced industry professional who has helped to guide my career by providing leadership, advice and support over the past year. He has also proven to be what all good mentors should be: challenging – and I mean that in the best way possible. He doesn’t let me get too comfortable; he is always pushing me to do and achieve more, to push my boundaries and set ambitious goals for myself. For a young professional, this is exactly what is needed, whether your field is consulting, engineering or medicine. I was lucky to have my mentor also in attendance at this year’s conference. While there, he posed to me a series of questions to support and encourage my continued growth. Over the course of my time at the conference, there were three particular questions he asked that I felt were valuable to share, especially for young professionals new to industry conferences or similar events. Not only did these questions imply a clear expectation that my participation in the conference be active and engaged rather than passive, but they also helped to frame what that engagement might look like and how to achieve it.
As I mentioned in my article last year, he asked me this because he knew that as a young person at a major industry conference, I might feel inclined to focus on my visibility and, as a result, talk too much. After all, if movies and TV have taught us anything it’s that we as millennials know the answers to everything and are often intent on showcasing our expertise. It’s a classic pitfall that young “hotshot” professionals often fall into, and one I was fortunate to be warned extensively about in the run-up to both this and last year’s AZA Annual Conference. My mentor’s goal with this question was to see if I had been paying attention and had begun to discern trends and potential new opportunities for my budding career. You can’t do this while talking. My mentor was asking me if I had been practicing good business skills in my interactions with other conference attendees in addition to reminding me to be more like Silent Cal: talk less, listen more.
Again, he was not looking for me to give him a list of the people with whom I’d spoken during the day. He was asking how I was going to make the conversation work for me. After all, the conversations that I had regarding work, the industry and the AZA were not without a purpose. They were meant to develop new business opportunities and work on existing projects, while also building a professional business network for myself and my organization. These professional networks are a key element in anyone’s career and even more so for consultants as genuine relationships are the lifeblood of our work. Maintaining, managing, nurturing, and growing this network is therefore a key component of any young professionals’ career, and the best place to do all of this is at a conference.
I had learned a great deal during my time at the conference, ranging from sustainability efforts of NGOs to membership trends. Again, that was not what my mentor was asking of me. He was asking what I had learned to help me in my career. The truth is that overall, I learned less than I had at my first AZA Annual Conference the previous year. While I had certainly learned things that would be vital to the advancement of my career by forging new connections, working with clients and meeting vendors and partners, there was nothing as significant as what I had learned from my first experience in 2018. What I realized was that last year’s AZA Conference had kick-started a new phase of my career and the lessons that I had learned this year built upon the foundation I established at my first conference. I describe it as feeling like a snowball that started rolling at the AZA 2018 Conference and that has since continued to roll downhill. Over the past year, I have benefited immensely from having the guidance and leadership of a mentor who believes in me and is willing to invest the time and energy helping me and my career grow and develop. He has challenged, educated and supported my career and professional and personal growth. These things seem simple and small, but they are critical in the development of any young professional’s career. This is the most powerful lesson that I have learned over the past year, and it was reinforced through my experiences at this year’s conference. It is also what I find myself coming back to as I reflect on the conference. One of our colleagues recently shared a presentation delivered in a workshop to the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra by John McCann, President of Partners in Performance, about addressing the Orchestra's financial challenges and building a sustainable business model. The talk was framed to inspire discussion and new ways of thinking, as nonprofit organizations must “carve out roles of relevance and impact for their specific and unique community if they are going to garner the investment necessary for future endeavors.”
Well, one can just imagine how seeing that phrase got our hearts racing! That very idea, empowering nonprofit leaders to rise to the challenges and opportunities of fostering relevance, is what led us to launch our Bigger.Better.Faster. approach in the first place. (And also inspired the name of our firm!) Mr. McCann points to three key features that support relevance and are required for long-term sustainability:
Issues of resiliency, leadership, analysis and communication also feature prominently as Mr. McCann concludes his presentation – all topics near and dear to our heart. Our Bigger.Better.Faster. summary of these issues:
We appreciate Mr. McCann’s approach to the financial realities confronting the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Given the seriousness of this challenge and the fact that that most if not all nonprofit organizations are in a similar boat, figuring out how to connect relevance to impact should be at the top of everyone’s “To Do” list. As you can imagine, we have much more to say about relevance, financial sustainability and other issues as they relate to our Bigger.Better.Faster. philosophy, including connecting with community and changing the conversation. Stay tuned for more in the coming weeks! By: Rick Biddle One of our colleagues recently shared a presentation delivered in a workshop to the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra by John McCann, President of Partners in Performance, about addressing the Orchestra's financial challenges and building a sustainable business model. The talk was framed to inspire discussion and new ways of thinking, as nonprofit organizations must “carve out roles of relevance and impact for their specific and unique community if they are going to garner the investment necessary for future endeavors.”
Well, one can just imagine how seeing that phrase got our hearts racing! That very idea, empowering nonprofit leaders to rise to the challenges and opportunities of fostering relevance, is what led us to launch our Bigger.Better.Faster. approach in the first place. (And also inspired the name of our firm!) Mr. McCann points to three key features that support relevance and are required for long-term sustainability:
We agree that these are three critical elements, but would go even further in highlighting the impact that culture can play in the ultimate success of any plan or on the overall health of any organization. Though we agree that an organization needs a shared vision and a solid plan or strategy to realize it, culture has the capacity to overwhelm vision or strategies. There must be cultural integration at every level within an organization if long-term goals are to be achieved for, as Peter Drucker famously noted, “culture eats strategy for breakfast!” Issues of resiliency, leadership, analysis and communication also feature prominently as Mr. McCann concludes his presentation – all topics near and dear to our heart. Our Bigger.Better.Faster. summary of these issues:
We appreciate Mr. McCann’s approach to the financial realities confronting the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Given the seriousness of this challenge and the fact that that most if not all nonprofit organizations are in a similar boat, figuring out how to connect relevance to impact should be at the top of everyone’s “To Do” list. As you can imagine, we have much more to say about relevance, financial sustainability and other issues as they relate to our Bigger.Better.Faster. philosophy, including connecting with community and changing the conversation. Stay tuned for more in the coming weeks! |
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