When all the processes of strategy formulation is completed, and now, voila, you have it in a nice two-ring binder for everyone to see. Congratulate yourself for a job well done. 

After the communications campaign is launched and the implementation starts, four things can happen and you are the best judge for it as the main executive tasked with spearheading this project.

1. There are no changes to be done as everything that went into the strategy document suits the rest of reality that follows. If you believe that you have a perfect document, very well. Let' see in the next few months. 

2. There are minor revisions that will need to adjusted, mainly the baseline data, the situational assessments, the analysis for which the decisions were based. These elements are ordinarily monitored, assessed, and adjusted as the strategy moves forward.

3. Major disruption that derailed or almost decapitated the strategy. There was a change in the whole landscape of the organization, internally, in terms of capacity, interests, and aspirations such as a leadership vacuum due to a leadership and management crisis, a situation where a major funder has pulled out creating a huge financial burden, and other internal stakeholder issues that would derail the implementation or compromise its chances of success. Another example of a external threat to the strategy was the COVID19 pandemic which based on many accounts, left many purpose-driven organizations without an anchor for 6-12 months just operating and surviving. Not even thinking about growth strategy or change initiatives.

4. The strategy is useless, unimplementable, a mirage in a desert. Well, this is the worst kind of realization that can happen after a 6-12 month process. It could happen to any organization without having to think too much. Say for example, you have a totally new Board, a totally new executive team, a totally new set of staff and leaders, no budget for implementation and the previous leaders who put this together bid sayonara with you nothing to work on. The new leadership could not,  will not, assume accountability and responsibility,  and have no will power or creativity or simply felt powerless to enact anything other what they created. Best scenario is to reduce this to a doable strategy that could work in new circumstances. Keep it real and simple.

These four scenarios are real-life hurdles neatly disguised in confused state- aka what makes you  sleepless at night. Besides the initial worry about not going smoothly as planned, there are always options and alternatives. Talk to your Board. Consult the experts in this area. Read what others have done in your sector. Confer with colleagues. And lastly, the smartest way is to learn from the mistakes of others.
​

Some people believe that there's always some one or something that should be blamed for world miseries.

The non-profits and social sector are rife with criticisms of the capitalist economy and government. Yet, they have to work hand-in-hand with the two.

For the conspiracy theorists, there is a global network of villains and ego-maniacal entities, ala the James Bond villains that are planning, hatching their next global destruction ventures.

For the poor and illiterate, it's the rich and ultra-wealthy that are sucking all the resources that they need to survive. And the corrupt government that's feeding this greedy landed gentry.

For the owners, it's the labor unions and their goons and strategies that keep the business from thriving and the government's bribery schemes wrapped up neatly in certain fees for here and there.

For the middle-class tired of pretending that they are more well-off, abhors the poor for creating the conditions of pallor, dirt, and insecurity in many communities. These people are considered lazy, worthless, and can't be saved.

The big business are blaming the environmentalists and climate-change crazies for wrecking their plans and making it harder to conduct business. The auditors are blaming the government for lax regulations. The consumers are blaming the government for run-away inflation for which the energy producers are caught in the quagmire. The masses are suffering and that the world is coming to an end unless climate change is addressed.

The elite, educated ones are blaming the fringe sectors and the fringe sectors are blaming the elite, educated majority. 

Do you see where this is going? 

You want an honest feedback so that you can improve your work.

The first group will tell you what you want to hear, all the good things sans the not-so-good ones for fear of discouraging you.

The second group will tell you all the worst things that you have done and how it negatively impacted them. Fine, if that is the truth.

Yet, we live with this two polar opposites all the time without the real benefit of honest constructive feedback, in our workplace, in organizations, and sometimes in our own families.

It cannot be that worst but it can't be that too great either. For improvement's sake, it is better to be honest than to be lying about someone's performance. However, how you deliver this is very critical to the outcome you're seeking. 

What does it take to create an atmosphere where honest feedback is taken and given constructively?

• Trust and non-judgement approach
• Purpose-driven conversation aimed at improvement
• Provide detailed examples and detailed suggestions for improvement
• Thank and encourage the person for recognizing the need to change for the better
• Offer support to sustain these changes (if you were able to)
• Offer praise and encouragement when the person is exhibiting efforts to sustain these changes

For some situations, you will never know where you actually sit, having two of these polar opposites received from different quarters. Perhaps, the truth is somewhere in the middle.  It is up to you to weigh both things. What matters is that you're improving everyday while others are busy taking successful people down. 

So many things to do so little time? No, you have some time, you just have to make a decision to remove some cumbersome, irrelevant, and less-valuable things you're doing to have the mental space and energy for more strategic issues. 

1. Be training-wise
Yes, remove training programs for some skills that you will never use immediately is a waste of time. One participant from my previous training programs that I taught told me that she thought it will add value to her life right now, turned out it was just a checklist she had to tick. Oops!

2. Be-Board savvy
Remove yourselves from Boards and Committees that are turtle speed in decision-making and execution and does not improve your despite your inputs. 
Who needs Board work that is using your time, talent, energy, and expertise ineffectively? You should be getting some benefits in return of your generous service. 

3.  Be Zoomaster of your time
Drop attending to Zoom events that no longer serve you or quit registering and not showing up.
I'm guilty of that. Do not even bother to register and receive the recording if you can't even do it.

4. Volunteer with joy
Do not be pressured to volunteer just because they need warm bodies to move a furniture or get a social media campaign going. Do you really love to do those thing, do you have skill set? Can you maintain that consistency and reliability that they need? If not, focus on your wheelhouse instead so your volunteer work is filled with joy and excitement and less work. 

5. Ignorance is bliss
I am more happy without having to know the daily news and minute updates from my phone. If I want a topic or a news article, I take time to read it. Turn off the daily news habit. You will know what you want to know, now what they want to feed you with, mostly crap. 

Now, that's off your list. It's time to envision your strategic goals for 2023.
​

A few weeks ago another cryptocurrency disaster made a shocking headline.

$1.4 Trillion dollar value was lost out of the Sam Bankman-Fried's FTX and its overall effect on the crypto-world. Why charities are banking on the crypto potential for giving until now is such a childish response?  The volatility of this sector is such that you can trust your dog to go home after a day's out more than your crypto dollars to work for you. You can't trust a system when you know that there are no guarantees, no protections, no legitimacies, and no governance that underpin any modern system, whether it's the financial, political, social, and economic in nature. 

Philanthropy, charity and giving must veer away from high-stakes, high-loss ventures when ordinary people's monies are at stake. What charity can afford to gamble these hard-earned monies earned from the skyrocketing inflations for the sake of creating a new approach, model, or vehicles?

In the banking world, trust is not just a philosophical value, it's the no. 1 operative word. Crypto is made-up money and before you know it, it's gone without a clue. Charities, check your donors and keep safe from the minefields of volatile approaches. 

Who in the world needs an objective outsider who can express and provide expert opinion that you won't need another second opinion for?

We all need one. In any stage of organizational life, an objective, impartial adviser provides a breath of fresh air. No compromises, no biases, no hidden agenda, no political dynamics. Just pure wisdom culled through experience, practice, and their own observations to serve your best interests.

Then why most Boards and Executive Committees do not anticipate and avail of an outsider perspective to help them make some of these most important decisions?

Fear of making the advisor privy to all the problems and turmoil they face which can be quickly mitigated through a confidentiality agreement and proper guarantees.
Fear of letting new ideas dominate that they haven't vetted or garnered buy-ins.
Fear of being threatened with a new person in the room.
Previous bad experience.
No experience whatsoever in this support.
Never cross their mind. 

It could be a number of things. Whatever the reason, this is another missed opportunity for executives to remove themselves from the entrenched philosophies, mentalities, and positions in the organization and intentionally broaden their perspective. You have to bring in this element because amongst yourselves, the results could be a half-baked compromise which erodes any expected gains. 

We all need it. You need an objective outsider regardless whether your going swimmingly well amidst turbulence or you are trying to survive. For one thing, the most value you can get from an objective outsider advisor is being truthful, identifying the 'it' that's sucking all other attempts to grow and improve to allow you to make the quickest resolution possible.

Today's managers must contend with some tough calls to make: when a staff is not performing satisfactorily and will never be able to meet up the work expectations no  matter what. Firing the employee before it moves to a new role in the organization is the wisest thing to do. This is an opportunity to not just maintain the present work standards of the organization but to improve and innovate how these new recruits can enlarge the impact of the roles.

The reason why bad employees continue to exist is because their managers turn a blind eye to the situation until it presents more trouble. The costs of addressing a growing issue which would involve more absenteeism, team mates suddenly resigning, failure or incomplete work, customer service issues and concerns would be staggering to any organization large or small. Preventing that person to move around as if, he or she is a stellar employee and could be 'rehabilitated' could be a wishful thinking.

I saw first hand in my previous work employment that once a bad hire is allowed to continue performing in a substandard way, more trouble ensues. That employee caused a major havoc in the organization by refusing to follow ethical standards with financial disbursement of funds and abuse her authority by side-stepping the counsel of the Board and advisers of the organization. She caused the organization to be bankrupt and because there  was no money to finance the daily operations, the organization had to decide to move the operations to another location and start anew with a very limited financial base. She was terminated but it caused major reputational damage and rift between the stakeholders that it took a while to get those back by the successor leadership. 

Lesson of the story. When a person shows you who he/she really is, believe it. If the employee is not in the place where he/she could be ethical and meets work expectations, start the dialogue now and not later. Keep your documentation updated and address current issues that you observe in more than one instances. Don't wait for the legendary annual reviews or quarterly assessment. Always check in for improvement and growth purpose. 

Lastly, keep your eye on the larger scheme of things. As a manager, you want all of your employees to excel in their jobs. It is also your responsibility to provide support, enabling environment, and encouragement. If all things fail, and you don't see the employee putting it the right commitment and effort, it's time to make some tough calls. 

How many organizations have strategies  that are unimplemented?  You will never know unless you get inside the cubicle. 

This is not just prevalent in the profit sector, not for profit organizations are as well not implementing their strategies.

I question this: if the strategies are not implemented, why are they expending their staff time and managerial attention on something that will not be used at all? There is simply no logic to this!

When I asked an Executive Director why not? The answer I got was: "We just make this because of our funders. We have to wait for the funding cycle to begin to really create a strategy that will restructure the way we work. For now, it will be just a transitional one."

Fair enough. I get the point of transitional strategy. Emergent design is what the current climate calls. Managers and executives must adapt to the rigors and demands of modern organizations where supply chain issues, financing and sustainability, climate and diversity challenges, impact day-to-day decisions. 

But non-implementation is a totally different issue. I vehemently challenge the notion of doing something for something else's and not for the benefit of the creator.

What drives this performative action is a culture of obligation, 'looking good,' and conformity. 

In my book Provocateurs, I discussed how the culture of conformity creates conditions for organizations to punish early-warning signs of problems and issues, which leads to you know, failures. The same culture of conformity outlaws innovation, creativity, and simply rebellious thinking that shifts control and power. 

Your donors do not know you're doing this. Probably, I bet, that this practice is not something that is generally accepted and outwardly legitimized. But because this is what's happening, I also bet that this is not a one-off deal. More organizations are acting this way despite what management books are saying. 

Practice defines organizations. Tell me who's not implementing their strategy, and I will tell you there's more to the strategy than meets the eye. 

I heard this term a few weeks ago. It is mostly akin to 'green washing' but this time its about how organizations proclaim impact when in fact it's a false,  misleading or unproven claim. It's also impact washing when the impact declared or reported did not grow out of the interventions claimed but other causal factors or intervening factors are present, thus other contesting views of explanation exist. 

The extent of impact washing is hard to measure  but just take for example, how organizations paddle up the numbers or massage the situations in order to meet donor standards or comply with requirements, without truly addressing the complexities of the unintended consequences their actions can impact or effected. 

In my book Provocateurs not Philanthropists, I problematize the issue of short-term breakthroughs over the obsession for large-scale, massive, dramatic impacts and successes on the ground. Listening to a keynote last week from a multilateral global innovation facility programme, I can't help but feel more alienated. The search for a "major scalable project" is such that new, grassroots, or micro-projects will not be able to meet this. The logics are miles apart. 

Given the 'innovation plus humility' mantra, I wonder how many of these innovations are actually taken up by the government or private sector to grow after being cocooned by grants and innovation finance so that national development owners take charge of this growth? Are they concerned with eco-systems development, taking a holistic role, rather than a project piece on
the economic development pie or with national priorities? I hope that humility culture goes down to the partners and grantees as well, because success without integrity is untenable and deceptive. 

Impact washing happens at both micro and macro levels. It's not only the outcomes that matter but how do you get to these outcomes and what happens on the way. 

You practically have three months to go before the year ends.

Look back at your 2022 Major Goals and Plans and ask yourself:

1. Did I accomplish what I planned to do? 
2. Where am I in the spectrum of not done versus ongoing or complete?
3. What has been the major success factors in achieving these this year?
4. What are the major obstacles for completion?
5. What or with whom should I be communicating my progress?
6. THE MOST IMPORTANT: How can I use the last remaining three months to get me closer to my larger goals. What success habits can I repeat?

If you're winning every time, chances you don't need this reminder.

But in on-purpose world and beyond, reality sucks. High inflation, flattened economy, supply chain woes, decreasing donations and charitable giving, higher donor standards, compliance issues impact the sector. There are many persistent issues to deal with than what meets the eye. 

At the start of 2022, you started the year with such hopefulness and gung-ho attitude, it's time to use that same level of energy to win the race.