Forward Janesville - TheReport - Fall 2017

4 • W W W . F O R W A R D J A N E S V I L L E . C O M JOHN BECKORD - PRESIDENT, FORWARD JANESVILLE Let’s Set Some GOALS As leaves pile up under trees, my internal clock says it is time to start thinking about setting goals for 2018. Businesses large and small all go through a self-evaluation process this time of year. I thought I would offer some observations about the planning process and also throw out some issues we are wrestling with at Forward Janesville, with the hope, our member readers might offer up some guidance. My early experiences with strategic planning were based on the notion that a leadership team would come up with a list of strategies with a step-by-step process to achieve specific goals embedded in the plan. It largely involved an in-depth SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis and a rearrangement of current priorities and resources. My sense is that traditional strategic planning processes do not provide enough opportunities for strategic thinking—the synthesis of creativity and vision that goes beyond rearranging the variables that are well-established in a particular business or organization. It might seem like a cliché but things do change rapidly and your business has to be nimble enough to redirect resources on an ongoing basis. The strategy you embraced in your plan may be systematically putting you at a disadvantage. You need to be able to articulate an integrated perspective of your enterprise on an ongoing basis so that people in your organization can think strategically about the issues impacting your success. You might be ready to give up on this column after the last paragraph but I hope you will hang in there while I throw out some ideas that I have been collecting for our next goal-setting exercise. I have the good fortune of working for an 18-member Board of Directors who have considerable skill and experience with strategic planning, strategic thinking and goal setting. Here are some threads that I will be asking them to consider: 1. Our membership overwhelmingly indicates hiring qualified workers is their number one challenge. What can FJI and its partners do to help with this challenge? 2. There is reliable data that says the housing shortage has become a barrier to new residents moving to our area. What can FJI and its partners do to help with this challenge? 3. We have made the case that a revitalized downtown is important to the community’s overall growth and prosperity. We are out of the starting gate with the ARISE plan and are encouraged by early support for the project. How can we sustain the enthusiasm and increase financial support for the plan? 4. We have cultivated a close relationship with area educational institutions. Business and education partnerships are real and growing. How can we sustain those partnerships and make new inroads, especially with parents of our students? 5. The Rock County 5.0 plan continues to demonstrate success and our partnership with all entities in the alliance is strong. How do we sustain that success given the remarkable changes in the labor market? 6. We have developed various activities to demonstrate our interest and involvement in public policy debates. What is next on the horizon in the area of public policy and what issues rise to the top when we lobby our elected officials? 7. Many of our members tell us they value our networking and information sharing activities. How can we build on our success in these areas and even improve our events and services? I have found that starting a planning effort with a list of questions like those above helps jumpstart the strategic thinking that we need to set reasonable but still ambitious goals. Perhaps you have some feedback on what I have listed above? I would welcome a call or an email from you. Part of our process is to collect ideas and comments from our members. Naturally we will inform you of our goals going forward after the Board of Directors has considered and approved them. In the mean time, I leave you with this quote from a Harvard Business Review article titled, “The Fall and Rise of Strategic Planning.” “Real strategists get their hands dirty digging for ideas, and real strategies are built from the nuggets they uncover.”