STRATEGY: Get out of your box
“The key to change... is to let go of fear.” ~ Rosanne Cash
Boiled down to its essence, strategy is about matching the core capacities and culture of an organization with the opportunities and challenges in its operating environment. Strategy can also be about answering particular, challenging questions or issues, which are stopping organization progress. Strategy is proactive - like its early basis in the military where strategy referred to maneuvering troops into position before the enemy is actually engaged - strategy has a sense of forethought, of marshalling resources, taking a position, moving in a particular way toward desired ends.
Think Outside works with small businesses and nonprofit organizations that are struggling with how to change and adapt in order to succeed;
sometimes these organizations are almost frozen with possibilities—
should we:
- expand the kinds of services we offer,
- try to reach more people in different markets or more people in the same markets
- significantly improve the quality and depth of what we do,
- shift how we deliver the service or product
Our work with you results in improved employee buy-in, greater alignment of departments and actions with desired goals/targets, and ultimately appropriate growth and change.
Some of the ways that we achieve these results include: strategic planning, business planning, scenario development, and organizational culture work. Sometimes we design specific organizational consulting services.
Strategies that worked 5 or 10 years ago are not appropriate today. Ideas about production, communication, relationships, and marketing are all subject to rapid changes in technology and to the changing demographics of the marketplace. Today’s and tomorrow’s successful strategies will be innovative and adaptable.
No matter what the service, we begin by identifying (with you) the business issues that you want to address during our work or, stated differently, what is the pressing need for your business, organization, or team. Examples of business issues include: a new technology has come on the scene and made it likely your business will need to significantly adapt; you’ve lost some of your biggest clients to competitors; why and what do you need to do to respond? There is a significant new need or opportunity that your organization could fill, should you? Board members are pushing for more efficient practices but it doesn’t ‘feel’ like the right approach to staff. You have an intuitive sense that you need to better understand your organization’s culture or strategic opportunities.
Think Outside’s particular twist on strategy development goes beyond our considerable expertise in facilitation and development of workable strategies. We break people out of their boxes, out of established ways of thinking using outdoor inspired activities and challenges (either actually having outdoor experiences OR using natural metaphors).
We also have a range of tools and frameworks that we can incorporate into this work including:
- Peter Drucker’s strategic planning framework
- Evaluation and Results Measurement
- Theory of Change
- Scenario Thinking
- Financial Modeling
- Market Analysis
- Surveys
For more on the kinds of services we offer to help develop innovative but workable strategies that yield engaged, aligned teams see following: