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Recently I have had the pleasure of helping several organizations with their strategic planning processes. These organizations face the same challenges that many private, nonprofit and governments face in current times – high expectations, doing more with less, being flexible in times of change, serving the needs of diverse constituencies, and achieving effective results.  The best part of working with these organizations has been that they have taken the time to include other perspectives in their strategic plan for their future.  

Organizations take a lot of different approaches to strategic planning and believe me, throughout my career in the corporate and non-profit world, I’ve seen good plans put on shelves to never be looked at again, bad plans that never moved an organization forward and plans developed in silos.

What are some of the factors that contribute to this?  Too often, strategic plans come from the top down, with pre-determined focus areas and objectives.  They lack critical perspectives from their employees and external stakeholders.   

Research continues to indicate that employees are not highly committed to their employers, not engaged in their workplaces, not happy in their jobs and are often actively looking for another job. There are many reasons that this happens, but several of the primary reasons are that employees feel their feedback is not welcome or that they are truly part of the organization. And external stakeholders are wanting more engagement with organizations, not less.

Here are a few top takeaways to consider:

• Keep your plan simple. Don’t produce a 50-page document that no one wants to look at again.  Make it understandable, usable and inclusive.
• Include your employees in the process, either by getting their input prior to your planning session or better yet, by including them in your session.  Continue to encourage their engagement after the plan is final by creating employee teams related to goals, providing updates on successes and challenges related to the plan, and celebrating successes.
• Do some research before you sit down in a planning session. You can’t prepare a decent plan without some external perspectives — whether it’s consumer behavior, public policy directions, competitor information, changes in markets or stakeholder perceptions.  Consider not only finding outside research but committing the time to interview some of the key stakeholders who interact with your organization.
• Have honest and real conversations when you finally sit down to prepare your plan.  If members of your team don’t feel that dialogue and ideas related to the plan are encouraged, the plan will fail.  Create a safe space that encourages honest participation and dialogue.

What do you want to accomplish in your next strategic plan?  Do you want to do it in a siloed approach, or do you want to hear perspectives from critical stakeholders about how your organization can move forward? 

Check out my approach to strategic planning at www.ammconsultingstrategies.com .

My husband teases me because I constantly complain about all the leaf blowers being used in our community.

Gas fired leaf blowers, which most people use, are noisy, loaded with fuel, blow leaves in one direction and add pollution through fuel emissions and dust.   Leaf blowers eliminate the good organic matter that makes soils healthier and leave city drains clogged. More than 170 cities have now banned leaf blowers.

Some organizations use a leaf blower-like approach to their public affairs strategies.  They show up assuming they are the experts and have all the answers, communicate a bunch of one-way messages quickly, and leave a trail of debris behind.    And then, the leaves and dirt just blow back. 

This past legislative session, I worked with a diverse team of people and organizations on a piece of legislation that had been attempted in the previous year.  The previous strategy by one organization was to develop legislation without any stakeholder input, distribute the draft legislation just prior to the session, and avoid sharing key information or getting feedback.  This approach created mistrust and miscommunications, resulting in stakeholders forcing engagement on them during the legislative session and the bill ultimately not passing. 

In this session, those stakeholders played a critical role in reviving the legislation, working to get consensus on key issues, and working hard to get the legislation passed and ultimately signed by the governor.

I was fortunate enough to work on this bill and several others that had gone through extensive stakeholder input processes, bringing together, as multiple legislators said, “odd bed fellows” in support of the bills.  It was a painstaking process getting there but these bills represented key stakeholders’ input and interests. There’s no other way to achieve success in that environment without doing this hard work.

So many surveys, especially since the 2008 recession, indicate that the public increasingly does not trust companies and other organizations. A lot of this goes back to how we communicate.  Being authentic, transparent, listening more than talking, understanding others’ truths, and finding common ground and aligning interests is where your success lies.

Stakeholder engagement that focuses on using these practices saves money, increases trust and improves decision making. A few tips on engaging stakeholders:

• Engage key stakeholders early in the process.  Whether you are developing legislation, starting a communications campaign, or a introducing a new service or product, think through the different stakeholders that can be impacted by your project or can influence the final outcome.
• Be transparent and genuine.  Make a genuine effort to meet with stakeholders, be transparent about what you are trying to achieve, and get their feedback.  It doesn’t mean you have to agree on everything but taking their perspective into account and including their perspective in final decisions is critical to your success.
• Don’t use stakeholder engagement for one issue and then move on to your next initiative.  Take the opportunity to develop long-term relationships for your organization.

Key lesson – don’t use a leaf blower approach. Take the time to do meaningful stakeholder engagement. Check out my training session on stakeholder engagement and other communications strategies at ammconsultingstrategies.com/

There’s nothing like a good story.

I grew up with a father who was a well known “story teller.”  He rarely started a conversation without the words, “Did I ever tell you about the time that..,,,,.”  Though I was sometimes embarrassed by this practice over the years, I now realize that I remember almost every one of those stories.

The reason is that good stories stick. 

Every Thursday morning, I start my day by joining my friends at the Daybreakers Toastmasters group here in Albuquerque, NM. This group has allowed me to make new friends and continue to work on my speaking skills. I was recently reminded that starting out with a good story can really make for a memorable speech. 

One fellow Toastmaster spoke about “critical points” in his life where he quit things too soon out of fear or frustration, starting as a young teenager in football to moments in his career.  Another Toastmaster shared a story of growing up in a family in which no one had an education beyond high school.  She was not originally a motivated student, and yet one teacher in junior high made all the difference by pulling her aside and telling her that she was smart and had potential which ultimately thrust her into a successful college journey and professional career.  Each speaker walked us through the details of their stories in visual, concrete ways.  Not only did you feel that you were there, but each story left you wondering how you could help others overcome obstacles in their lives.

Sometimes we get too tied up in facts and statistics, which are all helpful at times, but often don’t stick with the intended audience.  The power of story telling can evoke emotion, create empathy and encourage people to take action.  In their book, Made to Stick, authors Chip Heath and Dan Heath remind us that it’s more than just to say stories make us see pictures in our heads.  Stories need to stay in the audience’s head and make them think and/or act.  The authors provide a key formula to making any message stick, including in stories.  Their SUCCESs checklist calls for stories to be Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional, and to tell a Story in which a protagonist overcomes big odds.

For those of us who have to communicate key messages in our careers and personal lives, and that’s just about all of us, taking steps to make messages stick is important. Regardless of the issues we’re talking about, whether it’s climate change, human rights issues, access to health care or just trying to sell a product.  As I work on clean energy policy issues at the state level, I’m trying to incorporate short stories with “stickiness” that help people remember why these issues are important and the impact these issues could have on their lives.

We all love to share our facts and statistics to make compelling arguments.  But the next time you’re thinking about persuading someone about an issue, ask yourself, “how can I share a story that relates to them and what’s in it for them?” Think about the great stories you have to share going forward.

As the start of each year arrives, many of us make commitments that focus on improving ourselves in a variety of ways, whether it’s health, career or family.  But how many of us really think about how we can impact our communities in a more thoughtful way?

Toward the end of 2019, I had the opportunity to attend a full day meeting in Albuquerque on Building a Public Environmental Health Network.  The room reflected diverse populations, including various professions, geographies, and socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds, all a reflection of New Mexico.  The workshop featured some excellent, motivating speakers on the potential health impacts of our environmental actions. However, the best part of the day was connecting with the attendees during lunch and at breakout sessions in the afternoon.

For me, there were two major takeaways from the day.  First, we still too often think in silos when we approach issues.  We often think that some types of people or organizations have all the answers, and we don’t open the door wide enough to entertain multiple perspectives.    When we combine diverse stakeholders, with different areas of professional expertise and perspectives, everyone benefits.

Second, when you get a diverse group of people into a room with passion for change and ask them to generate ideas, the ideas can be limitless and transformative.  The group that I facilitated at the workshop filled multiple pages with strategies that could be used to make strong policy connections between public health and the environment, all with the goal of improving the physical and mental health of New Mexicans.   

My passion in starting AMM Consulting is just that – to help connect people and organizations and to help them be heard.  I want to use my years of experience, skills and passion in strategic planning, project management, public policy work, and communications and stakeholder outreach to help people and organizations make a real impact.  I am excited about the prospects of people who want to achieve great things and will commit to the real work and connections it takes to get good results.

Good plans no longer come from top-down, hierarchical processes. They come from community connection and real dialogue. Think what we could achieve in our communities if we brought together various parties to discuss issues, provide perspectives and develop plans that reflect all our values and move us forward. 

How will you commit to this way of moving forward in 2019?  I look forward to working with all of you to help develop this path.

Amy