Defining Purpose & Strategy

What is the driving purpose of our organization? How do I lead effective strategic planning? How do I ensure a strategic plan leads to actual results? Are there opportunities in the marketplace we should be going after? Does my team understand its role in the organization? We can help you answer these questions. 

 

Organizations need clarity of purpose and direction before they can achieve meaningful results. And, the environment is changing rapidly. You want your organization to be responsive and ready to excel. In an economic downturn, organizations often move into a defensive posture, rationing resources to get through the lean times. As outlooks improve, these same organizations have built up an appetite for investing in the opportunities they missed earlier. We can help you use a downturn to recalibrate and be ready to take advantage of that pent-up appetite for investment by meeting your customers/clients/market where they’re at. 

  

We’ll design our work in a way that addresses idea inhibitors like power, exclusion and group think, so you benefit from the diversity of identities and perspectives across your organization. 

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Here's how we help: 

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• Strategic Planning and Execution: We’ll help you design an actionable strategic plan that is easily communicated on one page. We start by building on what already exists – if your vision, mission, values, goals are strong and current we’ll utilize those. If needed, we can start from scratch and build your foundation along with your plan. We introduce a shared language for strategic planning so it can be easily cascaded throughout your organization. You’ll identify key goals and strategies that are responsive to your environment. And because planning is useless without execution, we’ll ensure you have routines and processes in place to act, monitor, and adjust your plan.​

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• Strategic Narratives: Sometimes the best way to develop clarity and go beyond the everyday is to tell a new story about what’s possible. Using story, visioning methods, and the tools of science fiction, we’ll help you imagine a new and compelling way for you to bring value to the world.  

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• Design Sprints: We specialize in utilizing the design sprint approach perfected by Google Ventures for organizational development. We work with your team in a condensed amount of time – anywhere from 1-5 days depending on your need – to prototype and test your most promising organizational ideas. During the sprint you will clarify the key question that must be answered, generate multiple possible ideas, refine and select the most promising, and then prototype and test with actual customers/clients. This will give you enough data to proceed with confidence in making a long-term investment for your company.​​

  • ​Identity/Brand Sprint: Having a clear vision of your organizational identity and/or brand is essential for helping your stakeholders see your value. We can guide you through an identity/brand sprint that can help you articulate your longer-term goals, your core purpose, core audiences, and where you fit in the larger organizational landscape. This sprint is oftentimes a great way to help you craft your mission, vision, and values. 

  • Opportunity Sprint: Seizing the right opportunities can best help you realize your mission and vision. We can guide you through an opportunity sprint that helps you generate the short list of opportunities for best realizing your impact. 

  • Design Sprint: The best way to know if your ideas are going to work is to get them out into the world. We’ll help you map your challenge and opportunity space, sketch potential solutions, decide on what solutions to test out in the world, prototype a solution, and then test that solution with real users.