It's not about the revolution, baby

Jeff De Cagna asks us a question at the end of his recent post about strategic imagination:

Do you believe your association’s tomorrow must be like its yesterday? Or are you willing to imagine a future for your organization that requires revolution?

Jeff and I share lots of similar ideas about strategic thinking and innovation. But here's one place where we differ.

We bloggers, early adopters, 1%ers and 10%ers, enthusiasts and social media evangelists see the "revolution", the paradigm shift, the big picture where this is all taking us. We're like fish in a strong current, hanging out with lots of other fish and zooming along down the river with many like minds, trying things out, debating the issues, listening to the chatter and adding our own to the mix.

The business/Enterprise 2.0 world, now THEY generally get that there's this revolution. They have to, because the market and competitive forces dictate that they have to pay attention. And those companies that pay attention the most are generally those that have the most to lose if they don't, and others are less affected and can choose to incorporate (or not) new media in a more measured way.

But the "traditional" association? They don't see a revolution! They are like the frogs hanging out in lily pads along the side of the river. (Sorry about the lack of biological accuracy here - no idea if you get lily pads in rivers, or just in ponds? Anyway - please forgive all my mixed metaphors, there are more coming.) They peer out over the sides of their pads, they watch the fish swim by in the current, they are aware of the fact that there is a current and there are fish in there, but they tend to be busier catching flies and sunning themselves and keeping their froggy communities happy, without straying far from their lily pads. Some are more adventurous, even swimming along, but most are content to sit back and observe the goings-on, if they are observing at all (which I do think they are).

Ok, forget my lame froggy imagery. I truly believe that if you frame the revolution in revolutionary terms, you lose the people that you want to hear you. Why? Because they don't feel it like a revolution. They sense change, certainly. They want to participate, to a greater or lesser extent. But revolution? It's not going to affect their associations like that, with turmoil and urgency. Despite however much we tell them that there is urgency!

So, coming back to Jeff's post about strategy work and trying to make a case against strategic planning - I think many associations are aware that strategic planning is not working as well now as it used to the first one or two or three times they did it. They know SWOT analyses are not very helpful, at the end of the day - it's good to talk about those strengths and weaknesses, periodically, but the act of doing that does not REALLY help you chart your path to success. They want to find new ways of doing the work of strategy which will allow them to be more proactive and reactive and less tied to The Plan itself. They want to find something they will actually use, as opposed to sitting on a shelf to be dusted off every five years.

But they don't have the stomach for anything too radical. They have worked too damn hard on the stuff they have, spent too many hours on it all, missed too many dinners with the kids. This is why they ask you "what do we do instead?'

I should say "we", not just "they". We association people as doers as much as (more than?) thinkers. We have to be! We have to keep our associations running smoothly and growing and we have to keep our members happy. We need a plan of action and we need it fast. We never have enough funding to do what we really want to do. We used to like strategic planning retreats because we felt we could get a lot done in a weekend with the Board. We also have to end up with something all our constituents / stakeholders / members / volunteers / staff can live with, and traditional strategic planning helped us do that, to a point.

Jeff quotes Umair Haque on strategic imagination:

Strategic imagination is tremendously difficult because it requires us to put aside yesterday’s tired assumptions and orthodoxies, and begin to actively rethink from scratch the way value can be, should be, must be, will be created.

Again, I totally disagree! I don't think it's difficult at all! I think we use our strategic imagination all the time, every day! We just don't know how to formally encourage it, nurture, it, harness it throughout our organizations. We don't know how to change our systems to make them more flexible and organic - but we don't want to throw them out completely, either. Rethinking from scratch? Who wants to reinvent the wheel? We don't need to do that! We want to use what we've learned, and make it better. We want to create, launch, edit, launch, repeat. We want to stop having to do SWOT but we need to be able to show what our strategy is and how we got to it (so we know that it continues to be valid).

It's not about the revolution, baby, it's about the seeds of change. Blow the wind too hard, and those seeds can't take root.