Your Best Strategy As a Story
A note from Turn Two: This week we hand On Message to two colleagues we have long admired. LOOK UP co-founders Caroline Keylock and Matthew Hook have spent two decades helping organizations such as the Alzheimer's Society and The Communications Network find clarity inside complexity.
A great strategic plan is a story about the future you want to create — and what you need to do to bring it to life.
That’s why when we start working with organizations to create a new strategic plan, we don’t begin with the now, with finances, initiatives, and theories of change.
We jump to the future.
And we ask one crucial question: What will your community look like in five years if this plan works?
Answering this question should be the north star for every decision we make, as opposed to trying to cobble together a coherent story afterwards in a brochure or company report.
In 20 years of strategy work with organizations like the Alzheimer's Society, Help for Heroes, and The Communications Network, we have learned the value of thinking future-back and story-first. Not just as inspiration, but as a crucial decision-making tool.
A strong narrative creates alignment and clarity. If an organization can clearly explain how its community will change as a result of its work, it becomes much easier to set priorities.
It becomes much easier for every staff member to see why their work matters and how to separate the truly important from the apparently urgent.
It enables donors, who may never engage with the finer detail of the plan, to articulate and advocate for the organization with everyone they meet.
When The Communications Network built its current strategic plan, the narrative question came before the planning question, and that meant a tighter and tougher test for each element to pass. Relying on that test led to greater clarity around a shared vision and better results.
Our colleagues in the American community foundation field saw the same truth from the other direction this year. When Turn Two interviewed senior communications leaders across the country, those leaders described the challenges of telling a story without a north star and the difficulty of prioritizing in the absence of a narrative that connected the long term to the day-to-day.
Changing the mindset within an organization to focus on a future story takes commitment to following an established process to get there. Yet, the payoff can be game-changing.
It begins by writing the story of the community you intend to help create. One page, in plain language, with people in it.
Then let every strategic choice audition against that story. Keep what belongs in it, and question what does not. Whether it’s a big initiative or a daily tactic, anything that doesn’t drive the narrative forward needs to be edited out.
You’ll find you have a strategic plan that brings you, your donors, your team, and your community together — and keeps you together, achieving amazing results.
Caroline Keylock and Matthew Hook are the co-founders of LOOK UP, a London strategy and storytelling consultancy. Join them and Turn Two’s Peter Panepento and Elyse Hammett on Oct. 21 for a free webinar exploring how to tell your Future Story and map to it with a Plan-On-A-Page.
