Mission, Strategy and Development Planning

One of the most important roles of any leadership team is to plan for the future and set a direction of travel for the organisation so that it can thrive and not just survive. Most School Leadership Teams and Governing Bodies have little problem generating a whole range of ideas about how they would like the school to develop in the future. However, in my experience there are three important factors which differentiate those schools who are successful at future planning from those who are disastrous:

1. Successful schools know what they are about; 
2. Successful schools plan for the future strategically; 
3. Successful schools get the most out of the limited resources available. 

These three concepts are at the heart of future planning.

Mission – The Why?

Mission is really about explaining why the organisation exists (See Simon Sinek’s The Importance of Why). Often this is embedded deep in the past, in the very foundation of the organisation. For most independent schools this will be found in the ‘charitable object’. Mission Statements are perhaps less fashionable than they were a decade ago, but the starting point for all future planning has to be some sort of overarching aim or purpose which reflects the core values of the organisation. 

The key mission questions are: 

• What are our core values? 
• What do we stand for? 
• What are we trying to achieve? 

JESS Dubai’s Mission Statement is founded on its core value of ‘making a difference’: 

JESS Dubai aims to be a school that has a global reputation for delivering an education that challenges young people to make a difference. 

Berkhamsted School developed its mission by having 10 aims (6 Educational Aims and 4 Operational Aims) and all future planning was expected to contribute to at least one of these aims. 

Strategic Planning – The How? 

Strategy is concerned with defining how the organisation fulfils its mission. It does this by deciding how the organisation fits into the wider marketplace and by determining its shape and extent. The most important strategic questions is: 

• What is our market niche? 

The role of the strategist is to plot the course for the organisation within the terms of the its mission adapting to changing external conditions. Strategic plans should never be fixed – they are provisional. The strategist therefore needs high quality information to be able to analyse market changes. There are a whole number of tools to facilitate this: 

• PESTEL Analysis (Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental and Legal) is a tool for determining external business environmental factors. 
• SWOT Analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) is a self-evaluative tool for determining the organisations priorities for development and investment. 
• Porter’s Five Forces Model is a tool that sets out to identify the attractiveness of an industry in terms of five competitive forces: the threat of entry, the threat of substitutes, the power of buyers, the power of suppliers and the extent of the rivalry between the companies. 
• Resourced Based Analysis is a tool that identifies those resources within an organisation which can bring it a sustained competitive advantage. Rare, Valuable, Inimitable and Organizational Process. 
• Key Success Factor Competitor Analysis is a tool that examines four key areas (price, product quality, service and reassurance) which differentiate market leaders from their competitors. 

These and other similar tools enable School leaders to determine where the school sits in the marketplace and to answer the following fundamental strategic questions: 

• What is the optimum size of the school? 
• What is the optimum structure of the school? 
• Co-ed v Single Sex? 
• Curriculum type? 
• Boarding v Day? 
• What is the Pastoral Care Structure? 

These are questions of policy and should be determined by Governors.

The answers to these fundamental questions will change over time as the marketplace in which it is operating changes. The past twenty years has seen most independent schools in the UK shift on at least one of these fundamental strategic questions: boarding schools have taken day pupils, single sex schools have embraced coeducation, prep schools have opened pre-preps and nurseries; senior schools have opened tied junior schools; schools have merged and have grown size, schools now provide year-round wrap-around care for working parents. The Berkhamsted Schools Group today is a product of all of these changes – it is structurally a different school in nearly every respect to the school that it was in 1997. 

Development Planning – The What? 

Development Planning is concerned with what the organisation is going to do to enable it to adapt and improve – within the strategic parameters. Development planning plots how we are going to get from where we are (A) to where we want to be (B). Development Planning is really about the allocation of scarce resources: 

• Time – in school terms this means the shape of the school day and the curriculum allocation; 
• People – teaching and support staff; 
• Space – classrooms and meeting rooms ; 
• Skills – training, CPD and INSET days; 
• Money – capital expenditure, fit-outs, staffing and other running costs. 

Planning is where vision meets reality. It is about how a school is going to spend time and money and how it is going to use its people, space and skills. These are questions of process and should be determined at an executive level within a budget determined by Governors.

Poor development planning happens when it is not tied to the school strategy and when schools mindless follow what other schools are doing on the principle of ‘keeping up with the Joneses’. Too many schools invested in Interactive Whiteboards and iPads to impress prospective parents without having any training or idea of where they fitted into a teaching and learning pedagogy for the school. The result is a lost opportunity and a waste of money. 

Final Thoughts 

Future planning requires an enormous amount of work. It is not simply the generation of a list of ‘nice-to-have’ projects. It is about striking a balance between the internal (self-knowledge of what the school in essence is about and its priorities) and the external (understanding of the wider operational environment). Above all, it requires striking a balance between strong traditional core values and an open-mindedness as to how these can be applied for the benefit of the next generation of pupils.

Leading Digital – Turning Technology into Business Transformation by Westmann, Bonnet and McAffee – Key Points

Leading Digital outlines how firms in any industry can harness digital technologies to gain strategic advantage. The book categorises four types of organisation according to their ‘level of digital mastery’ with the follow characteristics:

1. Beginners – an immature digital culture usually with a management sceptical of the business value of advanced technologies; 
2. Fashionistas – a digital culture which lacks an overarching vision; but has many advanced features which exist in silos. 
3. Conservatives – an overarching digital vision which is underdeveloped, but active steps are being taken to build digital skills and culture; there is strong digital governance across silos.
4. Digital Masters – a strong digital culture flowing from an overarching digital vision with excellent governance across silos; many digital initiatives generating measurable business value. Digital Masters combine digital capabilities and leadership capabilities to achieve performance that is greater than either dimension can deliver on its own. 

The book also has some very useful self-assessment tools:

• How well is your organisation building digital capabilities?
• How well is your organisation building leadership capabilities?

Structure of the Book

Part One: Digital Capability: the what of digital mastery 

• How firms engage with customers and how they can create a ‘compelling customer experience’. 
• How digital technologies can transform operational processes and ‘exploit the power of core processes’
• How digital technologies can produce and reinvent new business models. 

Part Two: Leadership Capabilities: the how of digital mastery

• How to create a ‘transformative digital vision’. 

Re-envisioning the customer experience

Re-envisioning operational processes

Combining both of these to re-envision business models 

• How to engage and energize employees to make the vision a reality. 
• How to put in place good ‘Digital Governance’ which will keep the transformation on the right track. o Standandise o Automate o Accelerate 
• How to develop ‘technology leadership capabilities’ to drive the transformation forward. 

Part Three: the Leader’s Playbook for Digital Transformation – concrete management guidance on how to get started. 

• How to frame the ‘Digital Challenge’
• How to focus investments
• How to mobilise the organisation 
• How to sustain the change. 

Some favourite quotes from the book: 

“The digital operations advantage is about more than great tools. It’s a combination of people, processes, and technology connected in a unique way to help you outperform you competitors.” p.69 

“Companies fall apart when their model is so successful that is stifles thinking that challenges it.” p.87 

“Leadership capabilities are essential to achieving true digital transformation, they turn digital investment into digital advantage.” p.95 

“When your technology leadership capabilities are weak, everything is a risky struggle. When they are strong, you can do great things.” p.171 

“Focussing investment is where the rubber meets the road in digital transformation.” p.189 

Some thoughts in response to the book

• Digital technologies have not brought cost savings in education because of increased compliance. 
• Digital transformation will not be possible in secondary schooling until it is liberated from the shackles of the (British) examination system. 
• So many schools have not imposed digital governance. Enthusiasts have been allowed to run off in all directions. There needs to be a balance between empowerment and anarchy.

The importance of putting values at the heart of a global organisation.

Pharmaceutical giants probably don't spring to mind when thinking of values driven organisations, so it was great interest that I learned of the changes that are taking place in one of the world's largest drug companies.

I first visited Novartis five years ago. Then it was an organisation, like most others, driven by a culture of profit and individualism and where "work-life integration" had replaced any notion of "work-life" balance. The company boasted that its Campus had several restaurants, a supermarket and a post office so that domestic chores did not force employees to leave early and thus the firm could maximise the length of the working day. The performance management structure primarily rewarded results. The only hint of what was to come was that there was a recognition in their appraisal structure that an individual getting great results through poor 'attitudes and behaviours' was fundamentally bad business.

Novartis PRP Matrix up to 2014

Five years on and, after six months of company-wide consultation, Novartis have just launched their new values. The 23 values that were neither known nor understood by their employees have been distilled down to six core principles, two for each of the three areas:

1. Patient and Customer: innovation and quality;
2. Team: collaboration and performance; and
3. Self: courage and integrity.

The order of these values categories say much about the vision for the organisation for they put the needs of customer/patient first, and the needs of the team above those of the individual. The shift from a 'me' culture to an 'us' (team and society) culture is significant.

So how are these values worked out in the organisation? Well drugs companies do have a good story to tell. They do change lives. They do make the world a better place. Novartis invests billions in new drugs - of course they do it to make a profit, but without that profit there wouldn't be investment.

The organisation has shifted from valuing the individual to the team rather than the individual. Hence collaboration and team performance at the centre of the values structure. The clearest evidence of this shift is in the performance management matrix. The bonus structure use to reward results over attitudes and behaviours. From January 2015, that will not be the case. Results and values will have equal weight. 

Novartis PRP Matrix prior from 2015

The personal values of courage and integrity emphasise the need for individual employees to live up to their responsibilities and to operate within an agreed ethical framework.

Novartis is able to attract some of the world's greatest talent and they actively look to appoint high-fliers who have 'agility' i.e. who are able to apply their skills in different contexts as they around their global postings at two-year intervals. Interestingly, no one spoke of 'work-life integration', rather they had introduced more flexibility about working hours and locations (campus wide wireless VLAN).

The world needs ethical drugs companies.  
I shall follow Novartis' progress with great interest and wish them every success in this venture.

(I would like to thank the Talent Management team at Novartis Basel for their wonderful hospitality and for sharing their vision with a group of headteachers - priceless INSET.)

The Role of the HoD within Whole-School Planning

Presentation that forms part of the Strategic Planning module Independent Schools Qualification in Academic Management (ISQAM) Level Two course run by HMCPD and GSAPD in partnership with the IoE. 

Accelerate XLR8 - John Kotter - Book Review

In his latest book, Harvard Business School Professor, John Kotter, argues that established hierarchical managerial structures do not provide the agility for organisations to respond sufficiently quickly to take advantages of the narrow windows of opportunity that present themselves. Kotter's solution is that firms should re-organise themselves to be able to cope with the demands of an increasingly changing world. In particular, firms should augment their their hierarchical structures with a network comprised of volunteers drawn from a range of levels and divisions within the organisation. Thus the firm would have a dual-operating system with the hierarchical structure providing day-to-day reliable management and the network providing agile strategic leadership. Kotter believes that this structure existed in most firms at a much earlier stage of their evolution.

The following YouTube clip provides an excellent summary of the Kotter's main arguments:

At the heart of Kotter's argument is the concept of the "Big Opportunity":

A Big Opportunity is something that can potentially lead to significant outcomes if the possibility is exploited well enough and fast enough.  . . .  A Big Opportunity is not a "vision" . . .
A Big Opportunity is also not any form of "strategy" or "strategic initiative."  pp.133-36

In order to make the shift to a dual-operating system Kotter believes that it is necessary to develop and maintain "a strong sense of urgency".  (Here there is an echo of Kotter's previous work on Leading Change - see review of Our Iceberg is Melting.)

Urgency in the sense that I am using the word here, means that significant numbers of people wake up each morning and have, somewhere in their heads and hearts, a compelling desire to do something to move the organisation towards a big strategic opportunity.  p.112 

This was a very thought-provoking read and the advantages of the dual-operating structure are clear. It was easy to see what "B" looks like, but the practicalities of how to make the transition from an established hierarchical structure to a dual-operating system were less clear. Kotter endeavours to share his experiences of working with a number of firms who have successfully moved to this model; however, I found that the case studies given in the book are so generalised that I was left wanting more detail about how each organisation had managed to make what is undoubtedly a difficult step towards the new structure.

Links
http://www.kotterinternational.com/our-principles/accelerate

The Role of Heads of Department in Whole-School Planning

The Presentation for the Strategic and Development Planning module (Module 8) of the Independent Schools Qualification in Academic Management (ISQAM) Level Two Course. 

Presentation given at the training course on Thursday 10th October 2013.