Successful businesses and organizations all have at least one thing in common -- they determine how to best spend resources to achieve goals.
Defining those goals and allocating those resources is one of the purposes of a strategic plan. That plan can be a single page or even the size of a book, depending on the company or organization.
The strategic plan should be designed to support or accomplish an organization’s purpose or mission statement. It’s the strategies that are designed to reflect the dynamics of the work environment.
Sometimes you need to start from scratch. Sometimes it’s just tweaking a successful plan that’s already in place.
The 7 Rivers Alliance and its board of directors is in the process of updating our strategic plan, which was put into place under previous CEO Lisa Herr. The board spent several hours with facilitator Tracy Dryden from Western Technical College in December and will continue its work in March.
Much of our existing strategic plan was put into place shortly before the 7 Rivers Alliance embarked on the process of developing the Workforce Innovation for a Strong Economy (WISE) Plan. Some of those strategies -- like developing the plan -- have been accomplished.
I appreciate the thought and discussion that our diverse board of directors is bringing into the strategic planning process. There should be no sacred cows. As all of were once told at one time or another in our career learning path, there are no dumb questions.
The landscape of economic development layered underneath the jurisdictional differences of three different states and 14-different counties can be quite complex. But it can also be quite simple if we strip it down to delivering key services.
As CEO, it is my job to work at the direction of the board to deliver those services and results. Any organization or business -- whether it has thousands of employees or several -- needs to define those results and set the strategies and have all hands on board working to steer the ship in one direction.
I look forward to finishing this work and sharing the results with our members and supporters. Your financial support of our organization helps us to achieve our goals. Together we help move the 7 Rivers Region forward in a collaborative spirit.
Speaking of collaborative spirit, I’m pleased to announce progress on one key step of our WISE plan, which was to better market the 7 Rivers Region as a great place to live and work. We formed a partnership with River Valley Media Group and have launched a new website -- Our7Rivers.com.
The site is still being developed, but already it contains many stories, photos and podcasts -- including a couple about 7 Rivers Alliance -- that will help to promote the people, places and businesses in our region.
As the site is being developed we are also working on a magazine that will be published this spring that will have great content that we can use to market the region.
Finally, the 7 Rivers Alliance is focusing on developing summits around the three key challenges identified in our WISE plan -- childcare, transportation and housing. Look for more information about these events in the upcoming months.
Chris Hardie, CEO
chris@7riversalliance.org
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