Complementary Contradictions (part 6): When A Plan Comes Together

Sometimes, you get conflicting words of advice, one which is good and the other which is not, and it requires discernment to determine which is the right advice to follow. But often, these seeming contradictions are, in reality, complementary and, when used appropriately and in the right way, can work together to help you make better decisions. In this series of articles and podcast episodes, we are looking at different leadership ideas or principles that seem to contradict, are opposite, or at least differ from each other and pairing them up to see how they actually complement each other to make you a better leader. This week, in part 6, we talk about what happens when a plan comes together, and next week, in part 7, we talk about what happens when a plan falls apart.

I was fairly young and had just become the headmaster of a small Christian school. I knew that the school had been operating with an interim headmaster, that enrollment had drastically declined over the previous couple of years, that they had recently gone through a major shift in identity, that resources were very limited, and that a desired plan for building a new school facility appeared to be stalling out. I felt the emotional mix of excitement about the possibilities and the anxiety of feeling overwhelmed and in over my head, but I also knew that God had clearly and specifically directed in my life to put me in this position. I had previous administrative experience, but not as a head of school, and I had no real training in strategic planning. I simply knew that I had a major project ahead of me, so I rolled up my sleeves and began to assemble a plan of action.  

I started with an intentional process of trying to determine the current status – resources, people, programs, obstacles, etc. – and identify direction and goals, followed by prioritizing those goals and deciding what steps would need to be taken to achieve them. It began with the simple process of first zooming out and then zooming in, the pairs of principles I put together in the last couple of articles and podcast episodes, which I described last time as writing things down on individual, notebook-sized sheets of Post-it notes and placing them on a large empty wall. When they were all up on the wall, I stepped back and began to look at them, individually and together, and then began to sort them into categories and themes and to look for connections, arranging them by groups, priority, and sequential order of process. When I was all done, I had my first official strategic plan.

Strategic planning could be defined as the process of creating and initiating a specific plan to address a determined and identifiable goal need, and my own process in that school was a very crude (although efficient and effective for me at that time and place in my leadership development) form of strategic planning. In the years since, I have learned from experience, education, and training much more about effective – and ineffective – strategic planning. Therefore, even though I helped to facilitate excellent change and growth (with credit actually going to God much more than me; I was only the instrument He chose to use), I now know a number of things I would have done differently or additionally, in my first attempt at strategic planning.

There is an experience that takes place in the book of Ezra, in chapters 9 and 10, that provides a great source of learning for us on this topic. Ezra had already successfully led a group of leaders back to Jerusalem from their place of captivity. The physical temple had already been reconstructed, and now Ezra had returned to facilitate the restoration of the spiritual temple – the hearts of the people. After he arrived in Jerusalem, he took the time to assess the situation and determine the issues (in this circumstance, they were the issues of unfaithfulness and unholiness) and prepared a strategic plan to address the issues and restore the people and the nation before God. This is the process we see when we focus on in Ezra 10:6-17. There we find a description of the process, from inception to implementation, of a specific and measurable plan to address the issue that they faced. In this process, Ezra led the way by his example and his intentional methods, showing us how we, too, can undertake the task of strategic planning for our ministries and organizations.

1. Step one: Preparation (v. 6) – Enter the process ready, so spend time preparing yourself for the task ahead; this includes your spiritual preparation, humbling yourself before God.
2. Step two: People (vv. 7-9) – Gather the right people together, including (a) those who will be affected, (b) those who will help make the process, and (c) representative leadership from among the followers.
3. Step three: Need (v. 10) – Identify the issue(s) or need(s) that must be addressed; before you can prepare a plan, you must be able to articulate what it is that needs to happen, or where it is that you need to go, based on where you currently are and what you are currently doing. Don’t make it complicated.
4. Step four: Goal (v. 11) – Identify the goal or goals that are to be achieved; this implies identifying the means and steps of correcting or resolving the need that has been identified, and determining what will need to be accomplished that, when done, will fulfill the plan.
5. Step five: Listen (vv. 12-13) – Listen, giving people a voice in the process, especially those people who may be impacted or affected and those people who have “ground floor knowledge.” Listen to what they say and let them know that they have been heard.
6. Step six: Process (vv. 13-14) – Establish a process for implementing the plan in four pieces: (a) determine the steps in the process, from start to finish; (b) select leaders to oversee the process of carrying out the plan (this also helps to provide accountability); (c) create a calendar, schedule, or timeline; and (d) when all is said and done, it needs to be more than just talk, and so the process has to be initiated.
7. Step seven: Obstacles (vv. 13, 15) – Identify and prepare for obstacles and opposition so that you are ready to respond.
8. Step eight: Implement (vv. 16-17) – Take the action step of implementing the plan and the process, keeping the end in focus, and identifying when the goals have been reached.

The A-Team was a popular television show in the ‘80s, and one of its iconic lines came when the leader of the team, Hannibal, would say, “I love it when a plan comes together!” That’s the joy of a strategic plan. It’s the opportunity to zoom out and see the big picture, zoom in and craft a strategy for the details, and zoom back out to see what will be when you put your plan in place. When you are stepping into a new situation, facing a need for change and growth, have carried out or completed the last strategic plan, or have simply stagnated . . . it’s time for a plan to come together.