The path to your goals is rarely a direct route

Yesterday as I scrolled through my Facebook Newsfeed I spotted this little scribble from HootSuite. It struck me as a perfect illustration of the reason why communications and community building strategies need to have in-built iterative and correcting processes. In other words, not everything goes exactly to plan so... you need to plan for that.

In my consulting work I’m often confronted by the absolute need to set clear goals, but also face the reality that the best laid plans confront all kinds of uncertainty.

I’m a great believer in starting any planning process by objective setting that is, at least initially, unencumbered by restrictions and imagined problems. For example I often see people failing to imagine what’s possible simply because they haven’t yet caught up with the possibilities now presented by new media. Old media thinking tends to assume a hit-and-miss and expensive approach which puts a tourniquet on possibilities.

In FRESCO's strategic planning model, we note the first step confrontation between ‘Understanding’ and ‘Objectives’. I frequently see this as a healthy clash between ‘the Score keepers’ (Understanding) and the Goal kickers (Objectives) where both influences need to forge a robust plan.

Right now I’m part of a team working on an industry led initiative to turbo boost economic and business development in the Hutt Valley and the Wellington Region. It’s nick-named Technology Valley – hat-tip to Silicon Valley – and involves the development of transformational strategies to kick-start an area that has languished for years. One of the things holding back economic development is the notion that goal setting demands the setting of firm KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). We’ll its good to have some goals, but they should never assume that all the answers have to be answered from the beginning, because if they are, some dangerous assumptions lead to failure at every step.

In the planning for Technology Valley, we are certainly setting goals but we’re not assuming we have all the answers. We’re putting in place an ‘action / learning process for activity where we openly create an iterative cycle of improvement.

We’re also visualising a young baby and considering what that baby might do with her life. Of course no one can set too many KPIs for a baby, but the parents might set some broad goals – such as getting a good education and having a happy disposition.

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About the author facebook.com/frasercarson2  www.fresco.co.nz

Fraser Carson is a respected communications and social media consultant, and commentator. He has particular experience and interest in community building, the not-for-profit sector and business development.

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