Why clarity of purpose matters more than the size of your strategic plan.
I sometimes wonder whether we’ve made the whole concept of strategic planning far more complicated than it ever needed to be.
The words strategic plan get thrown around so often in business, government and the not-for-profit sector that I sometimes question whether we’ve lost sight of what strategy actually means.
Don’t get me wrong. I am absolutely committed to strategy. I believe in thinking strategically, planning for the future, making wise decisions and positioning an organisation to achieve what it has been called to do.
But I do question the expectations sometimes placed on organisations to demonstrate their strategic direction through lengthy, formal plans, often shaped more by what boards, funding bodies or consultants expect to see than by what the organisation actually needs to guide its future.
And I should add, I’m incredibly grateful for our own Board, who have been fantastic in understanding and supporting our approach to strategy, recognising the importance of clarity, purpose and the flexibility to respond to opportunities as they arise.
It does make me wonder sometimes whether we’re placing more value on the production of strategic plans than on the quality of strategic thinking itself.
There is a significant difference between having a strategic plan and actually being strategic.
A beautifully presented strategic plan doesn’t necessarily mean an organisation has a clear sense of direction.
And conversely, an organisation can be incredibly strategic without having a complicated document explaining every step it intends to take over the next five years.
Strategy begins with knowing why you exist
For me, good strategy starts with a few fairly simple questions.
Why do we exist? What are we trying to achieve? Where are we heading? And how do the decisions we make today help us get there?
If we can’t answer those questions clearly, I’m not sure a 40-page strategic plan is going to help us very much.
In fact, sometimes all the planning, workshops, diagrams and carefully crafted language can actually distract us from the very thing we’re trying to achieve.
I’ve seen organisations spend enormous amounts of time developing strategic plans, only for those documents to sit on a shelf until somebody asks for an update.
That doesn’t mean planning is wrong. Far from it.
But I think we need to be careful that the process of planning doesn’t become more important than the purpose of the organisation itself.
Strategy should give us direction, not become another administrative burden.
Our approach is deliberately simple
At Devonport Chaplaincy and Loaves and Fishes Tasmania, we absolutely have a strategy. We have a strategic plan, and we think very carefully about where we’re heading.
But we’ve deliberately kept the foundation of that strategy simple.
For Devonport Chaplaincy, our work is built around three pillars:
Care. Community. Purpose.
For Loaves and Fishes Tasmania, our three pillars are:
Food. Community. Jobs.
That’s it.
Not because we haven’t thought deeply about our future, but precisely because we have.
These pillars give us clarity about why we exist, what we’re trying to achieve and where we should direct our energy and resources.
They are not simply words on a wall or headings in a document. They shape our conversations, our priorities, our partnerships, our investment decisions and the opportunities we choose to pursue.
For Devonport Chaplaincy, we want to care for people, strengthen communities and help people discover purpose and hope in their lives.
For Loaves and Fishes Tasmania, we use food as a practical response to need, as a way of building stronger communities and as an opportunity to create meaningful employment and pathways into work.
Of course, there is an enormous amount of activity sitting beneath those six words.
There are programs to develop, infrastructure to build, people to employ, partnerships to strengthen, funding to secure and countless operational decisions to make.
But the strategy itself remains clear.
And that’s the beauty of it.
Simplicity doesn’t mean a lack of ambition
One of the dangers in organisational leadership is confusing complexity with sophistication.
We sometimes assume that the more detailed a strategic plan is, the more strategic the organisation must be.
I’m not convinced.
In my experience, some of the most strategic decisions we’ve made have come from being very clear about our purpose and then recognising an opportunity to advance it.
We didn’t need a lengthy strategic planning process to understand that investing in food infrastructure would strengthen our capacity to support Tasmanians.
We didn’t need a consultant to tell us that creating jobs and training opportunities through our food operations could change people’s lives.
And we didn’t need a complicated planning document to recognise that strengthening local communities and building relationships is central to everything we do.
What we needed was clarity, courage, good information and a willingness to act.
That doesn’t mean we act without proper consideration. Quite the opposite.
We still need sound financial management, good governance, risk assessment, accountability and a clear understanding of the resources required.
But these things should support our strategy, not complicate it unnecessarily.
Strategy must leave room for opportunity
This is particularly important in the community sector, especially in a world that seems to be changing faster than at any other time in history. The pace of change, the uncertainty we face and the increasing complexity of the challenges around us mean that organisations need to be more adaptable than ever. What seemed like a sensible plan five years ago, or even twelve months ago, may no longer be the best way forward.
Needs emerge. Partnerships develop. Funding opportunities arise. Communities change.
If our strategy is so prescriptive that we cannot respond to something unexpected, then perhaps our planning has become a restriction rather than a strength. Strategy should provide direction without closing off opportunity.
Some of the most significant developments in our organisations were not mapped out in detail years beforehand.
They emerged because we understood our purpose, recognised an opportunity and were prepared to respond.
For me, this is where faith becomes so important.
As a Christian organisation, our faith isn’t simply something that sits alongside our strategy. It is foundational to who we are, why we exist and how we seek to lead.
We believe God has a purpose for the work we do, and that means being willing to listen, pray, discern and sometimes step forward in faith when we don’t have every answer or know exactly where the journey might lead.
I think there’s a real danger in becoming so focused on our own plans that we leave little room for God to lead us somewhere we hadn’t anticipated.
Proverbs 16:9 reminds us:
“We can make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps.” (NLT)
That doesn’t mean we abandon planning, sound governance or our responsibility to steward the resources entrusted to us. Quite the opposite. I believe faith calls us to be thoughtful, responsible and intentional in the decisions we make.
But it also calls us to humility. To recognise that we don’t know everything, can’t predict everything and shouldn’t assume that our carefully constructed plans are necessarily the only way forward.
Sometimes faith means having the courage to pursue an opportunity that wasn’t in the plan. Sometimes it means changing direction, and sometimes it means having the wisdom to wait.
Faith doesn’t replace strategy. It shapes the way we approach it.
We can be absolutely committed to our purpose while remaining open to how God might lead us in achieving it.
And perhaps that’s one of the greatest strengths of keeping our strategy simple. We know who we are, we understand why we exist and we have a clear sense of direction, but we haven’t predetermined every step of the journey.
Our purpose should remain steady, even when our plans need to change.
For me, that’s not a weakness in strategic planning. It’s a recognition that genuine leadership requires both wisdom and faith, and the willingness to trust God with the opportunities and challenges we cannot yet see.
The real test of a strategic plan
I think there’s a fairly simple way to test whether a strategic plan is actually useful.
Can the people in the organisation understand it?
Can they explain where the organisation is heading?
Can they see how their own work contributes to that direction?
And, perhaps most importantly, does the strategy actually influence the decisions being made?
If the answer is no, then it doesn’t really matter how impressive the document looks.
I’d much rather have a team of people who understand our three pillars and make decisions consistent with them than a team that has access to an elaborate strategic plan but struggles to explain what it means.
Because strategy isn’t just the responsibility of the CEO or the board.
It should be understood and lived out across the organisation.
When people understand the purpose, they can contribute strategically without needing to be constantly directed.
That creates ownership, confidence and a much stronger organisation.
Let’s not confuse the document with the direction
I sometimes think the demand for strategic plans has become an industry in itself.
There is certainly a place for external advice, structured planning and independent perspectives. Good consultants and experienced boards can add enormous value.
But we should never confuse the production of a strategic plan with the development of strategic thinking.
Nor should we assume that somebody demanding a strategic plan necessarily has a better understanding of the organisation’s future than the people leading and working within it.
A plan should be a tool, not a trophy.
It should help an organisation remain focused, make good decisions, allocate resources wisely and measure whether it is achieving what it set out to do.
And sometimes the most effective plan is the one that can be explained in a few sentences.
For us, it’s about Care, Community and Purpose, and Food, Community and Jobs.
Those six words give us an incredibly strong foundation for thinking about our future.
They don’t answer every question or remove every challenge. But they provide a clear framework through which we can consider opportunities, make decisions and measure our progress.
I am passionate about strategy. I want our organisations to be forward-thinking, innovative, courageous and sustainable.
But I don’t believe strategy needs to be complicated to be effective.
In fact, I increasingly believe the opposite.
The clearer we are about why we exist and where we’re heading, the less complicated our strategy needs to be.
And perhaps that’s something we need to remind ourselves of a little more often.
Because ultimately, the value of a strategic plan isn’t found in how many pages it contains.
It’s found in whether it helps us achieve the purpose for which we exist.
