What is Your Strategic Plan for Your Department in 2024?
Richard McGee
612-812-9673
richard@richardmcgeelaw.com
As 2024 begins now is the time to discuss whether your department will improve or maintain its status quo. Improvement comes from being proactive on some goals and objectives that will make your department a little bit better (or a lot better) over the next 12 to 18 months. If you choose to improve in 2024 it will not be easy since there are lots of people in every organization that are comfortable with ordinary performance. Oftentimes, if you want to be extraordinary, it will be necessary to sell or nudge the idea of improvement. To help formulate a proactive plan for 2024, the following is an excerpt from Chapter 1 of 101 Things Everyone Should Know About Tribal Employment (Xlibris).
Defining and executing a tribe’s goals is certainly within the purview of tribal leadership, but goal setting cannot be exclusively leadership’s role. In their departments, managers should exercise the tribe’s self-determination by setting proactive goals, and with those goals, determine the path and set the deadlines.
What is a department strategic plan? The answer lies in the responses to six questions:
What are the dozen rational and irrational goals for your department?
Of those dozen, which four goals can you and your team accomplish in the next 18 months?
What tasks must be completed to accomplish those goals?
Who in your department (or outside) will complete each task?
Which tasks must be completed at months three, six, nine and twelve to accomplish the goals by month 18?
Are your department goals aligned with the tribe’s goals?
___________________________________
Now, in responding to each question there are additional questions which will clarify a manager’s thinking.
What are the dozen rational and irrational goals for your department?
What are the big and not so big goals which, if accomplished, will have a meaningful impact on the department’s effectiveness, reach or efficiency? At this stage of the conversation, Negative Nancy and Ned are not invited to the conversation because the department cannot give credence to:
We cannot do that.
We do not have budget for that.
Council will be mad at us.
That will never work.
When Nancy and Ned are not part of the conversation, the employees with a dose of optimism and creativity can think big and potentially generate a list of goals which appear to be beyond the department’s reach…but maybe not.
A couple examples help make the point.
Example 1. When the tribe’s records department implements a digital records system, finding those old resolutions and other important documents does not consume hours since they are located in moments. That increases the department’s effectiveness.
Example 2. The child welfare department could expand the scope of its services by hiring another social worker with the skills necessary to address needs not being met by the department. The choice to hire an additional social worker expands the department’s reach in a meaningful way.
Example 3. By creating comprehensive standard operating procedures for your department, every employee knows what to do and the best way to perform the department’s myriad functions. That increases efficiency.
To compile a dozen big and not so big goals, consider a collaboration of key people in your department. Asking for input from key employees in the department will likely generate a more meaningful list. Moreover, consider asking your department’s constituents how your department could more effectively serve? Consider a department of five administrative assistants serving tribal council. Those five employees could generate a list of a dozen big and not so big goals and the list probably reveals good work. On the other hand, the list is better when tribal council and key executives are surveyed as to how the administrative assistants can more effectively serve tribal council’s objectives.
Of those dozen, which four goals can you and your team accomplish in the next 18 months?
Now that you have gathered twelve big and not so big goals, which four are most important to improve your department in a meaningful way? Are those four goals aligned with tribal council’s goals? The casino general manager’s goals? If council or the general manager do not have strategic plans, or if they have plans and your department does not appear to play a role in those plans, ask them. Ask the council chair or the general manager what they want your department to prioritize in the next twelve to eighteen months.
Will the budget permit you to meet the goal? If the goal is met, will it be necessary to add staff? Does your department have enough time, expertise and experience to accomplish the goal? Why is the goal a priority?
What tasks must be completed to accomplish those goals?
Once the four goals are established, what are the tasks which if done will accomplish the goal? To hire that social worker which expands the department’s scope, there are numerous tasks which must be done before they are employed. For example:
Write the job description
Get the job description approved by Human Resources
Allocate money in the budget to add a new position
Locate office space
Purchase or borrow a desk, chair and computer
Advertise for the position
Select candidates to interview
Interview the candidates
Select the candidate
Enhance the opportunity for success by meaningful engagement with the new employee in the first 90 days
Provide the employee with a fair performance evaluation at day 91
Some of the tasks referenced above are part of the routine of hiring a new employee, but several of those tasks cover new ground since the social worker is expanding the reach of the department’s work. There are likely myriad other tasks necessary to hire and retain a productive and effective social worker which expands the scope of the important services provided by your department. By breaking a goal down into a series of necessary tasks, the goal is more achievable.
Who in your department (or outside) will complete each task?
Sometimes managers believe they are the only person in the room capable of performing important work and therefore the manager does not delegate enough. When managers fail to delegate, not as much work gets done. The answer to this question is how many tasks will the manager complete and how many tasks will the manager delegate? When managers understand the range of talent in their departments and how best to utilize that talent, meaningful delegation can occur.
Sometimes employees are too busy to accomplish some of the necessary tasks required to accomplish certain goals. In these circumstances, a manager could consider a temporary employee or engaging a consultant or independent contractor to perform those tasks. Effective managers clearly communicate the task delegated and its deadline for completion.
Which tasks must be completed at months three, six, nine and twelve to accomplish the goals by month 18?
To accomplish a goal 18 months away, a manager must measure progress toward that goal several times between the beginning of the project and completion or risk not completing the goal. Consider drafting standard operating procedures for example, which is a huge project that could easily consume the full eighteen months allocated to complete the project. Consider the outline below of the milestones necessary to complete standard operating procedures:
3 month milestone
The standard operating procedure template is created and the department’s “job description” is drafted. A department’s job description is a list of the department’s core functions. With the department’s job description, the standard operating procedure’s table of contents is created which is divided into common sense sections or chapters.
6 month milestone
Several drafts of the standard operating procedures have significantly improved the content of individual procedures. The department director has scrutinized the work of her managers in drafting procedures which are clear and fit within the selected template. The director has edited the draft procedures so they all speak with one main voice.
12 month milestone
The draft standard operating procedures are ready for review by the tribal administrator and by human resources. You anticipate several drafts of the procedures over the next 3 months before approval.
15 month milestone
The standard operating procedures are approved and employee training starts regarding the effective use of the procedures.
18 month milestone
The standard operating procedures are implemented, and employee’s are measured, in part, by their adherence to the standard operating procedures.
Twelve big goals became four and the four goals are accomplished by the deadline because specific smaller tasks were delegated and the work was performed. Through that process the department is proactively setting and accomplishing goals. In other words, the department, and therefore the tribe, is more self-determined.
____________________________________
Richard McGee
612-812-9673
richard@richardmcgeelaw.com