I started my Fourth of July festivities by running the 10 kilometer (6.2 mile) Kenwood Footrace. My finish time was a bit slower than usual, as I haven’t been running much; instead, I’ve been doing long, fully-laden hikes in preparation for a 240-mile backpacking trip. During a race, I get obsessed with those mile […]
Tag Archives: Strategic Planning
Comments Off on How Long Is a Mile?
I’m in the process of planning this summer’s Sierra backpacking trip. Maps, guidebooks, and random bits of equipment are heaped all around my house. Along with testing gear, dehydrating food, and packing, I’m plotting out my itinerary. One crucial bit of information I am researching and marking on all my maps: potential bail-out points. If […]
Comments Off on Strategic Planning Lessons from the John Muir Trail
Life coaches, personal trainers, and business consultants advise us to set goals and create a strategic plan with actions and deadlines that will enable us to achieve them. When is it appropriate to modify or abandon a goal? I’ve been thinking about this a lot. Last year, I set the goal of running my first […]
Comments Off on Letting Go of the Goal
A quick visual exercise can utterly transform how a group understands itself. I recently worked with a Board that perceived themselves as very divided. One camp was supposedly dedicated solely to the organization’s Program H and placed an extremely low value on Program C; the other camp reversed these values. They told this story over […]
Comments Off on The Value of a Pie
> When Kim Coontz first asked me to lead a workshop on strategic planning at the California Cooperative Conference I was a little surprised; I usually teach meeting facilitation, communication skills, or conflict resolution, so it seemed outside my area of expertise. She pointed out that as a facilitator, I am frequently hired to help […]