Video transcript:

Hello and welcome to our impactful projects and planning series.

I'm Jami Yazdani. In today's session, we'll talk about how to turn strategy into clear weekly execution. So, if you are leading or working in a nonprofit or mission-driven organization, you probably know this feeling. You have a beautiful, inspiring strategic plan. It's filled with great goals, big ideas, and community-centered visions. But then Monday morning hits. Your inbox overflows with emails about the programs that existed long before the planning process even began, and you just had three urgent items land on your desk, and your team is being pulled in 10 different directions. By Friday afternoon, you're exhausted, and you realize that none of the work you did actually move those big picture strategic goals forward.

I call this the strategy gap. So it's the disconnect between what we say matters most on paper and what we actually spend our time doing month to month and week to week. When this gap persists, we default back to old reactive habits. We respond to whatever is loudest, and our strategies don't move forward. This isn't a competence problem, and it certainly isn't a lack of commitment. It's a capacity and structure problem. To protect your team's focus and make your strategic goals a reality, we must actively build a bridge between our strategic vision and our weekly task list, and that starts with how we plan.

Most strategic plans fail to inspire action for one of three reasons: they don't reflect the realities of our organization's capacity, so we end up promising too much and not accounting for the work already underway. Plans also fail because they are too vague to give our teams direction with really big goals and objectives, but no real plan for implementation. Or the plans fail because they get too detailed too quickly, becoming completely overwhelming to communicate and manage.

And so, to turn strategy into action, we have to find what I call the middle layer of planning. We must bridge the gap between our overarching goals and our daily priorities and task list by planning at the right altitude, and so to hit the middle layer of planning, we first need to make sure that our plan has clear objectives. And so, while our plan's goals can be big and aspirational, the objectives that support the goals should be very clear and very actionable.

And so, the template I like to use for writing clear plan objectives is action plus target or objective action plus measurable metric or result plus deadline. And so the action is that action verb. So it's what we're going to do: are we researching, designing, delivering, or building something? And then we want an object or target of that action, whatever it is that we're researching, designing, building, or creating, and then we want to have a measurable metric or a concrete result of that action that can help us to gage success and a clear deadline for completion. So let's look at an example.

So let's say we have a goal of improving employee retention, and one of our objectives for this goal is to create a leadership development training program. So instead of a vague objective like deliver a leadership training program, a clear objective would be deliver a leadership training program to 50% of supervisory staff by june 30, 2027. So we've got an action deliver a target of that action, the leadership training program. But we've also got a measurable metric: 50% of supervisory staff and a very clear deadline, june 30, 2027. And so this kind of clear objective sets up expectations for your team and your stakeholders about what is expected and what we're trying to achieve.

So the next thing that we want to do to plan at the right altitude is to define an objective's deliverable. So once we have a clear objective, we can define its deliverables. Deliverables are the concrete, tangible outputs of the work of the action. So let's look at an example. And so we have our clear objective about delivering the leadership training program, but what are we actually going to do, right? So what do we have to create?

Or build to achieve this objective, and so the deliverables might be training program slide decks, the online training modules, a participant handbook, a training assessment, and so by going from objectives to deliverables, that's work I often do with clients when I'm helping them with strategic implementation planning, and when you define those deliverables up front, you not only create a shared expectation of the work that will lead to success for this objective, but you also connect strategic goals and objectives to visible strategic outputs that can then be translated into a shorter term plan, and so that's the the next step for planning at the right altitude. Once we have our clear objectives and deliverables, we can use them to create a short term plan. It could be a plan for the year, a plan for the quarter, or a plan for a particular objective. So let's look at an example. So for our leadership training program, we have four different deliverables. So we've assigned each deliverable a due date and the timeline of when we will do the work, and we've identified who is responsible.

And so getting to this middle layer of planning, going from goals and maybe vague objectives to a clear objective with clear deliverables that we can then sequence in a timeline and determine who's going to be responsible. That's what gets us from strategy to action. So planning at this altitude is then what we can use to create our weekly plans, and so once we have clarity at that middle level to bridge the strategy gap, we need some way to drive progress week by week, and so this is where we get to the level of time management and where my calm framework can help, and so time management is not about doing more. It's about creating enough clarity to give the right work the right attention at the right time. And so, I do want to point out that while time management strategies can be very helpful, they will not solve systematic capacity issues or burnout on their own, but they can help us align our time with the work that matters most at the moment and ensure our strategic objectives become weekly actions. So let's walk through the calm framework and talk about how we can apply it to strategic actions.

And so, the Calm Time Management Framework (CALM) stands for clarify the work, align it with your priorities, lay out a realistic plan, and move the work forward. So, let's look at an example.

All right. So C stands for clarify the work. This means understanding what needs to be done and what the work actually requires. And so, what we want to ask ourselves and our team is what needs to be done. What does done actually look like what information or decisions are missing before we can start, and what deliverables are actually required. Now, if we have plans at that right level and bridge the strategy gap, we should have a pretty clear idea of the work that is required to achieve our strategic objectives and the timeline for that work, and so in practice, instead of starting your week kind of looking at a floating endless to-do list, we want to take a moment to list the work for that week. So list any projects, initiatives, responsibilities, and tasks, including any of those deliverables from your strategic objectives.

All right, then we've got A. A stands for align with your priorities. This means evaluating what is on your work list and determining what is a priority. And so, ask yourself and your team, why does this work matter? What matters most right now?

What will create the greatest impact? And what can wait, be delegated, or be removed from the list? Now, the challenge in determining from your long list of work and deliverables what matters is that it? Probably all matters. Everything on the list could create an impact for your community or for your colleagues. Everything on the list may move your organization's mission and vision forward. So the question isn't "Does this work matter? The answer probably is yes. It does.

The question that we need to ask is: This work the best use of our time and energy right now, this week, this month? Not everything on your plate deserves equal attention. This is where those clear strategic objectives and the deliverables and the timeline we created in implementation planning can really help. We can use them to guide our priorities for the week.

So we want to prioritize and sequence the work on our list. It can help to implement the three and one rule. So identify three things from your list that are absolutely essential to get done this week, and one non-essential thing that you have explicit permission to pause or let go of. When you make that list of essential things, make sure at least one is related to a strategic objective or deliverable. This is how we turn strategy into weekly action. So let's take a look at clarifying the work and aligning with your priorities in practice. So let's say I list what I need to work on this week. I have the support for the primary program I manage. One of the deliverables for my strategic objective around the leadership program is that training slide deck, and so an action to support that deliverable is creating a training outline. I have some board meeting prep prep for the meeting that's coming up in three weeks. I also need to complete a program report. I also need to thank a couple of program donors and handle a few small budgeting tasks. And there is a proposal that I would like to write. So if I use the three-in-one rule, I might decide that the program support, the training outline, and my program report are the essentials this week. I can probably delay the board meeting prep until next week, since completing the program report will probably help with that. I'm going to drop the program proposal. It's not really essential right now. I'm going to leave the donor thanks and budget tasks on my list as I don't think those are going to take that much time.

So I've prioritized my list, identifying my three most essential things, dropping some things that are not critical right now, and leaving some small tasks that I'll get to if I'm able, after we've clarified the work and aligned it with our priorities, including ensuring an essential item reflects the strategic objective, we want to lay out a realistic plan. So, for your prioritized work, ask when does this work need to be completed?

How much time will it realistically require, and where does it fit within my existing meetings and commitments? And so, how you lay out your plan for when you're going to do this work is really going to depend on your own personal preferences for managing work. So it could be creating a daily or weekly to-do list, blocking time on your calendar for working on work, or something like eating the frog, where you do the hardest thing on your list first. Regardless of your approach, what we are doing is setting a due date. So either a D U E due date, a time that we want to have the work completed by, or we are setting a D O due date or time when we want to perform the work, and so for our prioritized list, my program support is something I'm doing every day this week.

Based on that, and looking at my calendars for meetings I have scheduled, I'm going to block some time on Tuesday to work on my program report and some time on Wednesday to work on the training outline, and then set aside 30 minutes on Thursday to do some of those smaller tasks. My donor thinks and budgeting, and so after we have a realistic plan, we want to move the work forward. This is where execution meets reality. You want to execute the plan that you laid out, but you also want to monitor and track progress, and then modify and adjust your plan as needed.

So back to our example, to move the work forward, we start acting on the plan, and we find out that yep, we we fit program support in. That's our top priority every day. The training outline went pretty quickly. We're feeling good about that. We found out that another colleague also wanted to write some donor thanks, so we made some time to knock that out together. But the program report took way longer than we thought it was going to, and it's not done yet. And we never got around to those budget tasks. So by monitoring how the work went. We can either make changes on the fly during the week. Maybe I schedule some time on Friday for the program report, or we adjust how we plan our work for the next week. Maybe by ensuring we give ourselves more than an hour for deeper work.

And so in the example that we've been looking at, we've used COM to plan our time at the individual level and help turn strategy into action by making the work for a strategic objective one of our priorities for the week. But we can also use this framework at the team level to help our team turn strategy into weekly action, and so we can be sure we clarify the work involved in implementing our strategic objectives. We can make sure that we let our team know what the priorities are, given all of their other work, including making sure strategic work becomes a priority. We can help them lay out a realistic plan with timelines for doing strategic work, and perhaps most importantly, by giving them permission to focus on that work. Then, as they move the work forward, we can monitor and help them adjust. Okay, so that was a quick introduction to how we can turn strategy into weekly action.

First, we have to bridge the strategy gap by planning at the right altitude with clear objectives, deliverables, and a short-term implementation plan. Then we can manage weekly action using the COM framework and ensure strategic work becomes part of our weekly priorities. If you'd like some guidance using Calm, download our Calm Reset worksheet. This practical guide and worksheets are designed to help you step out of the reactive mode and make more intentional choices about your time. This free resource resource is available at yazdaniconsulting.com/resources. You may also be interested in our project leadership studio. It's an asynchronous training and coaching space for mission-driven leaders who want ongoing guidance as they plan, prioritize, and lead projects and teams. You can learn more at YazdaniConsulting.com PLS. And if you'd like to learn how we can help you bring more clarity and calm to your planning, your team, and your to-do list, visit yazdaniconsulting.com/approach.

All right, so I'm happy to take any questions that you have about turning strategy into weekly action. Please add them in the comments, I'll give folks a few moments to add their questions. If I'm not able to answer your question live, I'm happy to respond later in the comments. You can also find all of the ways to contact me at yazdaniconsulting comtact. Please reach out to me if you'd like to talk.

And again, if you're watching a recording of this, do feel free to put questions in the comments.

All right, so I am not seeing any questions at the moment, but do feel free to comment or reach out to me with any questions that you have. I really am happy to answer your questions and talk about strategy and action with you. So, thank you for participating in our impactful projects and planning series. Visit YazdaniConsulting.com/IPP to find out about upcoming sessions and to view recordings of past sessions in the series.

Thanks, everybody.