STRATEGIC CHALLENGES
The Strategic Challenges Leaders Bring to Us
Nobody is fully prepared to lead, especially strategic planning. That's where we come in.
Find the situation that sounds like yours, and see how other leaders worked through it.
What Is a Strategic Challenge?
A strategic challenge is a pressure your organization's current direction, structure, or plan can't resolve on its own. The most common strategic planning challenges fall into four patterns: a new leader facing more than earlier roles prepared them for, leaders who can't commit to a direction, growth or funding the organization can no longer count on, and a plan the organization isn't set up to carry out.
If you're new to your role, start with the next section. Otherwise, use the filter to see challenges for your type of organization. Each page describes the situation, why it happens, how we approach it, and a client who faced it.
The New Leader Challenge
A new leader can experience a setback in their first few months when they realize what they were told about the role and what they discover is significantly different. Capabilities are woefully underdeveloped, the board or management team was recruited for a business model from another era, or their past experience hasn't prepared them for the level of complexity they now face.
This occurs in all types of settings:
A New Company Leader
CEO | President | Division or Department
You’ve been in the job for a number of months, but your team still doesn’t seem enthusiastic about the direction you want to take. They seem more focused on protecting the status quo.
You need a plan they can rally behind.
A New Nonprofit Leader
CEO | Executive Director | Board Chair
Your experience made this role the perfect next step for you, but the organization needs far more rebuilding than anyone described during the hiring process, and your board has a completely different set of priorities.
You need all stakeholders aligned.
A New Academic Leader
Medical or Research Department Chair | Division Head | Administrative Director
You have ambitious plans, but the scope, structure, and pace are bigger and more complicated than your past leadership roles prepared you for.
You need guidance to lead a transformation of this complexity.
Find Your Challenge
Each situation below is written the way leaders describe it to us.
Many common strategic planning problems look familiar across sectors: browse them all or filter by companies, nonprofit organizations, or academic departments. Choose the one closest to yours.
Who Leads This Work
Every Focused Momentum engagement is led personally by Cecilia Lynch, Founder and Chief Strategist. She has led strategic planning for companies, nonprofits, and academic departments for more than 25 years and is the author of Stop Solving Problems. Specialists from our bench join when the work calls for their expertise.
Strategic Planning Challenges FAQs
Most strategic planning challenges fall into four patterns: a new leader facing more than earlier roles prepared them for, leaders who can't agree and commit to a direction, growth or funding the organization can no longer count on, or a plan the organization isn't set up to carry out. The same pattern can look different in a company, a nonprofit, and an academic department.
You know you need a new strategic plan if the current plan no longer guides your organization in the right direction, or if your leaders can't agree on that direction. You may only need help implementing your plan if you are unified and committed to its direction, but the work to act on it has stalled. If the plan is sound, but a team needs to align on how best to act on it, a Strategy Boost™ may be enough.
Yes, Focused Momentum often helps new leaders make an existing plan their own and align stakeholder support for any shifts. Many Strategy Summit® engagements begin in a new leader's first year and sometimes build on a plan already in motion. If the direction holds, Strategic Plan Implementation Support can put it to work, whether or not we helped build it.