Getting Set: Designing for Strategy Activation

In this section, we define terms and guide the process for the foundational work necessary to activate strategy across your organization using the JustOrg Design system.

Purpose, Values, Strategies, and Priorities

We use four key terms that everyone on staff and board can learn to engage in strategy activation. It’s critical that leadership commits to using words hyper-consistently so that everyone can learn and speak the language of strategy across your organization.

DEFINITIONS

PURPOSE our organization's core reason for being

VALUES the beliefs that inform our analyses and guide our behavior

STRATEGIES how we generate enough influence to be a causal factor in the change we seek

PRIORITIES what we must do this year to activate our strategies

We don’t believe that everyone in an organization can, will, or needs to learn more than these four terms to engage confidently in strategy activation from wherever they sit. When we introduce too many terms that are nearly impossible to distinguish from one another, people, understandably, tune out; confusion and even cynicism about strategy set in.

If need be, it’s very possible to cross-walk other strategy terms from your strategic plan or theory of change to the JustOrg Design system. In fact, we believe it is necessary to do that if you want everyone on staff and board to engage in strategy activation every day.

Teams and Tables (Groups)

With your purpose and strategies articulated, you can turn to structuring the organization with the express intent to activate them every day.

There are two types of group structures for you to identify and scope.

DEFINITIONS

TEAMS people working together in a single function e.g. delivery of a single program or a communications team or an accounting team

TABLES people from across two or more teams coordinating, setting direction, etc. e.g. people and culture or learning and evaluation or defining an emergent strategy

Diagram of a JustOrg Design

In order to give every Team and Table deep clarity about how, specifically, they are charged with activating strategy, we use a consistent scoping process with the elements below.

DEFINITIONS

TEAM/TABLE (GROUP) PURPOSE the Group’s reason for being

GROUP STRATEGY(S) ACTIVATED the organizational strategy(s) the Group are particularly charged with activating

GROUP DRDs (Decides, Recommends, and/or Delivers) what the Group shall decide; what the Group shall recommend; and what the TeamTable shall deliver

Every group in your organizational design has the same scoping, ensuring everyone knows why it exists, what is expected of it, and what its decision and/or recommendation-making responsibilities are.

It’s important to remember–and to socialize across your staff–that very little about your Group structure is permanent. As the operating context changes, your strategies and priorities evolve, and so too will the purpose, DRDs, and composition of your Teams and Tables.

Key Roles

Central to the ethos of JustOrg Design is making group work work. The clear scoping of Teams/Tables, as described above, is critical to that. But so too are clear Group roles.

Each Group has two roles that should be filled with care; that is, ensuring that the people fulfilling these roles bring both the skills and the energy the roles require. Successful group work absolutely depends on their contributions! These two roles are defined below.

SPONSOR the senior staff person accountable for the Group’s success; provides coaching and course-correction on a continuous basis

Important Note

The Sponsor role must be filled with a senior staff person who is committed to energizing this essential guide/coach role; the Group will likely stumble, and even fail, if not. The Sponsor meets regularly with the Conveners to track progress and help set direction. They are critical translators to the Conveners of the discourse among executive leadership.

CONVENER(S) the person(s) who plan the Group’s work: set meeting agendas, co-facilitate meetings, and broadcast in real time the Group’s strategy activation results

Important Note

Having Co-Conveners is usually the best path. This shares the labor and responsibility while allowing recruitment for strengths across two people including subject matter knowledge, facilitation skills, and administrative follow-through.

The foundational work described in this section is also captured in the five step process image below. Once you have a solid version one of the design, you can move forward to activation, which we outline in the next section.

Screenshot of JOD Onboarding Star