Strategy

In its simplest terms, strategy comes down to working out “where we want to go and how we want to get there”. In practice, it is one of the most challenging matters for any organisation to manage. It requires a mix of visionary leadership, strategic thinking and practical down-to-earth management. In our experience, strategy development in New Zealand too often results either in vision unconnected to reality, or an implementation focus that can crowd out the visionary aspect – reducing strategy to “business as usual”.

Sometimes, also, an organisation won’t have, in-house, the full breadth of knowledge of the wider environment to factor into strategy development. We are able to help clients understand the economic, political and social context in which their strategies will play out. That might include, for example, the degrees of freedom you have to pursue your chosen direction.

The benefits for you from working with us come from:

• Our experience in taking strategy from vision to implementation, including linking organisational purpose to strategic direction.
• The alternative perspective needed to shift people out of a “business as usual” approach to strategy.
• Our understanding that strategy only works if people within organisations take ownership of it and believe it will add value to what they are seeking to achieve.
• Our emphasis on strategy as a living process, not a plan to file.

Feature project: Community Outcomes Project

The Local Government Act 2002 requires local authorities to identify community outcomes and, in doing so, to adopt a process which should engage other groups and organisations. Those outcomes are to feed into councils’ main planning document, the long-term council community plan (LTCCP) - in essence a ten-year plan for the council and its community.

Experience with the first round of LTCCPs shows that most councils have treated the community outcomes process as essentially an extension of normal council consultation. In contrast, international experience shows that this kind of process can become genuinely community-based strategic planning with the potential to add huge value at a local level (as an example, we estimate the potential to add between 1% and 1.5% per annum to local economic growth).

The community outcomes project, undertaken for Local Government New Zealand and a group of co-funders drawn from central and local government, is a detailed explication of how the community outcomes process can be used as community-based strategic planning. It identifies specific areas where this approach could add immediate value including tertiary education, economic development, positive ageing and affordable housing.

Our work in this area has been recognised internationally. As one example, Peter McKinlay, who leads this work, has been invited to be the New Zealand key note speaker at the Future of Local Government Summit in Melbourne in June 2005.

See the synopsis and report in our library. The printed version is available from Local Government New Zealand.