Whose strategy is it anyway?

‘Whose line is it anyway?’ was one of my favourite comedy TV programmes in the 1990s. I’m showing my age here, but what’s not to love about a group of first rate comedy actors improvising scenes in response to prompts from the host and the audience?  In fact it contributed to my decision to take an improv class a few years ago – a terrifying experience but highly recommended as a personal development exercise.  But I digress.

That title sprang back to mind when I was thinking about strategy as a discipline recently. Whose strategy is it anyway? Perhaps because there are some surprising similarities between what makes good improv and what makes great strategy. But more importantly, the question of ‘whose strategy is it?’ warrants consideration: how we answer it completely changes the ‘why, what and how’ of strategy.

Before we address the ‘who’ question, let’s recognise that there is discomfort or even distaste in some churches and ministry organisations for anything we might call strategy because, well – it’s the Lord’s work, not ours. And isn’t it rather arrogant or worldly to set out to determine how the future unfolds? In that sense, the strategy belongs to the Lord!

Yet every organisation, every church, every leader of anything does have a strategy. Not necessarily an elegantly crafted document that’s been pored over, debated, finessed and then launched to great fanfare, but a strategy nonetheless. Because strategy-for-real consists of the set of choices that you make. These choices may or may not be the same as what’s written down in that strategic plan document that you may or may not have. But make no mistake, the accumulation and interplay of those choices amounts to the real strategy.  And those choices, for better or worse, shape the health and direction of the  ministry you’re involved in. 

So what is strategy?

Roger Martin, a leading strategic thinker, academic and practitioner, defines strategy as an integrated set of choices that compels desired customer action. Now we might not love all the terms he’s using here, like ‘customer’ and ‘compels’ when thinking about ministry, but it’s worth taking time to tease out what he’s saying and do some translation for our contexts.  

We all make choices, but they’re not always integrated.  

In using the term ‘integrated choices’, Martin is pointing to the difference between isolated choices like ‘what will I have for dinner tonight?’ and systemic choices like ‘what kind of diet will I adhere to in order to live the life I want to lead?’.  Thinking about overall diet in the light of longer term life goals gives someone the framework for making all the micro choices involved in day to day eating: what to buy, how to cook, when to eat, which treats to enjoy. Without the integrating factor of a chosen approach to my diet, I’ll simply eat what I want, when I want it. Choices, but not integrated ones.  Which is fine if that’s what you want to do, but that’s a lot less likely to set you up to have strength and energy. 

We long for our words and work to be compelling, but we don’t force or manipulate. 

We do whatever we do – as a church, as a ministry organisation, or as a leader – because we hold certain convictions about God’s word and his work in his world, and about our part in it.  We believe that God uses our lives, words, activities and relationships to bring blessing to each other and to our communities. But we have limited resources to do that with, and we ourselves are limited in how much time, energy and capacity we have. And so we make choices:  we choose when and how to meet; how and when we pray together, who to employ and who to invite into leadership; what activities to run with what purpose; what teaching and training happens; how to raise and spend money; what and how to communicate. We don’t want to compel action, but we certainly long for a response of repentance, faith and love, and we want to orientate all we do towards that end.  All this is ultimately the work of God’s Spirit but he chooses to use our agency and he gives us a great deal of freedom about how we choose to exercise that agency. We make choices that we expect and pray will have certain outcomes.  

We don’t have customers, we have people we’re called to love and serve. 

This is a really important difference to see when we’re weighing up the legitimacy of ‘strategy’ in ministry. The people our choices impact upon are not a means to our own ends. The destiny of their souls is the end. Our ministries and institutions and even nations may rise and fall, and will ultimately fade, but people are eternal beings created in God’s image. We’re to love the lost and invite them into union with Christ, and we’re to love and serve our fellow believers.  People are not ‘customers’ of a ministry, ever, and they’re not there to be exploited or manipulated for our own ends. But we are to make every effort to make disciples.  

With those qualifiers in mind, here’s the next question:

What will make the difference between good strategy and weak strategy?  Between a strategy that brings about the outcomes you long to see, and one that does not?

What surprised me most when I took that improv acting course was the discovery that successful improvisation depends on a strong set of rules*. That seems counterintuitive, but the same apparent ‘loose-tight’ dichotomy shows up in many parts of life: rules facilitate improv; limits spark creativity; boundaries give us freedoms. 

This is where we find a surprising parallel between improv and strategy and help to recognise what ‘good’ strategy involves. Good strategy – one that leads to really worthwhile outcomes –  is all about responding wisely to what’s happening around us with both focus and flexibility. Focus – the robustness, the purposefulness, the integrity of our choices – comes from having firmly agreed goals and priorities, which everyone understands and towards which our attention is unwavering. That’s what’s captured and communicated through a really good strategic planning process and document. 

Flexibility comes from having a curious and attentive posture towards what is unfolding around us, and the will and capacity to recalculate and adapt when we find a shorter route to our destination or encounter roadblocks that need to be navigated around. And that task of sensing and interpreting what’s really happening relies on, well, pretty much everyone who carries responsibility for anything.  

But let’s be clear: the flexible response is not a free-for all; it emerges within the boundaries of firmly agreed goals and priorities: focus-and-flexibilty; form-and-freedom.

Which brings us back to where we began: whose strategy is it?

In business, the most senior leader or leadership team in any organisation will usually be responsible for defining and directing the strategy; it’s usually in their job descriptions. The board always approves the strategic plan, of course, and usually has some involvement in shaping the strategic direction.  In larger organisations, there might also be a strategy specialist and maybe a strategy team responsible for doing the analysis and strategic optioneering that enables the strategic decisions to be reached.  If a church does have a strategic plan it’ll usually be the elders, perhaps together with trustees (if different) to put that plan together, after consultation with others. The documented strategy matters a lot.

But the most powerful part of any strategy is what happens next: what choices each and every decision maker and resource owner makes as they encounter and respond to the reality of everyday work and ministry.  Those choices can be small or large, collaborative or individual, ad hoc or process driven. But they amount to the real, enacted strategy – regardless of whether they’re written in a plan.  And these are the choices that shape what people experience of us and whether they are drawn to return to us – as a church, as a ministry organisation or as a business.  

So strategy belongs to all of us. Everyone is a steward of God-given resources. Senior leaders can help by making sure everyone understands the purpose, goals and values and knows how their role relates to those things. Senior leaders can foster the collaboration and confidence that enable others to make aligned, integrated decisions. But the real strategy is what each of us are shaping in our own spheres of influence and activity, choice by thoughtful choice.   

And finally: why is good strategy hard to do?

Strategy isn’t usually rocket science, especially for smaller entities like churches and ministry organisations, yet it can seem very hard to do well.  To build a strong consensus about the goals and priorities we’re focusing on, and to stay focused on doing well what we’ve said we’ll do, can prove a challenge for leaders.  Why so? 

The first reason is intellectual.  Good strategy involves integrative choices, where lots of variables are considered together, and actions are decided on in a holistic way.  That can mean a lot of work going into understanding the interdependencies of different variables and the potential unintended consequences of different options. Choices which are best for the whole may be hard to discern or arrive at.

A second reason strategy often seems hard is more emotional.  Making strategic choices includes having to decide not to do everything. There may be an exciting new opportunity on our radar, but pursuing it is going to divert important attention and resources from things we’ve already committed to.  Are we willing to stop something we’re doing, or pass on a new opportunity, in order to do the most important things really well? And even ‘best for the whole’ choices can be very tough for a few. Skipping the chips may be best for a healthy life, but won’t go down well with grandad. Most leaders find those calls extremely hard to make!

And that’s when we need to remind ourselves that being strategic needn’t involve hubris or arrogant self-sufficiency. As finite human beings, we’re called upon to be wise stewards, not masters of the universe. We can make the tough decisions that are involved in good strategy with prayerfulness, wisdom and humility, knowing that God will fulfil his purposes, even if we get it wrong.  What grace! 

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*Here’s a summary of some of the key rules of improv. Think about what relevance these may have for how you develop and pursue an integrated, responsive strategy in your context: 

• Collaboration, not negation:  The most basic rule of improv is summed up in two words, ‘Yes, and.”  Things get started with the offering of an invitation. The action, plot and characters develop and unfold when the invitation is accepted and built upon. 
• Make choices: There are three key things to establish at the start of any scene: who (the characters you’re playing and the nature of the relationship between them), where (the setting of the scene and the norms implicit in that setting), and what (usually the central “conflict,” of the scene, anything that causes tension between or for the characters and drives the scene forward; a problem that needs solving). 

• Attentiveness: Close listening  is especially important in improv. Alertness to the signals your partner is sending out means being able to respond collaboratively and creatively.
• Physical engagement: The more you can use your body to show what’s going on the less you have to spell out laboriously.  The audience will come on the unfolding journey more wholeheartedly if they’ve sensed from posture, movement and energy what you’re inviting them into.