FEATURE ARTICLE

PLANNING for the Next Millenniuin
Two park districts find strategic planning a valuable guide as they chart a course for the future
BY JINI CLARE

"If you are in a valley and looking for a way out, you might climb to a small hill, to a larger hill, or to a helicopter to see which one helps you find a better way." - Dr. luis Flares Northern Illinois University

With the countdown to the next millennium capturing global attention, people throughout the world are wondering what the future will bring. Not only are governmental and business leaders worried about Y2K computer problems, but they are looking at a changing society and wondering how they will meet the needs of their communities.

Many park district boards and managers share these concerns and recognize it is a time to begin strategic planning. The questions confronting them are:

• Why is strategic planning important?

• Who should participate?

• Who should facilitate the process?

• How can we do it effectively?

• What are the major obstacles that we might encounter?

• How will it benefit my park district?

Why It's Important to Plan
The Oswegoland and Gurnee park districts began the strategic planning process several years ago.

According to Bert Gray, executive director of the Oswegoland Park District, "Whether you call it strategic planning or long-range planning, it's critical to have a target—some idea of where you're going. If you don't know where you're going, any road takes you there."

He adds: "Our taxpayers expect us to be run like a business and to bring the planning aspect of business to a public entity. The benefits are knowing where you want to go and setting some steps to take you in that direction."

Chuck Balling, executive director of Gurnee Park District, agrees: "Planning is important in helping to build consensus and ensure that the vision coming forth is the vision being driven by community needs and wants.

"It doesn't provide you with all the answers, but it helps you set the direction that will be successful. Planning acts as a map by giving you steps and tasks to follow, and it clearly defines diose who will be responsible in your organization for implementing and developing that future vision."

Building Consensus through Participation
According to bom Gray and Balling, it is important to involve the community.

"It is critically important to gather all the different perspectives and viewpoints in the community," Gray says. "The result of the hard work is a plan which is developed through a much broader thinking process because of the people involved. The final plan has a built-in commitment from community members."

Balling adds: "I would emphasize that the strategic planning process is a consensus-building process. The more constituency you have involved—staff, community members, governmental leaders, school principals and superintendents—the better the process."

Who Should Facilitate the Process?
Gray and Balling agree diat outside facilitators bring objectivity and expertise to die strategic planning pro-

March/April 1999 ¦ 21

cess. Another advantage of utilizing outside facilitators is that existing work demands of park district employees often do not allow time to plan the meetings, do the research, and complete the process in a timely manner.

"We were like a raft running white-water rapids without a rudder. Now we have a rudder to help us avoid the rocks and steer toward the best part of the river." • Bert Grey Oswegoland Park District

Balling was the outside facilitator hired by the Gurnee Park District several years ago and was later brought aboard as its executive director. Oswegoland Park District hired Dr. Luis Flores, a business professor from Northern Illinois University, to lead them through the process. Flores utilized a process he calls "strategic transformation" that he developed while assisting engineering, high-tech, and financial organizations with their strategic planning.

According to Flores, "There are two types of expertise a facilitator can bring to an organization—vertical expertise and horizontal expertise.

"The vertical is in-depth knowledge about the organization itself. Key employees within the organization should have that expertise. Horizontal expertise is the knowledge a person gains when working with a variety of organizations and learning the concepts that apply to all of them. They've done it many times before and know most of the mistakes that can be avoided. The best solution is to hire an external facilitator and team them with an internal coordinator. That gives you the best of both worlds."

Flores adds: "For a good process, you need two dimensions—the technical dimension and the human/social dimension. People from an education or psychology back- ground bring human/social skills so they can help management teams agree and develop consensus. A technical background ensures that the consensus will be obtained on the issues that are important in the strategic planning process. You really need someone with both technical and human skills."

"When you start the process, you need to be clear about what you want. Your facilitator and the process need to match that expected outcome," says Gray. "When selecting a facilitator, it is important to learn what skills the facilitator will bring to the park district and what services that person will provide.

"If you're going to hire someone, plan to have the facilitator take you into the implementation stages of the plan to help you take the first action steps."

While many park districts budget to hire a facilitator, others turn to volunteers in the community. Many corporations have professional facilitators on staff and may be willing to share their time with the park district. This could be a valuable business partnership for the park district, as well as an outstanding public relations/marketing opportunity for the corporation. In addition, professional facilitators may be found by contacting local community colleges and universities.

However, Flores cautions: "A facilitator is like a coach. You should search for your coach carefully and make whatever efforts are necessary to win the game."

Developing an Effective Strategic Plan
1. Research
The first lesson shared by these two park districts is that research is the foundation of an effective strategic plan. For the Gumee Park District, this included internal and external research conducted through a formal survey, registration reports, census information, and community meetings. The goal was to rank issues and set strategic priorities, not to address every issue. Specific objectives were set forth by staff with approval of the strategic planning advisory committee on how to achieve them. Well-defined tasks were then assigned to staff members with a time line of three years to accomplish them.

Research was also the cornerstone of the strategic plan created by the Oswegoland Park District. Under the guidance of Dr. Flores, the planning team was required to build an "information platform" as a central part of the process. This involved in-depth research about the external driving forces and internal critical success factors that the group identified.

These are listed in the sidebar on page 23 and include external issues such as demographics and economy and internal factors such as communication and leadership. All planning discussions were based on documented facts, and everyone on the team was aware of the same data.

According to Gray, "The gathering of the information was like collecting bricks. Presenting it to the whole group, chart after chart, was like putting the bricks together with mortar. Then, by the time everyone was done watching the presentation, there it was, all in one piece—a foundation for good decision-making."

Ginny Bateman, director of leisure services for the Oswegoland Park District and a member of the planning team, notes: "The process allowed us to break down and identify all of the things that really did affect us into more manageable pieces that we could look at, analyze, and address. It was interesting to see that the process took us away from what we thought was obvious and overwhelming to something not as obvious and much easier to get our arms around."

2. Commitment
Another important element of planning that will determine the success of planning efforts is commitment. Lack of management support has been identified as a major obstacle to successful strategic planning.

When asked what level of commitment is necessary, Flores quickly jokes, "It's like a brain transplant!

"I believe that collective learning leads to common understanding, resulting in consensus and generating commitment. The deeper the commitment, the better the result."

Flores continues: "In strategic planning, there is a whole set of things that people do. They are very different from

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PLANNING FOR THE NEXT MILLENNIUM

each other, although they have some commonality. The differences are in the depth and breadth of thinking."

Commitment allows an organization to pursue in-depth planning and avoid a superficial process. Illustrating the advantage of a higher-level perspective, Flores says, "If you are in a valley and looking for a way out, you might climb to a small hill, to a larger hill, or to a helicopter to see which one helps you find a better way."

Bateman shares this advice with other park districts:

"They need to look at what they want out of it and how hard they want to work for it. We were all surprised at how hard Luis wanted us to work. He would say, 'Go find this out.' He would later send us back to get better information or tell us to start over or twist it another way. Luis was unwilling to let us stay on the surface. He forced us to really think in different ways."

3. Staying Focused
A good strategic planning process becomes a cycle of planning activities, follow-up and control mechanisms, implementation, and replanning. It does not stop with the creation of the initial plan.

"A bad planning process cannot produce the result that people expect, and then there is a planning back- lash," cautions Flores.

"When planning is done the wrong way, people resent it and feel that planning in itself is not good. They blame the planning and not the process. Expecting magical results in a short term is not realistic, because strategic planning implies changing the management process."

Reaping the Benefits of Strategic Planning
According to Flores, "One of the things I have found out in this park district and in many businesses is that they think about tomorrow with the concepts of today. They don't conceptualize what is coming. They tend to think within their own paradigm, and the paradigm of today may not be the paradigm of tomorrow."

He identifies several paradigm-shifting benefits of good strategic planning, including;
• Clarity in management focus

• A coherent set of decisions

• Commitment from all parties involved

• Better resource utilization

• Synchronization with environmental changes

• Building support from the board and community

• Producing original and creative ideas

Driving Forces Critical Success Factors
The Oswegoland Park District's management team fully explored and researched each of these driving forces and critical success factors and produced more than 250 charts that shed light on the future. This became the information platform on which the district based its strategic plan.

Driving Forces
Driving forces are issues and trends over which the park district has no control but which affect how it does business. The Oswegoland Park District identified the following driving forces:

Competition
Demographics
Development
Economy
Expectations
Legislation
Nature
Crime
Politics
Community Values

Critical Success Factors
Critical success factors are internal issues and concerns over which the park district does have some control and which afreet how they do business. The planning team identified these factors as important to the Oswegoland Park District:
Commitment
Communication
Cooperation
Direction
Ethics
Flexibility
Leadership
Responsiveness
Resources
Training
Vision

- by jini Clare

March/April 1999 23

According to Bateman, "Through our planning process, we gained an even greater appreciation for how much our board and community value our work. It was great to see how concerned our community was about us. They spoke about making sure that there were enough people and that we spent time on training. It was nice for the board to know that the community was aware of the value that we bring."

One of the directives of the plan was to do more staff development, training, and team building. With that directive and encouragement from the board and community, the park district has done things with the staff that they might not have done. This included a values exercise which improved communications.

"The strategic plan helped us recognize that a lot of conflicts occurred and a lot of time was spent because honorable people with good intentions had completely different expectations," explains Bateman. "We were able to sit down and identify what is important to us. Then as a group we could talk about those values and what they mean to us."

Gray adds: "I can't imagine trying to do what we need to do without having gone through this process. We were like a raft running white-water rapids without a rudder. Now we have a rudder to help us avoid the rocks and steer toward the best part of the river." 

JINI CLARE
is president of Clare Communications in Napervilie, ///., and the former director of communications for the Naperville Park District.

24 Illinois Parks and Recreation