December 2016
Dear Patty,
I am a program director at a large nonprofit. My program is planning a retreat with all of our staff before the end of the year to map our goals and priorities for 2017, and I am at a loss about how to go about this. Any ideas as to how we could have a more productive goal-setting session? I need some fresh ideas.
Thanks,
Program Director Hoping for More
Dear PDHM,
Kudos to you for gathering staff input before setting programmatic goals! As I’m sure you realize, when staff opinions and expertise inform the goal setting process, your goals are bound to be more relevant and realistic. Here is an activity you could try that may help you make your goal-setting process more fun, participatory, and democratic:
- Ask staff to brainstorm all the areas of work and strategies that exist so the program can fulfill its mission in the coming year. Encourage staff to think big and creatively. Each idea gets its own post-it note. Post these on the wall.
- Next, ask staff to look at the post-it notes and organize them by theme, by moving around the post-it notes. Once staff are satisfied with the groupings, give each theme a name.
- Then, ask each staff person to individually choose the top three priorities for the program from this list, and write down their three choices on a piece of paper. Ask staff to choose one priority from their list that they would like to “pitch”(in other words, to argue their case: Why should this be a program priority?).
- Each staff gets a chance to make their pitch. Ask other staff to listen closely and take notes if they’d like.
- When each staff person has pitched their top priority, ask staff to review their list of three priorities again in light of what they heard from their co-workers. Has their opinion changed? If so, ask them to change their written list. Have staff hand in their list of top three priorities and take time to tally the votes.
- Share the results with the whole team.
Here’s to a productive new year,
Patty
This column offers tips and tools for building democratic workplaces, improving workplace culture & communication, and aligning how we do our work (process) with why we do our work (purpose). Patty is a fictional adjunct of The Blue Door Group, LLC — a real Philadelphia-based consulting firm focused on designing and teaching participatory process for learning, dialogue, and capacity-building. Do you have a question for Patty? Send it to info@bluedoorgroup.net and put “Ask Patty” in the subject line.
