In 2004 at AIM in Israel, almost two full days were spent on brainstorming, discussing and even voting to create the priorities for the first Strategic Plan (2004-2009). In fact this was the first time we experienced the Open Space discussion concept, that later was adopted in many other areas of CISV.
While everybody present felt enthusiastic, even visionary, the final result of this project, I personally thought was fairly lame. The priorities that came out of this process made sense, but didn't really reflect what the group had in mind, and the choices (5 out of something like 25 suggestions) didn't seem ideal. In fact, my suggestion "To consolidate chapters" wasn't even understood the same way by everybody, due to language issues, but still got chosen. What I missed in this process in 2004 was leadership from the IEC to pick and sort, and filter out what made sense. The IEC at the time, however, didn't see their role that way.
The time period for the old Strategic Plan ends this year and at AIM right now a new Strategic Plan for 2009-2012 is being discussed. It has three priorities (Education, Training and Evaluation. Chapters. Profile Raising), and Doc36 in the AIM papers clearly specifiy what should be done to work towards these priorities. There's further documents that go into more detail on when, where and what should be done.
The documents themselves give no indication how it was created, but my sources tell me it's mainly IEC and IO with some input from EDR, ODC, and ILTC. So, as it seems, the pendulum has swung all the way to the other side from a formerly rather passive leadership to a, let's be provocative, authoritarian leadership style.
Reading briefly through those documents, I do like the plan. I also acknowledge the role of the IEC of having a vision, creating such a plan, and re-aligning the organization in a way, that this plan can become a reality. However, to me it feels bad, that the process of 2004 couldn't be repeated to enlarge the number of people giving input right from the beginning. Furthermore, I'm worried that the grassroots will never take ownership of this plan if the "intermediate" level wasn't involved in the process from the start.
Somewhere in the middle between 2004 and 2009 lies the ideal path (or so the Dalai Lama would say....)
While everybody present felt enthusiastic, even visionary, the final result of this project, I personally thought was fairly lame. The priorities that came out of this process made sense, but didn't really reflect what the group had in mind, and the choices (5 out of something like 25 suggestions) didn't seem ideal. In fact, my suggestion "To consolidate chapters" wasn't even understood the same way by everybody, due to language issues, but still got chosen. What I missed in this process in 2004 was leadership from the IEC to pick and sort, and filter out what made sense. The IEC at the time, however, didn't see their role that way.
The time period for the old Strategic Plan ends this year and at AIM right now a new Strategic Plan for 2009-2012 is being discussed. It has three priorities (Education, Training and Evaluation. Chapters. Profile Raising), and Doc36 in the AIM papers clearly specifiy what should be done to work towards these priorities. There's further documents that go into more detail on when, where and what should be done.
The documents themselves give no indication how it was created, but my sources tell me it's mainly IEC and IO with some input from EDR, ODC, and ILTC. So, as it seems, the pendulum has swung all the way to the other side from a formerly rather passive leadership to a, let's be provocative, authoritarian leadership style.
Reading briefly through those documents, I do like the plan. I also acknowledge the role of the IEC of having a vision, creating such a plan, and re-aligning the organization in a way, that this plan can become a reality. However, to me it feels bad, that the process of 2004 couldn't be repeated to enlarge the number of people giving input right from the beginning. Furthermore, I'm worried that the grassroots will never take ownership of this plan if the "intermediate" level wasn't involved in the process from the start.
Somewhere in the middle between 2004 and 2009 lies the ideal path (or so the Dalai Lama would say....)
I had the same reaction. I agree with the concepts presented, but I wrote in my notebook "Are we a top-down organization?" and "Where can innovation happen?" Those were my main concerns. The priorities and plan are very much about professionalizing CISV, and I think this can be a very positive move for us, but I worry about a disconnect between, different levels of the organization. Even the part of the plan that involves chapters is more about assisting the top level in their work, not coming up with initiatives or contributions from the chapter level. This is not without a solution, but it doesn't seem that a solution will come from the IEC or new Education Department who are going to be focused on the work they have set for themselves. Who will step up?
While my "institutional" history of these sorts of ideas at the international and national level only goes back three or so years, the way the organization has gone about the strategic planning process seems quite backwards, especially now that I'm getting back into working with a local chapter.
There is a very great danger with this top-down approach as both you and Sarah note. It's very easy to forget about the individual struggles and problems a chapter faces in their month-to-month operation. The way this process has been fleshed out, it seems like very little attention has been paid to these issues our chapters are facing. As a matter of fact, it seems as though there is little to no input whatsoever. My biggest concern would be bringing this back to our chapters and having them get the feeling that these strategic priorities are being forced down their throats when they are struggling to find money, leadership and participants (which, when it comes down to it, should be the #1 strategic priority and focus as it keeps the organization running).
Martin:
While I obviously agree on critizing the top-down approach taken with the Strategic Plan, I do think there's also the other side:
For as long as I can remember chapters have been complaining about all the new things that came upon them from the national or international level. Many a "chapter person" feels lack of recognition for his or her daily work while being forced to deal with stuff that comes from the top. However, I think only somebody in the top structure of our organization is able to see the bigger picture and get things moving. In fact, if you look back, we don't seem to have a great record of grassroots development recently. IPP, Mosaic, CISV friends, Self-insurance...even Mosquito tactics to some extent are developments that I consider great progress - all those have come from our international leadership.
Chapters have always enjoyed quite an element of freedom to develop CISV further, but from my perspective they haven't been such a source of innovation recently. This is were I'd like to see some change: Our chapters should be encouraged to leave the standard path and explore new areas - and their success stories should then be promoted. This could be a way to move ourselves (back?) into a grassroots organization. Since "Chapters" is one area of the new strategic plan, maybe this concept could be part of it.
While I may agree that the result of the SP with NAs/Chapter involvement would have been the same, I do share the concern that at least such process should make people feel included. We even have a taskforce!
So while I appreciate strong leaderships in general, I feel that a good leader involve people in the decision process or at least make them feel part of it. In this sense current IEC has not been that sensitive.