In the most simplistic terms, these are the three steps involved in the strategic planning process.  The questions asked in the title of this article can also apply to a planned vacation or excursion, or, on a much deeper level, to one’s own personal journey.

The steps involve blunt and truthful assessment, vision, and logistical/creative planning, setting milestones to gauge the process and the progress of the intended transformation (and in the spirit of “tetrahedronics” – that is, the need for 5 elements to create a complete system – means five things that NEED to be done!

From an organizational standpoint, consider these questions: “Where is Your School Now, Where Do You Want Your School To Be, and How Will You Lead Your School There?”

Just considering the first question bluntly and truthfully has stalled the overall process in many situations.  But as Jim Collins says in chapter 4 of “Good to Great,” “Confront the Brutal Facts…But Never Lose Hope.”

Since Labor Day is coming up, plan on taking some time – perhaps a couple of evenings – and think about where your school you lead is right now, at this point in history.  Then, ask yourself, “Why am I a leader in this particular school at this particular point in history?”

This year especially, this is a VERY important question!  If you ask yourself this question, you’ve actually moved to the next question – “Who” – since “Where” is really the “mindshifter” that makes all the other questions makes sense.  In this case, “Where” is the foundational question – the “mindsetter,” if you will.

Some people jump right into “Why” to determine their purpose, focusing on the “Why” of the question, “Why am I a leader in this particular school at this particular point in history?”  That could be because Simon Sinek authored an incredibly popular book titled, “Start With Why.”

But the more important word in that question is “I,” and in a greater content, “am I.”

That’s because the next question after “Where” is “Who,” and that’s you!

Perhaps you’re a development director, an advancement director, a board member, or a principal. To answer the question, know you are in this position right now for a particular purpose…and whether you believe it or not, you are in this position for a reason that is far beyond human rationalization and comprehension.

So with all that in mind, we’re now at “How.”  That means we need to go back to assess where the school is now, and where, as a leader, we want it to be before we can focus on “How” we get there.

Therefore, a SOWTS analysis needs to be done.  I’m sure you’ve heard of this as a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunity and threats).  Unfortunately, when we think of things in that order, we can become depressed, and actually stagnate, because the threats might be incredibly overwhelming, and depress us to the point of throwing our hands up and saying, “There’s nothing we can do to overcome these.

As a refresher, strengths and weaknesses are internal elements, things you have control over; opportunities and threats are external elements, things you have little or no control over.  The SWOT process is a four-step one, and provides a roller-coaster ride through the aspects of the organization, ending on a downward plunge.  So I’ve changed them around so that strengths and opportunities are considered first, allowing for an energizing exercise in creating a vision.  Then comes weaknesses and threats, and, as Jim Collins says, we have to face the brutal facts, but never lose hope.

How can we do that?

By ending the process with a fifth step, and that’s going to back to strengths!

Here’s the process:

Ask yourself, “What are the strengths of the school?”  These should be the remarkable things about your school.  Most school leaders are aware of them, since they are what attract parents to the school, making it an engaging and exemplary environment for education.

They don’t need to be remarkable differentiators at this point.  That’s a marketing exercise – not necessarily a strategic planning one.

Write them down – because one always leads with their strengths.

But don’t take comfort in these items, and think all will be well.  You need to do a little more homework.

The strengths are really the outcomes of your school, and, to paraphrase the words of Stephen Covey, you’re beginning with the end in mind…which is what you do in lesson planning AND goal setting.

Then move to opportunities.  Beginning with strengths and moving to opportunities gives you the chance to dream big about your school, to brainstorm and to be creative.  These three actions can assist in the creation of a vision for your school, which is encapsulated by the strategic planning question, “Where do you want your school to be?”

Only after focusing on the strengths as well as the potential opportunities your school holds, and maintaining a positive attitude of excitement, focus on the weaknesses of your school.  Even though they can be negative aspects, a weakness is something that you have some type of control over, and knowing you have some type of control over them is the positive aspect of examining something usually viewed as a negative.

You’ll need to hold on to that positive mindset when you look at the Threats in the SOWTS acronym.  They’re the concerns that can overwhelm school leaders, cause schools to stagnate and become fearful about the future, and move the school closer and closer to closure.

Threats are those things that are “out there,” but as a school leader, you have no control over them – like, oh, maybe a, pandemic?  In this type of situation, you have 3 options – stagnation, panic or pivot.

Pivot is the only positive outcome, and schools did that in the Spring of 2020 by going virtual.  Faith-based schools were particularly prepared to do so, which led to some creative realizations.  And today, some faith-based schools have launched virtual academies with what they’ve learned!

It’s also interesting to see that parents are now saying they’re not satisfied with the education their children have been receiving in public schools.  While there is much finger-pointing happening, parents may be reluctant to point the finger at themselves.  After all, as faith-based schools know, parents are their children’s first teachers.

Indeed, need is the driver of creativity and innovation, and, in the spirit of Advancement – there is no going back to “the way it was.”  That’s called regression, and the “new normal” will soon become “the normal,” even though it will not be the “normal” we used to know.

To provide another “threat” example, I’ve heard that some schools in states with voucher programs are thrilled that most of their students will attend school on a voucher.  But what happens if that program goes away?  Does the school close?

If so, that’s a threat.  Yes, a voucher program is a threat to the school’s sustainability – because you really have no control over it.

Interestingly, some schools that have finally attained the ability to accept students because there is a voucher program in place are finding that they can’t require those students’ families to pay the difference between the amount of the voucher and the published tuition, can’t charge the families a development fee if they refuse to participate in fundraising, and may have to make other accommodations for these families because they made the decision to “accept the voucher as payment in full for the students to attend school.”

Even more than a “Be careful what you wish for, since you may get it” attitude, what was once thought as a great opportunity in many schools has now become a significant threat – especially if parents can’t afford to provide the required uniforms to be in compliance with the school’s dress code, or come up with the other “fees” that are usually charged to tuition-paying parents for services that are usually offered by the public school.

Ending this process by deeply focusing on your school’s strengths once again can then re-energize you, and provide that additional necessary boost to get to the next step.  It’s not enough to simply think about those things…you need to write all those things down, and keep them close by as your energizers.

To review, remember that strengths and weaknesses are internal forces, while opportunities and threats are external. Internal items are things that you, as the leader, have control over; external items are things that you, as the leader, have little or no control over.

Just to be clear, opportunities are positive potentials, but because they are not yet part of the school’s identity (or brand), it may take some time to make an opportunity become a strength of your school.

Experiencing the process as SOWTS allows you to end with your school’s strengths.  Experiencing the process as a SWOT begins the process with focusing on strengths, but ends the process on threats.

And if you end the process by focusing on things that are negative, a depressed mindset may be formed, and could overwhelm those involved with a sense of futility and hopelessness.

To help you work through the framework, click http://www.quickmba.com/strategy/swot/ for a little more reading before you begin.

The most important thing, however, is to begin. The first step is the beginning of the journey.

Change will never occur unless the first step is taken.

Some of the comments I’ve received about this article in the past focused on the title, especially the “Where Do You Want Your School To Be?” part.  It was answered literally, such as, “I would like my school to be in a more visible location,” or, “I would like my school to be in a newer building which is wired for technology.”

If that’s what you really believe would be best for your school’s survival, then the next step is to plan how that vision will become reality.  If you are the leader of the school, your key responsibility is vision.  Proverbs 29:18 tells us, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.”  I’ve developed a 5-point framework that shows the attributes of leadership, and Vision is one of those elements.  If you’d like to see it, send an email to [email protected] with the words “The KARVE Leadership Framework” in the subject line.

Another comment was that most strategic planners end the second phrase with the word, “Go” rather than “Be.”  Although the word “go” implies action (which is usually a positive thing), the word “be” implies existence.

As a leader of a school, it would make sense that you want your school to still exist 5 or 10 years down the road.

One principal of a Catholic school I used to work with shared the fact that when she was hired, he pastor told her, “Either grow the school, or close the school.”

I would hope that there aren’t many leaders that would choose the latter option, or, at least, are aware of choosing to close the school.  Some decisions which some leaders make, however, point the school in that direction, whether they’re aware of it or not, which is why “vision” is necessary.

Schools should choose to “be” in five years rather than “go” somewhere…and using examples, to “go” “down the drain” isn’t something one wants to do.

So hold the vision, the place where you’d like to see your school, in mind.

Write it down.  Be concrete.

Paint a picture with more than a thousand words – a vision narrative in the words of Dan Krause, a prominent Christian school consultant, or a vision script in the words of Michael Hyatt, a noted publisher and now productivity expert.

Personally, I prefer the term “VisionText” to fulfill the words of Habakkuk 2:2 – “Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it.”

An inspired vision will inspire others to make it a reality!  And tablets?  Indeed – and how appropriate for today’s technology, since that’s where most parents are finding out about the school you lead!

It also differentiates the second statement from the third (How will you get there?).

When someone says, “Where to you want to go?” the path, the journey, the route, is implied to be a part of that statement since it is action-oriented.

Utilizing this phrase could cause contradictory statements to be generated between the vision and the plan to get there.

Using the word “be” for the second statement establishes the aforementioned endpoint. It should be as vividly described as the starting point.

The more vividly the vision is articulated, the easier it will be to map the journey.

As for why I said “you” rather than “the school” is two-fold.  First, we know that we must love ourselves first before we can love another.

Similarly, before we can effectively lead a strategic planning process for the school we lead, it may be a good exercise to also think about such a process personally.

Where do you – personally – want to “be” in five years?  Is it still as the leader of this school?

Or are your aspirations higher?

Maybe you want to be the principal at your school for three years and then begin to seek a superintendency. If that’s the case, then developing a six-year strategic plan means that you should have two plans for the school – one that is three-years in the making, and another that is six-years long.

Why?

Because if you’re working toward your personal plan and leave in three years, the new leader may not follow a strategic plan for the school from the previous leader – especially if the results generated did not meet the benchmarks that were established for success.

Such a change throws the community of the school into chaos for a while, which takes some time to settle (usually until a new plan is established, embraced and enacted).

Therefore, before you can decide the three strategic components for the school, you must decide the three strategic components as they apply to your life as the leader within this school community.  If you re-read the fourth paragraph of this article now, you’ll see the connection to the text, “You are in this position for a reason that is far beyond human rationalization and comprehension.”

Second, the leader, over time, becomes synonymous with the school to all constituencies involved – students, parents, community leaders, business leaders, alumni, parishioners and donors – and we’re back to talking about “who.”

Good leaders prepare for the continued success of the organizations which they lead.

So, perhaps a personal strategic planning session is necessary first, examining your personal opportunities, weaknesses, threats and strengths.

It would be a good first step to preparing a strategic plan for your school and its curricular, ministry and advancement efforts. Sometimes, a personal strategic plan is even more difficult than preparing a plan for your school because it involves introspection as well as prayer.

Before you dismiss this as something that sounds nice, but addresses nothing about enrollment decreases, the increasing financial hardships of parents, and all the things that all the other schools have which makes parents enroll their children in an educational environment other than your school, consider this:  You are the leader of a faith-based school. Your skills and talents have been reviewed and approved by the board, the pastor, and other individuals that were sought for counsel.

If you’re looking for a text to help you with this exercise, may I suggest “Living Forward” by Michael Hyatt and Daniel Harkavy (https://fullfocusstore.com/products/living-forward).  I read this book after my prostate cancer diagnosis in 2021 and used my surgery recovery time to begin to put the plan into action.

Even so, that’s only two elements of approval.

You must also believe that this is where God wants you to be at this point in history. You are fulfilling a key role in His plan, ministering to the parents of the school, since they are the primary educators of their children.

What is taught in your school needs to be reinforced at home. If you’re looking for a “strength” in your personal SOWTS analysis, that can be an eye-opening, not to mention humbling, one.

© Michael V. Ziemski, SchoolAdvancement, 2006-2024