THE NEW EVANGELIZATION AND “EXECUTION-ORIENTED” STRATEGIC PLANNING

Larry Bossidy and John O. Barres

For years, non-profits have tried to plan for the future, often with little to show for their efforts beyond dusty file cabinets stuffed with decades of unused mission statements, strategic plans and long-range studies as accomplishing their goals has proven painfully difficult.

Catholic institutions are no exception, but they face the necessity of improving their operations due to economic realities. Pope Francis has challenged every Catholic globally to engage in a New Evangelization that brings the Gospel to others. A recommitment to prayer, the Mass, the Scriptures, Catholic teaching and following the Holy Spirit in reaching out to inactive Catholics, the poor and people in the margins will be key to the New Evangelization. As the Pope states in The Joy of the Gospel: “Jesus can break through the dull categories with which we could enclose him and he constantly amazes us by his divine creativity. Whenever we . . . return to the source and . . . recover the original freshness of the Gospel, new avenues arise, new paths of creativity open up . . . with new meaning for today’s world.”

The material side will be vital as well. While evangelization is primarily a matter of individuals and groups spreading the faith, carrying out these activities requires an infrastructure. Schools, parishes, charitable services and missions all must be financed; maintenance must be performed and employees need to be paid. To accomplish this, the Church needs to integrate the type of planning and execution that the business world has pioneered with the missionary and pastoral insights that are at the heart of the Church’s identity.

To help in this process, the two of us - a current Roman Catholic bishop and a retired Fortune 50 CEO - came together in 2010 to apply execution-oriented planning to somewhat outdated and inefficient church structures. A fresh and outside business insight combined with a pastoral approach particular to the Diocese of Allentown, Pennsylvania led to a strategic planning process involving key personnel: the diocesan priests, deacons, employees and volunteers. This two-year experience harnessed the expertise of many outstanding lay Catholics. The willingness of these busy men and women to devote substantial time to the tasks was both inspirational and highly productive.

The theory behind the process was simple: in order to carry out its missions, the Diocese needed to manage itself better. Strategic planning, however, can be a hard sell in non profits. Employees often wonder whether strategic planning is a euphemism for cutting jobs. Accordingly, the Diocese launched projects with specific goals and tactics to build on the momentum created by accomplished projects.

Throughout the process, the emphasis was always the same: it is not enough to come up with a strategic plan, you have to be “execution oriented”--you have to carry out the plan or you have not accomplished anything. To put this into the language of Catholic spirituality, there must be a union of prayer and action.

On the material side groups focused on parish capital improvements, structural engineering, real estate, pensions and benefits, purchasing and economies of scale, information technology and diocesan funds management. Knitting much of this together was an emphasis on a more intentionally integrated and prioritized budget process and financial strategy. The groups rigorously assessed Diocesan finances and, using the substantial resources they generated, implemented actions essential to placing the Diocese on a more secure financial footing. Meanwhile, the Diocese’s commission on Catholic schools and its education staff have jointly begun to accomplish what many thought was impossible-last year there was a small but real increase in enrollment after 15 years of declines.

The process has also convinced many that the Diocese deserves increased financial support. Significant unsolicited donations have been made by persons who are deeply engaged in the strategic planning process and there has been a marked increase in giving to the Diocese’s annual financial appeal.

Some of the lessons learned along the way include: •Organizations do not execute unless the right people focus on the right details at the right time. When recruiting volunteers, match the right skill sets to the issues you are addressing.

•Set clear objectives, have the prayerful tenacity to follow through and be willing to make hard choices. Construct sharp, well-expressed goals with definite time frames. Keep things simple and understandable. Resistance and stalling are normal human reactions that need to be constructively confronted. Encourage all involved to be open-minded and objective. Debate respectfully and resolve issues openly. Recognize the value of getting buy-in but don’t mistake buy-in strategies for criticalchange strategies. Move forward tenaciously but be flexible with approaches as you dig deeper into an issue.

•Report and celebrate progress. Achievement creates a momentum that generates confidence to undertake and achieve more.

The Diocese still has tough work to do and difficult decisions to make in managing its infrastructure and pursuing the New Evangelization, but the success to date shows that executionoriented strategic planning can work in the non-profit world.

John O. Barres is the Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Allentown

Larry Bossidy is the former CEO of Honeywell and Allied Signal and the author of Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done