GA 525 | Crafting a Long-Term Vision with Jennifer Drago

If we're a business leader and we don't have a vision of where we're taking the business and we don't have clear strategic objectives, then we're kind of like riding a horse and letting the horse tell us where we're going. You know, it makes no sense. So then, you know, all the lean methodologies in the world can't save us from that lack of vision.

Today I'm excited to welcome Jennifer Drago to the show. Now Jennifer is a corporate strategist and she primarily works sort of in the healthcare world. She's done a lot of work in the nonprofit world, senior living world, that sort of thing. But she's really passionate about helping organizations create a vision and data driven strategies. And so today on the show we spend a lot of time talking about, you know, some of the steps that, that are involved. So there's lots of parallels between what Jennifer's talking about and what many of us in the lean world are doing with policy deployment, Hoshin KAN. Strategy deployment, whatever you want to call it. So lots of parallels. And she spent a lot of time talking about the vision process, not to be confused with a vision statement, although she does talk about that, but just more about helping organizations craft up more of a long term, 5, 10 year vision for their organization. And she spent some time talking about the importance of storytelling and why we should be thinking about the long term purpose and the why of the organization and how that ties back to the strategy which will then, you know, increase buy in and that sort of thing. So lots of good stuff. I think you're going to get a lot out of this, out of this episode. I know I did. So show notes can be found over@gembapodcast.com look for episode 5, 25. Also be sure to scroll down on the app and follow Jennifer on LinkedIn and go check out her, her website and everything is going to be linked up there on the show. Notes. And finally, thank you to all those folks out there who have gone and given us a five star review and left some whatever platform that you're listening on, if you don't mind doing that. That really does help us a lot. I love personally reading them. It makes me, gives me a lot of energy and a lot of motivation. So thank you for those of you who have done that. But if you haven't, scroll down again, whatever app you're using, the Apple one, Spotify, any of them, they all have a way to leave a review. Okay, enough from me. Let's get to the show. Jennifer welcome to the show. How are you?

I'm doing great. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate.

Yeah, my pleasure. My pleasure. All right. Where are you calling in from?

I'm in the Phoenix, Arizona area.

Okay. Okay. Now, we're many weeks ahead on the podcast, so the. The super bowl was just last night, so I don't know if you're, you know, kind of sensitive to whoever I'm talking to. You know, if they're from California or something like that, they might not be feeling so good, but.

No, no, I didn't have a horse in the race.

Yeah, me either.

Me either.

So although it was weird as the game was going on, for whatever reason, I kind of felt myself start pulling for the 49ers. But then I was getting frustrated. I'm like, what are you doing with your play calling? And I was getting mad, so I don't.

Same. Yeah. I think we were rooting for the underdogs. Plus, Brock Purdy actually is. He's went to high school here in the Phoenix area.

No kidding.

Yeah. So we were rooting for him for sure. And it was an amazing. It was actually a great game all the way.

It sure was. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like San Francisco's coaching is what blew it there in the second half. Like, they went completely away from the run game and all that anyhow. And I heard talk about football, and plus, the super bowl was, like, a few months ago, and then this episode's coming out. They're like, why are you talking about the super bowl, man?

So.

All right, well, hey, Jennifer, as you know, we like to get all of our shows started with our guests sharing a quote. So do you have one?

Yeah. Well, one of the favorite quotes that I have used throughout my career is it's a quote from Henry Ford, and it's whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right. You know, the power of positive psychology. And it doesn't. It applies to business, of course, but it applies just as equally in your personal life.

Yeah. Oh, my gosh. That's such a powerful one. Yeah. All right. Good stuff. Well, Jennifer, tell us a little bit about yourself. Tell us about your background, how you got into this line of work, and then. And then what you are up to these days.

Yeah. Thank you. So I worked. I had the fortune, great fortune of working in the nonprofit world for about 30 years in my career so far. I have a master's in health services administration. And so when I came out of grad school, I went to work for A hospital system actually for the trade association for the state's hospitals here in Arizona to begin with and then into hospital administration directly. And you know, it was funny because I was saying to somebody else who's works in the nonprofits and they said, how'd you, you know, how'd you get started? And I said, well, I kind of fell into nonprofits. I mean it was like because of the work that I do and then continue to work for nonprofits because I love it so much. So I've worked in healthcare and senior living organizations for the bulk of my career. Did a short little stint in logistics, which was very interesting and talk about efficiencies and those processes, but got to learn that was not nonprof the way got to learn a lot about, you know, being really agile in an organization. So I did the, did all those things for about 30 years. Now I'm a consultant and so I get to work with all different types of organizations. I still do the bulk of my work with nonprofits, everything from strategic planning. So when I was in the nonprofit world, my roles were chief strategy officer, vice president of planning. I also worked in operations a good deal, which was a nice combination of skills to have, I would say. So I really love to do strategic planning as well as feasibility analyses for new programs and services. And I do again because of that non profit piece, I do a fair amount of work around governance and board development because to have a really strong non profit you need to have a really strong board. And so I work a lot in those areas as well.

Got it, got it. You mentioned senior living. So my mom is actually in a, in, in a nursing home up in Ohio and in fact I just visited her last week and what a great place. And just my heart goes out to all those folks that work in that, in that world. My mom's actually on the, not to share too much but like on the memory care area now and so it's especially challenging, you know, but my gosh, the, the heart that these folks have, you know, for these, for their, for their clients and these, these folks that are there, it's, it's pretty moving really.

You know, it really is. And you know we've, in that industry, we've faced a lot of staffing shortages particularly. We weren't in a great place before COVID but then since COVID and the folks that remain and the folks that still gravitate toward that type of work to your point, are really heart centered people that, you know, find having that impact really a large part of the who whom they are. And you're right. Very special people.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wonderful. Wonderful. All right, well, hey, so you mentioned your, your background has a lot to do with, with strategy, strategic planning. We were even talking a little bit before we hit record on, you know, the whole lean approach with Hoshin Conrad strategy deployment. And then so it sounds like there's a lot of similarities. And I understand you do have some experience with Lean and Six Sigma and some of your, your past career. So it'll be interesting to hear what you say and, and how it sort with, with what we, what many of us are practicing in the lean world. But I thought maybe we could start with, you know, first question being like, why is having, you know, strategy and a vision and why is that so important for any sort of organization?

Yeah, it's a really good question. And I'll just say in the areas that I've worked in senior living and healthcare, we again to hearken back to Covid, you know, our lives were put on pause and maybe for of the folks that you work with as well, our lives were put on pause for a couple of years while we tried to operate the businesses that we operated within a new set of rules. And I would say that many organizations, we've come out of that and we're recovering. But many organizations haven't refreshed their strategic plans or really updated where are we headed? And to me that's a tragedy. And Covid or not, we always need to know where we as leaders are taking our organization. So you know, using the GPS example, what is our destination, what are we headed for? And you know, generally that's a longer term destination. A 10 year vision is not outside the range of what we should be thinking about. And I'd love to tell you more about how I help organizations create that vision. And then your strategic plan should help you move methodically on that road toward that strategic plan. But here's another quote by Lewis Carroll. If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there. Right. So if we're a business leader and we don't have a vision of where we're taking the business and we don't have clear strategic objectives, then we're kind of like riding a horse and letting the horse tell us where we're going, you know, it makes no sense. So then all the lean methodologies in the world can't save us from, from that lack of vision.

Yeah. So give us some examples of a vision. You know, so like many people listening might Be in a for profit environment. Not everybody, but I would get gather most of the folks listening are in a for profit organization. So you know, oftentimes, you know, financial success and growth is part of a company's objectives. Whether that's a vision, you know, that might not be a vision, but like, so maybe talk about that balance between, you know, a for profit's need to maybe satisfy a board of directors or you know, Wall street or something like that with, you know, doing good for the world and you know, that sort of thing. Like how do you balance that?

Sure. Well, and it can be, you know, an organization's vision again, can be anything that its board and or leaders want it to be. So in the, that you just pointed out, you know, in a for profit organization, we're beholden to shareholders and we have to make certain financial metrics and things like that. I understand that should absolutely be part of your vision and where you're taking your organization. When I create. So when I do a strategic planning process with any organization, I start with building this vision. And when I say vision, I want to be really clear that I'm not talking about a vision statement. We've all heard of mission ask. Yeah, yeah, mission, vision statements. I wish I could think of a different word, but it's still a vision. You'll see. But you know, your mission statement basically says why the organization exists sometimes, who it serves. Your vision statement is generally one sentence, sometimes two, that has some aspirational thought about, you know, the impact that you're going to make in the world generally. If you have a vision statement, what I'm talking about I like to call a vision script or a vision narrative. And it's truly about a paragraph worth that paints a really descriptive picture of that destination that you're guiding your organization to generally about somewhere between five to 10 years in the future. And so some of the things that you would state in a vision statement, you might say, okay, so it's 2024 now. So I might, my vision statement might say by 2034, ABC company will and I'll talk about the number of people we're serving, the products that we have because that may evolve over time. Maybe we're in one segment of an industry, but we want to be in shoulder industries or you know, more vertically integrated. So it would talk about the products and services that we're going to be involved in in the future. It would talk absolutely about our revenues and our ROIs and all the things that are important to our business. It might talk about to your point, the social good that we're doing in the or in the world, so really important for profits as well as not for profits. It would talk about what our team needs to look like because certainly if we expanded from being in one or two states to suddenly becoming a global organization, and that was part of our long term vision, we're going to need a different team to lead that and we're going to need many more stakeholders. So it really is a description, it's a series of statements that again, descriptively, when you read it, say exactly what the organization is going to look like in the future. That 10 year point in the future.

Do you like 10 years? Or if you had your choice, what would your timeframe be?

I have to be honest with you that I. So I've been a strategic planner for a long time and when I started came out of grad school, 10 years was what we planned for. We did a 10 year strategic plan and then it went to five years and then it went to three years and sometimes to two years. Right. And so while I believe that you can only really plan your goals for about two, maybe three years in the future, I do like that having that longer term vision again because it's so big picture and it's so aspirational. One of the reasons that you use the vision narrative process or that you go through that is to lead your strategic planning process, but it's also as a great way to rally your leaders, all your team members around that common vision. So if you can imagine a CEO talking about this aspirational vision with a lot of specificity. Right. On a regular basis to their team and talking about how they're integral to getting to that place. It can be a rallying cry that you use again and again. So it's not just to do the strategic planning process. It's something that leaders use to continue to tell that story.

We're going to put a man on the moon. Yeah, right. That was a big deal. Right. Because when that was said, that wasn't really a thing. Right.

Yeah. And people start to believe that it's possible when they hear it again and again. So that's another message that I always have for leaders when we're going through a strategic planning process and setting goals is we have to talk about where we're headed and the goals, how the goals are going to help us get there again and again. And yeah, you just gave a great example of why that's so important. Yeah.

So within the lean world, when we're practicing Various types of strategic planning or policy deployment. There's different words for it. We'll often for perhaps we might have like some five year, you know, sort of breakthrough objectives we might call it and then we may break that down into annual objectives and then some projects that need to happen to achieve those annual objectives. Are you doing something similar with your approach to it?

Yes, exactly. So we'll create that vision narrative first. And what almost always has happened, in fact I can't think of one time that it hasn't is when you paint that long term vision of where, where you're headed on your roadmap. Your strategic pillars or your strategic areas of focus just kind of fall out of that. I mean it just, you can't help it. Right. So if you're talking about needing a much larger team or an engaged team, you're going to focus on your people, resources. If you're talk about growth or product development. Right. It's just going to naturally fall out of that. So you get your three to five key strategic objectives or pillars, whatever you want to call them, and then that's under. Each of those areas are where you set your annual goals. And again, you want to keep that as focused as possible. But the goals and tactics are where your lean methodologies are going to come in, I would think to help you move that forward faster.

Sure, sure. Now are there any specific techniques that you've seen that are, that are effective to. For this vision process but that will, how do I say it, like get everybody sort of bought in, not just the C suite, but everybody within the organization? Are there, are there ways of going about that?

Great question. Yeah. If I would say if you're a CEO that goes into your office to create your company's vision narrative that we just described and your company's goals, we probably have a problem here, right. Because you're not going to get that buy in. So if you have a board, I think it's great to involve your board. Generally part of what the boards are doing is providing strategic oversight to the organization. So the leadership team can craft that vision narrative but share it with the board and get their input and feedback. And if you don't have a board, then your leadership team obviously should be involved. But I love the process where you have a couple of your middle managers and a couple of your frontline managers also involved in this process because that's where you're going to get the buy in. And that's where honestly one of the biggest benefits of having a vision narrative is that when The CEO is telling the story of the vision narrative and they can do this in a feedback gathering session. They're going to hear from the courageous frontline people who say either a, yeah, that sounds great, but it's not going to work the way you think it will or what a great idea and here's how we can contribute. You haven't really reflected that, but you know, so I love the idea of once we have that vision narrative and we use it as a storytelling mechanism, our team members are going to tell us how to. How we can get there faster than even the leaders can conceptualize.

Yeah. I mean, so often, yeah, change is just difficult. Right. And sometimes these visions are going to require change right. Within the organization and people to adapt. So yeah, the earlier you can get their feedback and their buy in, the better, I would think. What about like, let's say that we've got a vision outline, cross functional team, everybody sort of stacks their hand, but then how do we go about communicating it? Now I understand that you're big on like storytelling and things like that, so talk a little bit about that.

Sure. Well, again, it comes back to the visibility of your vision narrative and your strategy or your goals. I'm a big proponent of if you take the time to create all these documents and these goals, they shouldn't sit in a drawer or in a binder on a shelf. Right. We have to be talking about them so that we can all begin to live them. And that can take lots of forms. I mean, I like storytelling because, you know, it brings the emotion of, you know. And again, you know, I work in nonprofits so our why is a big part of who we are as organizations. And I would think that's true for every organization even if you're not a, you know, a not for profit. But sometimes if we're only talking about revenues and growth numbers and things like that, we lose that emotion. So let's dig out that vision narrative and speak to why we want to grow this organization and its impact and what good we're going to do along the way and tell that story again and again because that's going to engage your frontline people. That's going to get people invested in the work that you do. So I don't have a great storytelling formula. I just think it's talking about it it a lot and talking about it in ways that engage folks.

Do you have any examples? I mean, I know it sensitive, you know, data and all that. I don't want you to get in trouble or anything like that. But do you have any like, any maybe general examples of, of what that might look like?

You mean the storytelling? What?

Yeah, imagine you're the CEO of one of your clients, you know, and, and like how did he or she, you know, sort of of communicate?

Well, so an organization that I worked for was a senior living organization and it was in one part of the Phoenix area. But we, we had a lot of great things going for us in terms of the types of services that we provided. And so when we built our 10 year vision narrative and we started to talk about it, we were talking about expanding our impact by four times. So that meant serving four times the number of people that we were able to serve. And honestly for a for profit, that might be 10 times. Right, but we were a not for profit with, you know, limited resources. So we talked about, you know, building additional communities and communities that would serve folks of all different demographic ranges. The types of communities that we operated at the time were higher end, which was great, but there's a, a lot of middle income seniors that are now turning 65 and we don't have enough communities for them to live in or get care in if they need care. And so we were really talking about expanding our mission by building additional brick and mortar, but also building additional home and community based services. And we were talking very specifically about the types of services that we were trying to grow. And again, so when we're speaking to our donors, our board members, our community at large, our employees, who are those heart centered employees describing very descriptively where we were headed and how we wanted to grow. Our impact meant a lot to people and it could, they could really get their arms around it and want to be part of it.

So I mean, I assume that you've been met at times with some resistance to change or some folks who just weren't on board, like if, if. So like how did you overcome that?

Yeah, I mean it's with like with every change, right? It's folks that are like, oh my gosh, well if, if you do this, you might not need me. Or the thing I started to hear before I became a consultant because AI was just starting to, you know, poke its head was well, you know, AI is going to completely change the way that we do things, right. And so that has everyone scared. So to your point, you made this point earlier is that people resist change and it's generally fear based. And so if we can talk through the rational side of, you know, that argument and share that they don't need to be worried about it. And how the organization as a whole is planning in this way to move in this direction, because it's something that's needed, there's a demand, you know, whatever the case is, generally you can start to allay those concerns. But I'll say in general, I mean, there's always going to be the skeptics and the cynics. Right. You're always going to have a few of them in any organization. I completely understand that. But in general, this process that I'm describing is so positive and aspirational that I met with a lot less resistance than other processes that I've tried to implement in my life.

Yeah, it sounds like you got a deep connection to purpose, why we're doing it, you know, and even, even if growth is part of it, which would lead to, you know, financial gains as well, it's not all about that. You know, that's almost a byproduct of doing some other good. Right. So help enough people get what they want and you'll have all the money in the world. Right. Like that's kind of the old, old saying. So I'm wondering, so you've, we've talked about some of the challenges, you know, with change and so. But are there any other challenges that you've seen leaders face as they work on this vision process and sort of rolling out this strategic plan?

So there's a couple areas where people, where organizations don't do as well as they could. And it's disheartening because this isn't, I like to say it's easy, it's not rocket science. Right. So we mentioned already having the visibility. So if you take the time to work on your strategic plan and build this vision for your organization, let's get out and talk about it. And if the CEO isn't the charismatic leader that wants to do the storytelling, then find the right person or people at the leadership level that are and. Or empower your middle managers to do that as well. Because it's that visibility and your employees hearing this again and again that's going to get them. Them engaged. The other thing that I would say is a big potential downfall in a strategic planning process is if you don't have a way to measure your progress on a regular basis and on every single goal. And so, you know, again, because I deal with a lot of boards, we would develop the strategic plan and then we would develop right alongside it, this is how we're going to measure it. Here's our debt dashboard. And we would share that with our board every month when we met. How are we doing against these indicators that we said we were going to work on? So having a measurement that also is very visible to the right people throughout the year is very important. So those are two of the biggest downfalls that I see when it comes to executing on your strategic plan.

Now, I'm sure this has never happened to you or never been in your world, but what would happen if you were consulting with someone, a client, and their board maybe wasn't full of wisdom and you know, maybe the board was just no good. I don't have to say it. Right.

Yeah.

Like, so what, what advice do you have for, for, for your client now? Because they're dealing with knuckleheads perhaps, I don't know, they may be too strong, but you know what I mean? Like, maybe this, the board doesn't lacks vision themselves or wisdom.

Yeah. So, you know, in the work that I do, because the strategic plan is the, within the purview of the board, they're generally doing the strategic, leading the strategic planning process or else a large part of it. And so when we have problematic boards, which can be a lack of engagement or maybe no term limits, maybe we have some folks on there that have kind of languished too long and it can be a variety of things. Lack of diversity on boards is also a key thing that I think we're trying to overcome as a society right now. So when those things are present, everyone knows it. Right. So they're not a secret. And generally it comes out during the strategic planning process that we need to strengthen our board. We need to update our bylaws and get key committee structures in place and really strengthen this governance machine because it's the key to competitive advantage. Where you have a board, it is the key to your competitive advantage. And if they're not providing that fiduciary oversight, providing that strategic oversight to the organization and really managing the CEO because they are the CEO's boss, then we need to work on that as well. So in a large number of the strategic plans I work on, governance is one of those strategic pillars that we're strengthening that so that we can there therefore strengthen the organization as a whole.

Yeah. Wow. So I, I, I'm always curious that when I talk to folks like you, who've got a lot of experience, worked with a lot of different people, like, can you think of, like, what are you most proud of when you think about like just your career so far and some of the impact that you've no, no doubt had.

I really love So I have a, a global one and then a really specific one that you'll, you'll probably get a chuckle out of. So I really love today that I can impact many organizations in part through educating and podcasts like this. In some through content that I produce and then a lot through my consulting, I get to impact a lot of different organizations. And so if I can help. And again, I do a lot of work in the nonprofit, so I'm helping impactful organizations have even more impact. So that's something that makes me really proud. And I really love the work that I do. And then my really kind of specific professional moment. For me, one of the things that I did was when I worked for a hospital system that was based in retirement communities. So I mentioned I live in the Phoenix area. We have the original Sun City right here, the active adult community for 65 plus and then a number of them that flourished after. And I worked in a two hospital hospital system that was in Sun City and Sun City West. So two age restricted communities. Well, as Phoenix grew all the way around the Sun Cities, it grew through and around the Sun Cities. We had families moving in that were just right across the street from these age restricted communities. And we had to create an obstetrics program in one of our hospitals because we were the furthest west hospital and we had to serve all these families around us that were having babies so that they didn't have to drive 30 minutes into Phoenix to have their babies.

On the side of the spectrum. Right.

It was the hardest, hardest thing I've ever worked on. And after several years of discussion, we decided that it was the right thing to do. And so that program has now birthed. It's 22 years old and has birthed over like 50,000 babies.

Wow.

Yeah.

That's amazing. That's amazing. And they'll grow up to one day services on the other end. Right?

There you go.

Oh, wow. That's so cool. All right, well, hey, Jennifer, this has been a lot of fun. If folks wanted to connect with you personally, what's the best way?

Thank you. So I have a website for my consulting business. It's called peaktoprofit.com so I know you'll probably link that to the show note in the show notes. And then I'm also on LinkedIn and so we'll put that link in there as well. But I'm pretty, pretty present on LinkedIn, so anybody can always reach me through LinkedIn.

And it's, it's Drago, right?

Drago. Yep.

Not Drago. We've had a conversation about that. We're not Russian boxers or anything, right?

Not that I know of. None in my family spelled the same way, Al.

I think so, yes. All right. Yeah, we'll get everything linked up in the show notes and everybody go connect with Jennifer and yeah, thank thanks for coming on. This has been a lot of fun.

Yeah, it has been. Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure.

All right, take care. Thanks for listening. Whether you've been on the continuous improvement journey for many years or perhaps you're just getting started, Gemba Academy is here to support you. And while we're best known for our more than 1500 Lean and Six Sigma teaching and virtual tour videos, we also have a team of experienced Lean and Six Sigma practitioners available for one on one coaching as well as a variety of Lean and Six Sigma certification options. To learn more and to schedule a demo, head on over to gembaacademy.com.