Strategy Isn’t a Project - It’s a Culture

When I first embarked on strategic planning as a leader, I assumed it would follow the usual pattern: a beginning, middle, and end. We’d gather input, write the plan, implement initiatives, and then…check it off the list.

What I didn’t expect was how much the process itself could change the way we thought and worked together. That’s exactly what happened when we implemented a strategy that was based on strengths and possibilities. 

As I was reading an article in the Appreciative Inquiry Practitioner Journal, a quote by Molly McGuigan and C. J. Murphy stuck out to me:

“The intention is to not develop a project with a beginning, middle and an end, but to create a new way of thinking, learning, communicating, working and innovating that becomes so embedded into the organization, it changes the culture.”

For me, the lesson was that strategic planning isn’t just about outputs, but more about the shift it creates in culture and mindset. Conversations became more curious, collaboration became more natural, and the organization begins to see challenges and possibilities in entirely new ways. I realized that the plan wasn’t the goal, the change in how we worked together was.  And that was the kind of strategy that produced community-wide results - the kind that you could see, and the kind that lasts.