Does your organization have a budget that forecasts three years from today, five, ten, or twenty?  Has anyone taken into account that the new building you about to put online will increase utility and maintenance costs?  Is there a line-item to show that the grant which has allowed the organization to hire two full time equivelant employees will expire in two years?

Many organizations hold strategic planning session and annual retreats to try and expand their horizon somewhere beyond the next board agenda.  The ideas and concepts that are developed are often inspiring.  A great retreat can plaster the most dynamic and liberating ideas all over the walls with the help of Post-Its and large poster boards.  The energy is palpable and the groups exits with the belief that their organization is going to shine brighter than ever.  What so often gets missed is the power of inertia.  If the financial realities of the planning is not developed in concert with the ideas, there will be no fuel in the rockets and breaking your organization’s current orbit will be impossible.  A year goes by and the organization is on the same trajectory, circling the same star, in the same order it has always held.

Part two of a great planning exercise should be the consideration of the resources required to launch the initiatives.  It takes a tremendous amount of power to break an organization’s current orbit.  Change can be scary, difficult and require lots of energy.  When it is happens it is remarkable and can alter the shape of your universe.