Capacity building requires a significant investment. True.
Capacity building requires a significant financial investment. False.
All too often I hear from leaders that they don’t have the capacity to achieve their goals, but they can’t afford the investment. When I dig deeper, I typically discover that their goals are not aligned with their resources whether that’s human or capital.
Capacity building is making improvements to fulfill your mission. Organizations of all sizes, for-profit and non-profit, often invest a lot of time and money in strategic planning, but little effort in establishing the goals, work plans and resources needed to implement the plan.
For many, day-to-day operations seem to be in sync – heads are down, people are working, tasks are being completed. But goals aren’t being met. Changes are needed, but what and how? An immediate response is typically, “We need a larger budget,” or “We need to hire a new director for the failing department.”
When we take a step back though and do a thorough analysis of the strategic plan, annual goals, and the existing budget and staff, we realize there is a mis-alignment. The solution typically is to increase the budget to allow the team to do more or to bring in new people who can do it better. But throwing money at people without the right skillsets is a waste- no amount of money will make them suddenly better at their job. And turnover is expensive and successful outcomes with a new team can take time.
Steps to Improve Capacity
- Develop new goals based on the skill-sets of the existing staff and budget
- Determine if existing staff have potential to up-skill – if yes, create a performance improvement plan; if no, create a plan for building the team(s) accordingly
- Consider engaging outside counsel to provide affordable supplemental support to work towards larger goals
- Analyze resources across multiple teams and look for possible opportunities to build cross-functional teams to increase collaboration and maximize skill-sets to improve production
- Reassess strategic plan and make adjustments based on existing staff, budget and goals, and make additions to reflect future goals and the staff and budget needed to achieve them
Capacity building is not a one-time activity. Capacity building is an on-going strategy towards the creation of a sustainable and successful organization.
Contact us to explore how we might support your capacity to achieve revenue and brand positioning goals.
Capacity building is not a one-time activity. Capacity building is an on-going strategy towards the creation of a sustainable and successful organization.
Contact us to explore how we might support your capacity to achieve revenue and brand positioning goals.