The typical American worker is changing across America, but the education systems aren’t keeping up. Too many Americans are stranded without the skills to get jobs in their own communities. This also puts growing employers in a challenging position: wanting to hire but not finding qualified employees. How can we have high unemployment, yet certain employers struggle to fill positions? Workforce Development programs attempt to tackle this important mission head on.

Fred Dedrick, the President of the National Fund for Workforce Solutions, has been leveraging national and local funders to support regional funding collaboratives that invest in worker skills and key regional industries. The National Fund makes it their job to help provide career advancement opportunities for low-wage workers using a model of substantial employer engagement. The impact is a better skilled workforce and changes in public policies in 32 regional communities to make businesses more competitive and communities more sustainable. The National Fund understands that different communities have different profiles of the jobs that are in high demand, so there’s not a cookie cutter approach across America to solve the problem.

The Southwest Alabama Workforce Development Council (SAWDC) is one of the regional funding collaboratives with which the National Fund partners. Laura Chandler, its executive director, has made huge strides through partnerships with education organizations and industry groups to align workforce development with workforce needs.  And what has helped make SAWDC so successful? A little thing called the Balanced Scorecard. (We may have mentioned this tool before. ) We’ll let Ms. Chandler show you how.

During a can’t-miss breakout session at our Mission-Driven Management Summit this March, Chandler and Dedrick will present each of their challenges and successes and lead a discussion about measuring your impact in areas where you rely on partnerships. 

National Fund has 32 partners like SAWDC and innumerable funders who want to see results. SAWDC has several industry clusters and many community colleges and other training organizations who all have different needs. How can they unite these various partners and interests to make an impact? The breakout session will explore how to apply these challenges to your own organization’s situation. Come to the Summit and return with new ideas to help your organization make a bigger impact. We think that’s pretty smart.

Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter with #MDMS13 and register while our rates are great!

And finally, here's our top reason the 2013 Summit is worth it!

1. Our theme this year, MISSION: POSSIBLE, centers around developing real-world skills to help make your organization's mission possible in the biggest, most impactful way: RESULTS!

Learn more at www.missiondrivensummit.com and register today. 

This week, we've been counting down our Top Ten reasons to attend our professional development training and sessions at the Mission-Driven Management Summit on March 5th and 6th in Washington, DC. Early Bird rates end on Friday, so make sure you register now and mark your calendars!

5. Meet us or pick our brains during a round of Speed Consulting! (We think that deserves at least a top 5 spot!)

4. Understand how to maintain alignment even during leadership change, as presented by the Department of Commerce.

3. Keynote speaker Dave Norton, Balanced Scorecard creator, will inspire you to put your strategy to work and understand Best Practices. 

2. Interact with your peers in breakout sessions with leaders from the Los Angeles Unified School District, the National Fund for Workforce Solutions, KIPP, and others. 

Ted’s blog from Friday reminded me of one of the key moments in Ford’s turnaround as Bryce Hoffman described it in American Icon – and, no, we aren’t that nerdy that we have an Ascendant Book Club – not yet anyway.  When new Ford CEO Alan Mulally began holding his weekly management reviews with the executive leadership team, he was always getting good news – which was a bit suspicious as he had assumed leadership of a company trying to stay out of bankruptcy.

Mulally’s management reviews went on for weeks – maybe even months, I don’t completely remember – while he continued to receive rosy reports from his leadership team.  Until, that is, Ford Americas chief Mark Fields, who wasn’t sure if he was going keep his job at Ford under Mulally’s regime anyway, decided that he would “go out in a blaze of glory” and see if “this guy is for real” and true to his word that all he wanted was honesty.

Let's do a double-header today! May the countdown of our top 10 reasons to attend our annual event to build your skills and increase your impact march on….

7. Earn bragging rights because you learned strategy tips from the FBI!

(Enough said. )

6. The Nation's Capital is your playground for two days - take a ten minute walk to the White House from the Press Club, view the monuments after dark (Lincoln is amazing!), or eat like a local at the end of the day.  

Ah, DC in March. *Typically* not a bad time of the year to visit our nation’s capital. The weather begins to perk up from its winter slumber, as the famous cherry blossoms slowly bud, preparing for a showy spring debut. Early March is the calm before the storm, before the tourists arrive in hordes, Metroing their way to the blooming waterfront. Take advantage!

*We regret our inability to predict sunny skies in advance!*

STAY TUNED FOR REASON #5  … and learn more at www.missiondrivensummit.com

Our Top 10 reasons to attend the 2013 Mission-Driven Management Summit continue! May I present reason number eight:

8. Participate in a clinic (offerings for beginners and advanced strategists) and take away tools that you can put to use immediately.

On Day 1 of the Summit (March 5^th), we’ll kick off with dueling clinics: A) a beginner’s guide to implementing a strategic performance system into your organization and B) an advanced clinic that delves into the details. Whether you’re in Clinic A or Clinic B, we promise you’ll wrap up the session with knowledge you can put to work immediately! (But we hope you’ll delay for 48 hours and stay for the Summit first!)

CLINIC A: From Vision to Strategy - Make the Balanced Scorecard Method Work for You

This introductory workshop for the Balanced Scorecard methodology will show you how to build and use the BSC in your organization to drive results.

CLINIC B: Countdown to Results - Manage Your Strategy 

This advanced clinic will help organizations instill alignment, reporting, and management processes to become a strategy focused organization.

STAY TUNED FOR REASON #7  … and learn more at www.missiondrivensummit.com

If you have met me or spoken to me about the Balanced Scorecard, I’m sure you have heard me say “the Balanced Scorecard is just a framework for managing your strategy.  It should make managing and achieving your strategy easier.  If you are spending more time on the framework than on your strategy, you are not doing something right.”  So, this week, I was finishing the book “American Icon” by Bryce Hoffman, and I came across a passage that reminded me of another book called “The Checklist Manifesto” by Atul Gawande.  So, what do these books and the Balanced Scorecard have in common?  To me, they are both a reminder that you can’t just have a Balanced Scorecard or just have a strategy.  You actually must do something with it in order to achieve your strategic goals.

Let me clarify a little bit.  The Checklist Manifesto is a book about how creating a simple checklist can help you perform really well.  The two primary examples in the book are about flying a plane and performing surgery in a hospital.  If you have a simple checklist, then you will know the other people in the surgery room, be on the same page for the actual operation, and know many of the primary risks that can go wrong.  The American Icon is about how Alan Mulally came into Ford and saved it from the financial crisis when the other two major auto manufacturers in the US had to be bailed out by the government.  Mr. Mulally instituted weekly management reviews with data driven decision making.  So the paragraph from American Icon that brought it all together for me was one where Hoffman was quoting Mulally.

“You’ve got to trust the process.  You need to trust and nurture your emotional resilience,” he said. “Do you have a point of view about the future? Check. Is it still the right vision today? Check.  Do you have a comprehensive plan to deliver that? Check.  If you get skilled and motivated people working together through this process, you’re going to figure it out.  But you’ve got to trust it.”

So when I read that passage, I thought to myself, do you have a strategy map?  Does the map still reflect the strategy of the organization?  Are your measures and initiatives supporting this map?  Have you aligned divisions and departments around the strategy?  Are you having regular strategy review meetings?  Yes, then you have a much better than average chance of achieving your strategy.

It sounds easy, but this quote from Mulally is from when he is 4-5 years into this process.  It takes work to ingrain a process and get people to trust that it will work.  It took the <a href=http://www.ascendantsmg.com/blog/index.cfm/2012/9/24/What-do-Alabama-Football-and-the-Balanced-Scorecard-have-in-Common>Alabama Football</a> team 3 years and now it is executing like clockwork.

As for the checklist, imagine you went into every strategy review meeting with a checklist.  I’m sure you are doing strategy review meetings either monthly or quarterly.  Before the meeting, have you sent out information in advance? Check.  Have you identified the issue? Check. Do you have the right people in the room to make a decision about the issue?  Check. Do you have a process for following up from the decision with both actions and communications? Check.  OK, you are well on your way to executing your strategy.

In baseball’s first modern World Series in 1903, the Boston Americans rallied from a three game deficit to beat out the Pittsburgh Pirates. America was bustling: Henry Ford incorporated his automobile manufacturing company in a Detroit suburb, revolutionizing large-scale assembly, and the Wright brothers piloted their first flight.

Yet as immigrants continued to stream into the United States, the Catholic Archbishop of Boston, John J. Williams, was troubled. All around him he witnessed Boston’s immigrant population—which consisted of mostly Catholics—face horrific social and economic struggles. 

That same year, determined to affect change, Archbishop Williams formed the Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Boston (CCAB) with a simple yet profound goal: provide hope by assisting those in need.

Over 100 years later, CCAB faced modern-day challenges: the organization had become too complex, mired by issues that didn't connect with its core mission. Staff was apathetic; the public, unimpressed, unsure of CCAB's true purpose. In short, CCAB had lost its way.

With fresh leadership in place as the Great Recession dug in its heels, resources were scarce. Catholic Charities’ future success depended on the alignment of the board, the leadership team, and employees in pursuit of its mission to serve Boston's neediest citizens. To guide them, CCAB developed a strategic plan of action to anticipate the road ahead with a big-picture understanding of how to return to greatness. The Balanced Scorecard served as a compass to allow management to holistically evaluate and measure impact. 

In September 2008, the first Balanced Scorecard report was provided to the board of directors. The report included a strategy map with red, yellow, and green indicators that revealed performance versus plan. Further information was provided through quantitative performance data and qualitative performance assessment and recommendations. Board members were so impressed by the initial comprehensive review that they gave management a standing ovation!

During the holiday season of 2009, CCAB was able to increase its food program recipients by 20 percent as over 90 percent of food requests were met. Press mentions, tracked monthly by the Archdiocese, increased, and Catholic Charities was increasingly called upon to serve as a voice and advocate of the neediest in a positive light. By focusing on the “critical few” measures and projects, Catholic Charities positioned itself to do more with less as it embodied its core mission. We think Archbishop Williams would be proud.

WHY CCAB DESERVED THE APPLAUSE

1. The Board aligned with leadership, which strengthened the agency
2. Successes and challenges were communicated and monitored
3. Middle management had a framework to align their activities with the strategy
4. Because resources were better allocated, programs were set up for success
5. Charities established a protocol for interfacing with the press to highlight the plight of Massachusetts’ poor
6. A clear strategy and measures of effectiveness in achieving that strategy became the cornerstone of large donor acquisition
7. Hard benefits became apparent about 18 months after the Balanced Scorecard implementation (sales and ROI increased significantly)

THE APPLAUSE CONTINUES TODAY
Catholic Charities for the Archdiocese of Boston was inducted into the 2012 Balanced Scorecard Hall of Fame for Executing Strategy on Tuesday, October 16th, during Palladium’s Global Summit for Executing Strategy in Boston. Read our press release for more information. 

Without further ado, our countdown continues… 

#9

Stroll the halls of the prestigious National Press Club during breaks.

The Mission-Driven Management Summit is held at The National Press Club, known as “the place where news happens.” You never know who you’ll bump into in the elevator, and you can “name that face” as you wander the hallways lined with photos of the Club’s famous and influential guests. We think that’s a lot more fun than studying the exposed ductwork of yet another look-alike, cavernous convention center.

STAY TUNED FOR REASON #8  … and learn more at www.missiondrivensummit.com