No Secret Handshake: Reviving a Community through Communication and Synergy

By Chris Hester, Immediate Past President, Chicago Chapter

Historically, summer planning sessions for STC Chicago involved the chapter leaders gathering at the new president’s home for brunch, and then spending the next few hours eating and brainstorming ideas on what to change or do differently in the coming year.

We would start the year strong and excited, but fall would kick in, professional and personal lives would get busier, and it was easy to let tradition take over. Administrative council meetings often felt like temperature readings: “How are we financially, have we scheduled the October workshop, is the speaker confirmed for next month, is there any new business? Not really? Let’s move on.” It was a very typical pattern that chapters find themselves in, through no one’s fault.

In August 2006, the elected leaders determined it was time for a change. A drastic change. We decided to take advantage of the rechartering process and use our summer planning session to redefine what it means to be STC Chicago. We ended up not only reviving our chapter with a clear direction, but also aligning ourselves as a leadership team with shared goals and open communication.

Summer 2006

We limited the planning session to the elected leaders, asked two former chapter presidents to serve as facilitators, and then started with a very candid discussion about what we saw as the strengths and weaknesses of the chapter. More importantly, we shared our own visions for the chapter—what we wanted to achieve in our positions, where we saw the chapter headed, what risks we foresaw based on trends in the Chicago market and chapter, and what we had always wished the chapter would or wouldn’t do.

This conversation was critical because it laid all our cards on the table: we now knew each other’s priorities and concerns. Not everyone’s “wish list” would become part of the plan, but because we knew each other better, we found ourselves having more thoughtful discussions throughout the year that focused on our community-oriented activities and goals rather than personal agendas.

Once we completed the getting-to-know-you discussion, we discovered that we shared the same opinion on how to approach building and managing the strategic plan:

Create a three-year plan that supported both immediate change and long-term growth. We accomplished this by identifying activities that could be addressed during years one, two, or three, and then performed on a frequency of once, recurring, quarterly, or annually. This aligned with our idea that several of the elected leaders would be in their positions for two or more years and would provide consistent oversight of the objectives.

After drafting the strategic plan, meet with various committee managers, get their ideas, modify objectives if appropriate, and then revise the plan. This streamlined the planning process by allowing us to document our overall vision for the chapter first, and present it to the committee managers for feedback. It also helped us break the habit of feeding the chapter’s burgeoning idea basket and give committee managers ownership of the activities they had volunteered to do.

Base the plan on our members and project strengths first, and then add new projects that could be easily managed and completed, at a rate that allowed us to build on small successes. In other words, whenever possible, forego long-term planning. For example, introduce a series of technical workshops could impose too many constraints, whereas introduce new workshops would let us schedule any type of workshop, and, depending on feedback, schedule another, tweaking the topic, location, and speaker as needed.

Use the plan as a map, but don’t ignore the scenic routes. We introduced our Thursdays @ STC Chicago program within a day or two of deciding to “just go ahead and do it” because there was minimal risk and planning, but maximum benefit. We turned down an invitation to sponsor a workshop with another organization because there was too much financial risk, even though it would have been a great opportunity for the chapter. Neither of these events was directly related to plan activities, but overall, they were decisions we made in the best interest of our members.

Summer 2007

In August 2007, we met for what was now named “STC Chicago Camp.” As intended, the leadership team met to review the strategic plan. Instead of including facilitators, we invited several committee managers who would lead key initiatives for the 2007–08 community year. For these committees, we developed more detailed goals and activities to include in the strategic plan. This helped us to create a plan that focuses on strengths and allows us to add projects that are manageable and attainable.