Sightline: Strategic plans that gather momentum not dust - Paperback

by Rebecca Sutherns (Author)

Sightline spells out the why and the how of collaborative strategy building.

It pragmatically explains how to establish a clear destination with your team, while staying flexible about the routes you take to get there. With an emphasis on community building organizations, it's a go-to resource for leaders craving clarity and conviction when responsiveness and adaptability are also required.

This is a book about strategic sightlines. It's about establishing a line of sight between where you are now and where your organization wants to be. And it's about mapping a route to get there with a group. It's a book about collaborative strategic planning. After all, strategy is perhaps the most important sightline of all, and it's only as strong as your ability to execute it. That never happens alone.

A strategic plan and the process of strategic planning are akin to having good visibility - a clear view of a worthy destination for your organization. Just as strategy is a sightline, so too is this book: it's a tool to help you clearly visualize where you want to go in terms of strategy making and helps you map out a way to get there. This book shows those who need and build strategic plans what is possible and proposes a series of steps to get there. It lays out not just why you should plan strategically, but who should do it, and how.

This book comes out of my experience working with hundreds of organizations on their strategic planning processes over the past 25 years as a facilitator and trusted advisor. My experience is deepest in the community benefit sector, supporting medium to large non- profits, health organizations, post-secondary institutions and local governments, so you'll find that the examples in this book come largely out of those spaces. I also work with private sector firms that are seeking to build their communities.