Your Plan Achieved
Many leaders struggle with developing a strategic plan their organization is ready to implement. In an ever-changing, dynamic environment, it is increasingly challenging to identify which new opportunities and trends are essential for a comprehensive plan. Our innovative approach empowers you to bring your vision to life in a strategic plan your team is ready to implement.
Through our proprietary Co-Creating the Future process, we involve employees and customers in your strategic plan for greater alignment. This inclusive approach ensures that your plan is not just a document, but a roadmap to your organization's future success.
Strategic Plan Facilitation
Old business processes, such as building 5-year plans in a boardroom with little stakeholder input, no longer work.
Now is the time to engage your employees, customers, and colleagues in a co-creation process designed to explore strengths, successes, opportunities, and aspirations for your future. The result is a fast and actionable strategic plan everyone is committed to achieving.
What
Involve a diverse team, including advisors, customers, and employees, in a collaborative exploration of your successes, strengths, opportunities, and trends using a proven Positive Creativity Process.
Who
Our approach is designed for organizations, teams, and individuals who are not just facing complexity and change, but are ready to turn these challenges into opportunities. The Co-Creating the Future process is a powerful tool for navigating these dynamic environments and developing strategies that lead to future success.
How
Set up a core team of diverse employees in different roles and tenures to act as internal champions for your strategic plan.
Engage employees, partners, and customers with a common set of interview questions we co-create to meet the needs of your organization.
Develop themes and insights for the core team to use in a one-day planning offsite to deliver top-level objectives and strategies.
Engage your internal organization to create the tactics, measures, and action plans needed to achieve a successful plan
Deliverables
By leveraging an experienced facilitator, you can be a full participant in the process with your teams. We will design a process that is flexible to your team’s needs and available time, ensuring that the experience is positive and comprehensive. The result is a plan-on-a-page that brings your vision to life in a way that your organization can understand and be ready to support. In addition, a full report is delivered with your plan and details of every idea shared. Implementation support and creativity tools help you bring your plan to successful results through team engagement.
Co-Creating the Future Process
Co-Creating the Future is a unique process developed by Kim Marie McKernan, founded on the principles of Positive Creativity. It is a combination of the Science of Creativity + Appreciative Inquiry + Best Practices in Strategic Planning.
The Science of Creativity
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Appreciative Inquiry
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Strategic Planning
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Co-Creating the Future
The Science of Creativity
Leveraging over 50 years of research, including longitudinal studies on how to grow creativity effectively in organizations, teams, and individuals, Kim works with teams to ensure a successful outcome. Using evidence-based tools that drive more and better ideas translates to a comprehensive plan that prepares you for the future. With an MS in Creativity and Change Leadership from SUNY Buffalo State and over 30 years in corporate strategic planning, Kim has the background to effortlessly ensure that you and your team are heard and supported throughout the process.
Appreciative Inquiry
A positive approach to helping organizations navigate complex change as an opportunity rather than a problem. Employees, customers, and leaders co-create an ideal outcome and action plan based on your organization's strengths. Started in 1987 by David Cooperider, it is a proven approach used extensively in organizational development, positive psychology, and education.
Case Studies
Building a Better Future: Positive Creativity in Healthcare
CHC-Burlington was a successful Federally Qualified Health Center with a clear mission and visionary leadership seeking a facilitator for a three-year plan involving staff and partners. There was little available time from busy healthcare providers, and it needed to be presented to the board in approximately three months. Healthcare delivery for this organization is highly dynamic, with numerous different services, trends, and opportunities that will impact the future.
The Challenge
We went beyond the typical leadership roles to develop a core team made up of diverse roles and tenures tasked to complete the plan. Due to confidentiality and time constraints, we used a train-the-trainer model with the core team holding world cafe sessions involving 80 employees from all locations in sessions. We also completed the process with the board, offered an employee survey open to all employees, and interviewed 14 community partners. The two-day offsite resulted in a strategic plan that was comprehensive and widely supported by the organization.
The Solution
By leveraging the power of Positive Creativity and the voices of a wide group of employees and partners, CHC-Burlington gained clarity on their strengths and turned them into a foundation for sustainable success. This approach didn’t just transform processes, it created a culture where everyone felt heard, valued, and empowered to contribute to the collective vision.
“In prior processes, the conversation was still in the past, and the number of problems seemed overwhelming. This process helped shift our mindset from a lot of problems, to a focus on how to fix the problems, to an emphasis on how do we get into the future that we want.”
– Sam Arnold, COO
The Results
Using Positive Creativity to Transform Medical Education
New perspectives are needed to deal with changes in medical education. Topics included selecting a medical specialty, becoming a healthcare ally, and encouraging positive engagement with the community.
The Challenge
Use the Co-Creating the Future Process to create collaborative sessions to change perspectives, explore strengths, and build engagement with residents, interns, and staff. Dr. Mishra and Kim presented the work's results at several conferences, including the Appreciative Inquiry Jam and Medical Education and Educational Research Institute (MEERI) conference.
The Solution
“If you are looking for expert assistance to help you bring a group of people together around a vision, mission, goals, or action plans, you will find no one better than Kim. At an individual level, she not only meets you where you are but takes you beyond where you want to go!”
– Archana Mishra, MD, MS, FACP, FACP, Associate Professor of Medicine; Program Director, Resident Wellbeing and Advocacy Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences University At Buffalo.
