Strategic Impact

Achieving Engagement in a World of Digital Communications

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 09:17:00 -0500

So your leadership team recently drafted a new strategic plan. It's about 80% complete and now it's time to test it outside the board room for accuracy. Then it will be time to gain buy-in and engagement across the organization. What should you b... [More]

School Choice Week

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:14:00 -0500

Yesterday, The Atlantic posted an article on "How School Choice Became an Explosive Issue." Like almost everything else in American K12 education now, school choice has been politicized -- to the detriment of children and educators across the countr...

Score One for the Introverts When Seeking Innovation

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 10:11:00 -0500

When, as a consultant, you help clients execute their strategy, you cannot help but run into talk about innovation--what an organization must do to foster it and how to measure it. In this blogpost I want to focus on the "fostering innovation" part ... [More]

How to Facilitate a Balanced Scorecard Workshop

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 18:29:00 -0500

Your leadership team is ready to launch a strategy management system. They have bought into the idea of a strategy map and strategic measures. They even say they will meet regularly to discuss performance and make strategic decisions. It is going ... [More]

Balanced Scorecard Metrics – Accuracy vs. Precision

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 10:49:00 -0500

I was reading an ExtremeTech article today titled "Lies, damned lies, and benchmarks." The article was about measuring performance in mobile phones, which isn't all that interesting to me, but I started thinking about some of the concepts in the art... [More]

What Americans Keep Ignoring About Finland's School Success

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 10:48:00 -0500

In a recent article in the Atlantic, Anu Partanen made a compelling case about What Americans Keep Ignoring About Finland's School Success. In the article, he makes the case that the key to Finland's success is that the country values equality more ... [More]

Announcing $2000 Grant Competition for Nonprofits with Effective Strategy & Performance Management

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 09:42:00 -0500

Ascendant Strategy Management Group is pleased to announce its first annual Excellence in Mission-Driven Management Grant Competition. This competition will award a $2000 grant to the organization that best demonstrates how they utilized strategy & p... [More]

Performance Reviews

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 18:49:00 -0500

The end of the year is quickly approaching and, for many organizations, this means the time for employee performance reviews. However, a recent Wall Street Journal article (WSJ-Performance Reviews Lose Steam) reported that some, about 1%, of organiz... [More]

On Motivating Knowledge Workers in the Federal Government

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 21:20:00 -0500

I think I am like most people in that I use some of my holiday season downtime to catch up on leisure reading I haven't had the opportunity to get to over the previous months. So, when I found myself flipping through my latest issue of the Defense A... [More]

Holiday Greetings

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 17:21:00 -0500

As the year winds down and we get ready to celebrate Hanukkah, Christmas, and Kwanzaa, I wanted to take a moment to stop and thank the people who we've been fortunate to work with over the past year. The work that our clients do on a daily basis is ... [More]

What Measures Belong in Your Government Balanced Scorecard?

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 15:25:00 -0500

Earlier on this blog we discussed the keys to successful implementation of a government Balanced Scorecard. Leadership, communication and stakeholder engagement are the keys to success. A major challenge, however, is finding the right measures for ... [More]

Benchmark Social Media Stats vs. other Government Agencies by Friends, Followers, Tweets, Retweets

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 22:49:00 -0500

Attention all Facebook, Twitter, and Newswire marketing experts... GovLoop hosts a great tool for comparing publicity, engagement, and social media interactions for a range of departments and agencies like the Peace Corps, the US Marines, the Cent... [More]

Ascendant Announces "Shoot, Post, Win!"

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 09:50:00 -0500

WASHINGTON, Dec. 14, 2011 -- /PRNewswire/ -- Ascendant Strategy Management Group today announced the launch of its "Shoot. Post. Win." Facebook video contest for national nonprofit leaders in anticipation of the 2012 Mission-Driven Management Summi... [More]

Attend the Summit for FREE: Video Blog Contest

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 09:45:00 -0500

Why do you want to go to the Mission-Driven Summit this year? Ascendant wants to know, and in return, we're awarding two FREE all-access passes to MDMS 2012. All you need to do is shoot, edit, and post a video to our Facebook page that says why YOU... [More]

Can a Government Use a Balanced Scorecard?

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 14:21:00 -0500

Can a government use a Balanced Scorecard? Is a national government too expansive to have a strategy? Is a state or provincial government to complex? Is a city government too tactically focused? The answer to all of the above is no. A government... [More]