When I roll through the mental rolodex that is our client list, it strikes me that everyone is in transition.
One of our first strategic planning clients was the Valentine Richmond History Center, and one of the key things we did during that process was explore some big trends – economic, technological, demographic and social.
Our research was basic, but it was revealing. Nothing is static right now. Everything is in flux.
In the past six months, we’ve done work with newspapers, health care organizations, symphonies, global development organizations, libraries, architects and more.
Every single organization is trying to read the tea leaves to better understand the ways in which reinvention should be happening in their professional space. There are lots of ideas, and plenty of best practice approaches, but there are very few clear, concrete answers.
In some ways, that is utterly terrifying – because it challenges each of our clients to discover their own best answers to big, systemic changes. In other ways, it is marvelously liberating – because it allows each of our clients to discover their own best answers.
In the end, our best clients explore the big plays, and develop plans that carefully move them into an ambitious – and new – future.