Facilitate Means to Make Easy
The reasons I love SWOT analyses is they’re all about looking at the present to divine the future. And leaders need their crystal balls to:
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- Identify trends,
- Anticipate change,
- Be open to possibilities, and
- Enable more effective, impactful work.
Sounds good, yes? But, let’s face it, it often seems easier to stick with the status quo. Crystal ball gazing and divining is not so easy. That doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done.
Taking an honest look at what’s working/what’s not working can be a very liberating thing for an organization to do. Once people agree on what’s not working, there is a freedom to abandon time-consuming processes not yielding substantial results or significant satisfaction. This opens up whole new possibilities for allocation of resources, and can be a very exciting time within an organization.
Leadership is key!
SWOTs help leaders prepare for the future systematically and strategically. We’ve a lot invested in doing what we’ve always done. It takes courage and determination to ask the hard questions that break us out of old patterns and ruts. A structured approach can help.
A good SWOT gets all the stakeholders engaged in moving forward strategically. A good SWOT is not static. It’s a multi-step process. If you’re not familiar with a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats), this is what it is in a nutshell:
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- A tool for auditing an organization and its environment.
- A first planning stage; helps focus on key issues.
- A useful tool for understanding and decision-making for all sorts of situations in business and organizations.
- A means to measure a business unit, proposition or idea to enable proactive thinking rather than relying on habitual or instinctive reactions.
You can do a SWOT to assess anything.
Just keep it focused. Do a SWOT for your branding/marketing communications plan, fundraising plan, social media plan, board development strategy, volunteer program, any mission-driven subsidized service or any revenue-generating program.
A good SWOT gives you a snapshot perspective of one thing (one “situation”), from the view of relevant stakeholders.
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INTERNAL FACTORS
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SUBJECT OF ANALYSIS
SWOT IS A PERSPECTIVE OF ONE THING
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P
R
O
 S |
S
Resources and capabilities that can be used as a basis for developing a competitive advantage
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W
The absence of certain strengths may be viewed as a weakness
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C
O
N
 S |
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O
External environmental analysis may show new opportunities for profit and growth
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T
Changes in the external environment may present threats |
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EXTERNAL FACTORS
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S’WOT IT IS:
You start by assessing internal factors (strengths and weaknesses) over which you have some control; you then move on to external factors (opportunities and threats) which are more outside your ability to determine. It’s best to use a facilitator, and brainstorm as many ideas as you can. Once patterns and trends have been identified, it’s time to turn them into actions.
Simple Rules for Successful SWOT Analysis
1. Clearly identify the subject/division/situation/function you wish to analyze
2. Be realistic about strengths; weaknesses
3. Distinguish between where you are today and where you could be in the future
4. Be specific. Avoid gray areas.
5. Analyze in relation to your competition (i.e., better than or worse than)
6. Keep SWOT short and simple.
7. Remember: SWOT is subjective.
8. List factors in relevant boxes.
Now what? The key to success is translating your SWOT into action. This takes discipline. Please, if you’re not going to take this final step don’t bother with the whole thing. You’ll just frustrate yourself and everyone else.
How to do it?
After the SWOT Analysis: Next Steps
Sort issues into program planning categories:
1. Product – What are we selling?
2. Process – How are we selling it?
3. Customer – Who are we selling it to?
4. Distribution – Where/how does it reach them?
5. Finance – What are the prices, costs and investments?
6. Administration – How do we manage all this?
Translate SWOT into actions within the categories, e.g., if it’s a business and aim is to improve it, then work on translating:
S– maintain, build or leverage
W– remedy or exit
O– prioritize or optimize
T– counter into actions
Here’s a matrix I’ve found useful.
SWOT Planning Matrix
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Strengths
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Weaknesses
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Opportunities
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S-O strategies
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O-W strategies
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Threats
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S-T strategies
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T-W strategies
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S-O Pursue opportunities that are a good fit to strengths
O-W Overcome weaknesses to pursue opportunities
S-T Identify ways to use strengths to reduce vulnerability to external threats
T-W Defend/prevent weaknesses from making you susceptible to external threats
How to move forward into the future
Unless you can bring yourself to accept the fact the status quo is no longer acceptable, can there really be any innovation?
You can’t be innovative if you don’t think there’s a problem to be addressed.
Imagine the doctors who used to drain people’s blood as a cure had clung forever to the notion that this was “the way we do things.” Or imagine (and this may be closer to home) a refusal in your own household to compost or recycle because “we’ve been fine not doing this up until now, and this takes a lot of time and energy.”
Innovation requires an investment of time and resources, and a shift in how we look at the world. Alas, many of us would prefer to stay pat. It’s easier. It’s more relaxing. We prefer to “just chill.”
Truly innovative, exuberant people, teams and organizations have the ability to see when there’s a problem, and then take action to address that problem. A SWOT is one tool, and a useful one if you take the time to translate your findings into actions using the SWOT Planning Matrix. Give it a try?
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Photo by Anika Huizinga on Unsplash
