Want to Move Forward? Take a Reflective Pause

I ran track and field in high school, and in that sport, when you race, you go as all out as you can for the distance you need to travel. But in life, I have found that actually stopping is a powerful tool to move ahead. That may sound counterintuitive. Why would one stop if the goal is to speed ahead? My answer is that it’s not a stop and chill that helps, but rather intentional, thoughtful pauses that allow for the kind of reflections that help you make sense of where you are at, troubleshoot problems, and make recalibrations to move ahead better and faster. 

In my wellness journey, I take time weekly and quarterly to review my wellness data for that period, reflect on what is working, my roadblocks, how I can remove what’s in my way, and what changes I want to make for the following week or quarter. 

In my business journey, I take what I call “reflective pauses” at ad hoc intervals, sometimes when I finish with a client, and other times when I get epiphanies about some dimension of my business. For the last several months, I have taken time to do a strategic dive into my own strategy consulting business. This was inspired by a conversation with a fellow strategy consultant in my network, where we discussed how we approach our work with clients. It made me want to do what I do for clients for my own company, Monarch. If this process speaks to you, please feel free to use, or reach out so I can help you. 

Why Does Your Organization Exist

Mission, Vision, and Values

I started with the fundamental question of why Monarch exists. When I start this work with my clients, I ask for their mission, vision, and values statements to ground the conversation. Thus, I wanted to start with the mission, vision, and values for Monarch. I already had Monarch’s values, and they still spoke to me, so I kept those as is. But when I started playing with Monarch’s mission and vision statements, that frame wasn’t speaking to me. They kept feeling like the inverse of each other and not additive. So, for example, if my mission was to fight hunger, then the vision would be seeing more people with access to the food they need. 

Impact Statement

So instead, I skipped to the next part I do with my clients, which is creating an impact statement. That can come in different forms, but what felt compelling for me was to create a statement of Monarch’s vision for our shared future. What kind of society do I want for all of us and for the generations to come? Then, I wrote a statement of how Monarch contributes to that envisioned future. Yes, that was it. 

Guiding Framework

I haven’t worked on a guiding framework for my clients, but I do have one for Monarch, so I included that next. This work is very iterative, because I am now in the process of redesigning my guiding framework to encapsulate more of Monarch’s magic intersection between data and wellness. (More on that to come.) 

Theory of Change

After that, I crafted a theory of change for Monarch, which I help all of my strategy clients with. This is meant to flow organically from the impact statement. I keep it as simple as possible, with if-then statements for the organization. If Monarch does XX, then organizations Monarch helps will YY. Some organizations I work with have theories of change that no longer serve them, and so it’s fun to help them reimagine this together. Does your organization have a theory of change? Does it speak to you? Does it move you? Does it feel clear? Compelling? Current?

Outcomes, Strategies, and Metrics (OSMs)

With any strategy and impact work, it’s imperative to know where you want to go, how you think you can get there, and how you want to track and measure your progress. There are different terms for these things, but I use outcomes, strategies, and metrics, which I call OSMs. I haven’t heard others use that term, but I am hoping it will catch on. I love helping clients develop or refine their own OSMs. 

Outcomes

When I looked through the collateral I already had for Monarch, our outcomes weren’t clearly articulated. As with many of my clients, these outcomes may be common knowledge in the organization, but it’s helpful to write them out clearly. I typically like to walk my clients through a generative process as opposed to trimming too soon. I’d rather see more outcomes that are then refined into two or three key outcomes of interest. Monarch wants organizations to make transformational changes, but we also want clients to have a positive experience working with us, so we have both regular outcomes and process-focused outcomes. The outcomes are meant to flow naturally from the “then” statements of the theory of change. 

Strategies

When moving this process, I realized that I did have Monarch’s strategies written out. I refined them and made sure they flowed naturally from the “if” statements of the theory of change. In my work with clients, I want all of this to flow smoothly and glide. It doesn’t mean clients need to keep all pieces, but I find this process works to get us to clarity on organizational strategy. 

Metrics

As is the case with my clients, coming up with the right metrics is challenging. Do you focus on what you can measure? Or do you think expansively about what ideally you’d want to measure even if you can’t right now? Both with my clients and in my process for Monarch, I prefer to think about what would ideally be used to track and measure progress, because that may help guide the organization to refining what data it collects and how it uses data in its impact storytelling. 

Process

For this next part, I reflected on the process I have used with clients for the last few years. In some ways, we catered the approach to each client’s opportunity and needs. At the same time, there were consistent patterns in the way we have supported clients, and I wanted to capture that in a general overview of Monarch’s process. More details on our process to come, but when potential clients ask about how we work, I am thrilled that I can both speak to it with more clarity and also share this section of the Monarch deep dive with them. What I love is that whether a client is more focused on strategic planning or impact evaluation, there is much similarity and overlap in how we help clients better use their data to drive their impact. 

Deliverable Types

This is also something potential clients ask about, namely, what deliverables they are getting when working with Monarch. In this section, I articulated three main deliverable types that the client can choose from, all of which flow from our process. It doesn’t mean these are the only deliverables we have done for clients, but I liked keeping this menu of options relatively small so it’s clear where we are helping organizations go. 

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When I review this deep dive into Monarch, it reminds me how clarifying this kind of process can be. It doesn’t mean an organization doesn’t intuitively know these things. But having them written out in a clear, concise way helps create alignment, clarity, and energy for an organization to move forward. I felt both relief and excitement after this reflective process. Which is maybe why I’m so excited to share it with others and get their feedback. And this is just one example of how pausing with intention can help you, or a team, or an organization, move miles ahead in thinking and in action. And this is one of the greatest gifts I try to share with my clients, specifically helping them step outside of their daily grind and see a farther horizon line for what they do and why they do it. In doing this, organizational leaders are able to unlock their creative, visionary, strategic energies, and it’s amazing to see how that can transform an organization. And while I provide executive support and data strategy expertise, it’s only to undergird the incredible wisdom already in the organization that just needs a little space to come through. 

Does this sound interesting to you? Want to see the deep dive I came up with? Ping me and I’d be happy to share, especially if it can help you with your own reflective pause.