© 2008 Strategic Junior High. 
Updating or creating a new vision statement can be one of the most exciting parts of strategic planning. Creating your vision statement can be achieved in a fashion similar to that of creating your mission and values statements.
Follow these steps to create your vision:
Gather your senior staff and key employees together for a one- to [...]
This article is from Duke University.
Study also finds that the negative effects of grouping sixth graders with older students are lasting and persist at least through ninth grade
Monday, February 26, 2007
Durham, NC — Sixth graders placed in middle schools have more discipline problems and lower test scores than their peers who attend elementary schools, according [...]
Kim Roach recently wrote a blog about becoming a creative genius.� These are great principles that when applied to ministry can effectively help junior high leaders and workers capture their ideas and creativity.
When we measure the creativity of young children, virtually all of them will record as being ‘highly creative’. However, only a small percentage [...]
Erica Olsen from Strategically Speaking recently wrote an article on how to create a strategy focused organization.� Although her focus is on business, there’s lots of good stuff here that ministry leaders can take and apply to their own ministry areas.
Organizations that are strategy-focused are more effective with their resources, have higher employee retention, [...]
As our ministries grow, it becomes natural that our special events and activities grow, too. More students equals bigger events, bigger budgets, more planning, more medical forms, more vans to rent, more volunteers to recruit, more…well just about more everything! While this is all a natural part of a growing junior high ministry, I think [...]
Have a clear vision about where you want to go as an organization but finding it impossible to execute on the dream? It could be that your strategy is not a good one. Knowing where you want to go (remember that vision answers the where question) cannot overcome an insufficient or ineffective how.
What can be [...]
What’s your practice when you plan for the what’s next? Are you reactive? Inactive? Or pre-active? This is potentially a key insight about a reality of your planning DNA. Clearly understanding your organization’s tendency is the first step in moving toward a healthier, more productive, planning perspective.
According to systems theorist Russell Ackoff there are three [...]
The concept of being mentored sounds like something that happens to you when you’re young and on the way up. The truth, however, is that, at any age or stage, we all need a loving critic, a friendly skeptic, a coach, a mentor to help us make sense of the world. Do you currently have [...]
Making strategies stick: Three principles
The three barriers to talking strategy—the Curse of Knowledge, decision paralysis, and a lack of a common strategic vocabulary—emerge for different reasons, but they can be overcome in similar ways. Note that Cranium’s CHIFF manages to overcome all three. It transfers a brand vision of top management in a way that [...]
Today I was reading the Globe & Mail, a national newspaper in Canada and I came across an interesting article about a pilot project in BC that pairs students up to teach each other the values of a healthy lifestyle. I’ve included the opening paragraphs from the article below but I thought the quote from the grade [...]