Strategic Thinking for ERG Leaders
Becoming a Strategic ERG Leader
ERGs can be a great vehicle for expanding leadership skills, which in turn can accelerate your career. A key leadership capability is strategic thinking. Without it, you risk investing valuable resources in the wrong priorities and limiting your leadership potential.
Strategy is about how to accomplish a goal and the choices you make in the service of that goal. Strategic thinking enables you to make informed decisions about your strategy, setting you up for success.
This “4 G” model can help guide you in your strategic thinking process:
Ground your team in mission, vision, and values
Gain deep insight into your internal operations, external situation, and best practices
Generate meaningful offerings or initiatives
Galvanize resources accordingly.
Ground Your Team in Mission, Vision and Values
Without a vision, people perish. If you are founding an ERG, work with your team to define why you exist and how you will know if you’ve been successful. Make sure to align your purpose with your organization’s DEI statements.
If you have joined an existing ERG team, ask to see the mission and vision statements. Presence them regularly. Put them at the top of your team meeting agenda. Refer to them when making decisions. Share them at the beginning of your membership meetings. It is easy to get caught up in the “doing-ness” of it all, so it’s essential to help your team continually connect their actions with your exciting and important mission.
Questions to ask to ground yourselves in mission, vision, and values include:
Why do we exist?
Who do we serve?
What difference do we want to make? And how will we measure it?
How do we align with our organization’s DEI strategy?
What are our company’s values, and how do we integrate them into how we work?
In three years, if we win our company’s top Diversity & Inclusion award, what will it be for?
Gain Deep Insight
Expanding your impact means expanding your ideas – and those ideas must be grounded in a deep understanding your organization, members, and context. If not, you risk activity without impact.
For example, if you offer basic information in your educational events but your organization is ready for something more advanced, you won’t make the impact that you desire. Find out from your members what will make the difference. Is it more targeted information? Is it a different activity altogether? Also, look for good ideas – research best practices, and learn from other ERGs. You don’t have to recreate the wheel!
Questions to ask to gain deep insight include:
What are our organizational strengths and weaknesses?
What are the external threats and opportunities?
What do our members need and want?
What can we provide that isn’t already being provided?
Who can I learn from?
What are they doing that would make a difference here, and how are they doing it?
Generate Meaningful Offering or Initiatives
As you reach a deep understanding of what’s so, what’s needed, and what’s possible, start generating ideas for new programs, initiatives, or ways of doing things. Start by generating as many ideas as possible before applying an evaluative lens.
Questions to ask to generate ideas include:
What new things can we do to serve our members?
What can we improve upon to serve our members?
And then evaluate your ideas using the following criteria.
Questions to ask to choose the best ideas include:
Does it align with our mission, vision, and values?
Will it resonate with members, leaders, or partners?
How big an impact will it make?
How easy or hard will it be to implement?
Is now the right time for it?
Galvanize resources accordingly
Strategy is about choice, and an important choice is how to use your ERG’s resources. You only have so much time and energy, so dedicate it to the most important priorities. If you try to do it all, you risk burnout or the inability to execute.
Questions to ask to galvanize resources wisely include:
What are our most important initiatives?
What resources (people, time, budget) will we dedicate to those initiatives?
What will we stop doing?
In Sum
Being strategic means moving beyond the day-to-day to consider: Are you going in the right direction? Are you responding to current needs? Are you choosing activities that will make an impact? And are you allocating your resources wisely? The 4 G’s model of strategic thinking can guide you in becoming a more strategic thinker for the benefit of your members, ERG, and organization.