October 2021

Recently I’ve been reflecting on how the four major waves of the Digital Revolution have impacted Christian ministries. I often talk about the power and the danger of new technologies. Winning organizations will capture the power while managing the danger. To me, this seems like a much more important challenge for Christian ministries than for most for-profit corporations. 

While technology has tremendous potential to be used for good, too often it is used in ways that dishonor God and that harm people. As we’ve especially seen in recent weeks, sometimes the real damage isn’t even seen until years after the technology is introduced. Are there Christian ministries that have done a good job of capturing that power while managing the danger? If so, how have they managed to pull it off?

Throughout my career, I’ve looked for opportunities to capture the power while managing the danger specifically in leveraging digital technologies in loving God and loving my neighbor. Those experiences have given me a good perspective on the potential for technology in serving God and His Kingdom, and each has been a blessing that has touched people’s lives in important ways. While most of those efforts have been successful, I can’t claim that any of them demonstrated the kind of success at a large scale that I hope is out there.

So, over the next several weeks I hope to talk to leaders at some Christian organizations that seem to have had great success at scale in capturing the power and managing the danger of digital technologies to increase the richness and reach of their impact. Stay tuned as I share what I learn from those discussions.

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Business strategy has been my focus for more than 20 years. The most popular area of business strategy is “competitive strategy.” In the business world, we often adopt the language of sports or warfare — “How do we win?” or “How do we beat our competitors?” We often approach the market with a zero-sum mindset — for our company to gain a customer, all of our competitors have to lose that customer.

But does this approach make sense for mission-driven non-profits?

For many non-profits, their survival depends on their ability to attract donors, volunteers, and clients. Realistically, non-profits are competing to win the commitment of these decision makers. That doesn’t mean that your mission will be best served by having a “winner take all” competitive mindset. Often we do better to find ways to “win together” to achieve our mission to its fullest.

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In The Digital Transformation Playbook, David L. Rogers describes how customer behavior has changed in the digital age. Customers are as likely to connect with and influence each other as they are to be influenced by the firm. Companies need to shift from a mass market/broadcast model to one that taps into five customer network behaviors: access, engage, customize, connect, and collaborate. He then introduces a tool to help companies make the adjustment.

The Customer Network Strategy Generator is like a pilot’s pre-flight checklist, walking a strategist through the steps necessary to develop winning customer-facing strategies in this new digital age. By following this process, you will have the best chance of identifying concepts that are worth pursuing because they can have a meaningful impact on the things that matter to your business.

One of the things that I particularly like about this tool is that it is both very specific to a certain type of strategy project (and therefore easy to understand in terms of specific tangible activities) but also generally applicable to almost any strategic decision. The specific details will change for different types of strategies, but the overall flow (objectives>a customer-centric perspective>a well-defined broad strategy>specific potential tactics>realistically evaluating those potential actions) provides a good model to consider whenever starting any strategy project.

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Last week, Christine Heckart​ hosted a mini-reunion of some of the folks from TeleChoice. Twenty-years ago this boutique consulting firm pioneered a new category for strategic consulting. We called it “Strategic Catalysts”. We probably weren’t the first to practice this approach, but I think we were the first to name and define it.

I still believe the catalyst model is the best way to help companies that need assistance in developing a critical strategy. In fact, it probably makes more sense now than ever.

So what is it? Strategic catalysts accelerate the creation of strategies for high impact. They don’t replace the staff of their clients in developing strategies, but they bring the missing ingredients (experience, methodologies, tools, focus) to enable clients to rapidly and successfully create strategies that work. TeleChoice was the strategic catalyst for the telecom industry.

Click here to read more about this model, how it compares to traditional consulting, and my five reasons why I believe it is the best model, even today twenty years after we pioneered it