A Strategy You Can Say Out Loud

*The need:* Plans fail quietly when nobody can say how the work leads to the win.

Strategy is turning what you *have* (your people's resources) into what you *need* (power) to get what you *want* (a clear goal). Strategizing starts with three questions in order: Who are our people? What is their problem — and why hasn't it been solved? What is our goal?

Then compress your whole strategy into a theory of change statement:

If we do (tactics), then (strategic goal), because (reason).

The Montgomery bus boycott, stated this way: *If Black residents of Montgomery boycott the buses, then the bus company will desegregate them, because the lost fares will make segregation cost more than it pays.*

A goal is strategic when it is measurable (a number with units — people, signatures, dollars, votes); focuses your limited resources on one outcome; builds your constituency's capacity; uses a real point of leverage (your strength or your opposition's weakness); is visible and motivating to your people; and can be repeated by others.

Big goals nest: the "mountaintop" goal is reached through smaller goals that each build capacity for the next — a living-wage bylaw might start with electing two supportive councillors; a safer-streets campaign might start with one crosswalk. And remember strategy is a verb: you act your way into new thinking, adjusting the sentence as reality answers back. If the *because* clause is hand-waving, the sentence has already told you what you need to know.

Details

• ingredients: your people, named, their problem, analyzed (why hasn't it been solved?), a measurable goal, one honest sentence
• source note: Strategy framework and theory-of-change format from 'Organizing: People, Power, Change' (2014); Montgomery example follows the guide's own treatment (see Taylor Branch, 'Parting the Waters').
• how it works: Answer in order: who are our people? what is the problem? what is our goal?, Draft: if we do X, then Y, because Z., Test the goal: measurable, focused, capacity-building, leveraged, motivating, repeatable., Nest it: what smaller goal builds the capacity to reach the mountaintop?, Say it out loud to someone outside the team. If the 'because' wobbles, rework it.
• min resources: Free.
• practice kind: recipe
• success signals: every team member can recite the sentence, the goal has a number and a date, tactics that don't serve the sentence get cut