I'm in the process of writing a long article entitled: Why Organizations Thrive.  The article details fifteen lessons I learned while growing the Oregon League of Conservation Voters (OLCV), buttressed by my observations of dozens of other groups both in Oregon and across the country. 

Collectively, I believe these lessons are a very useful set of principles that Executive Directors can use to improve their organization's capacity to fulfill their missions.

These lessons include topics such as October's lesson:  Become a Very Good Public Speaker and January's lesson: Communicate excessively with your board.   

You can view all of the lessons so far on my website.   

Lesson 10 is:  Synergize.    

The vast majority of organizations have more ideas for what they can do to achieve their mission than they can possibly do.  Planning is about making choices about which of those ideas make the most sense given the lay of the land.

What's important is not to make those choices in isolation from one another.

As a growing organization, it's critical that your choices are synergistic. 

What do I mean by this?.