'The Road Not Taken' is a poem about nonprofit strategy. Hear me out
Too many posters and notebook covers of well-meaning people feature some version of the final line from Robert Frost's poem. Usually it's paraphrased about taking the road less traveled. The real line goes like this: “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”
We think about #nonprofit planning and strategy like that, sometimes. About taking “the road not taken” and what a big difference it will make. Nobody is doing it this way or that way, so there will be a lot of opportunity for us there!
But the final stanza of Frost’s poem begins with?a remarkably important modifier. He wrote, "I shall be telling this with a sigh, somewhere ages and ages hence..." In reality, Frost did not take the road less traveled. He was musing about a story he?might?tell one day, because he didn't actually take either road.
Another Robert (Robert Greenleaf, who coined “servant-leadership”) wrote about strategy — especially nonprofit philanthropic strategy — as the space between creativity and prudence. [1] If we focus on the misunderstood part of Frost's poem, we might think the less trodden path (the creative one) is the best option. But there might be a reason others haven’t taken that path. That’s the prudent consideration, and we don’t give enough credence to both of those factors.
When we nonprofiteers sit in conference rooms or Zoom calls with peers, board members, and consultants in service of future planning, we experience Frost's poem in real time. (Hopefully without?too much?sighing.) We come to those conversations thinking about the diverging paths ahead for our organizations.
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We should start these conversations about paths with more “why” questions. Might it lead us to the road less taken? Sure. But it also might help us realize that road will lead us toward years of toxic behavior followed by falling off a fiscal cliff.
And we’re all out here trying to do good, meaningful work. Not ending up like Wile E. Coyote at the end of a Looney Tunes?Road Runner?episode.
[1] From Greenleaf's 1974 essay, "Prudence and Creativity: A Trustee Responsibility"
Strategic Advisor + Facilitator | I help nonprofit execs create clarity, lead change well, and take their organizations from stressed to strategic
1 年Such a fun perspective on this oft-explored poem, Evan. Two things that strike me here: (1) Strategy is only successful in retrospect. We can't actually know if a strategy will be successful until we implement it (though we can significantly improve its chances or address risks). When Frost says "that has made all the difference," that's a logical (and tongue-in-cheek) response to the strategic choices he made since he's landed in a pretty good spot. What we don't know is where the other path would have taken him. (2) Choosing a path is about the long-term vs. this year. It can be tempting to look at other organizations and say, either - "they're doing this so we should to," or "everyone is doing this, so we should do something different." What's often missing, though, is the self-examination of the organization's identity, what it is absolutely best at, where it is best equipped to grow, and how to use those strengths to its advantage over the long-haul. And then the discipline to stick with it. We don't know for sure whether Frost strayed from the path he chose over and over again or stayed true. But consistent, aligned choices almost always get us to our intended destination faster.