The Catalyst as the Leader of a Strategic Planning Program
In the creation of an organization, whether it is a city, empire, nation, university, or corporation; a vision, a dream, has always been the seed in the imagination of its Founder; his passion is to see this dream fully developed. The Founder typically spends years, sometimes his entire lifetime, cultivating the idea, nurturing that seed, doing all that is required to see his vision, his dream, come to fruition. As the Founder is busy championing the dream, he employs the talents of other visionaries to assist him in matters where his own expertise is marginal. Financiers, economists, legal advisors, management specialists, political scientists, social behaviorists, and designers are harnessed to the Founder's dream and they overcome all obstacles to achieve success with the Founder. The leader of this team is the Founder's "Catalyst", the one who modifies and increases the rate of action and change to create the vision in 3-dimensional terms, to bring the Dream to reality. In order to determine what a client's actual needs are, many tools are employed that aid in the program identification. These include short- and long-range business plans, growth projections, consideration of their management styles, and the economics of expanded facilities. The Catalyst is included in interviews and planning meetings with the clients and their key managers. This helps to update, sometimes even create from scratch, their corporate business plan and then relate their facility needs to the business/strategic plan. In these sessions, the Catalyst works with key staff members to research and analyze the company and to make comments and suggestions about the economics and financial impacts of decisions.