Dear MLS Members,
2020 is an exciting year for MLS. In July, we’ll be celebrating our 10th birthday, and it’s a Strategic Planning year for us. While the last few months have certainly shifted our focus, we’ve also been staying the course with our plans for this year. I am pleased to announce that we have hired Stephanie Chase, of Constructive Disruption, to lead us through our planning process.
We’ll be hosting four facilitated discussions with Stephanie over the next week, and I invite you to attend! I know this is a very busy time for all, so our sessions will run a maximum of 90 minutes. Meetings will be hosted on Zoom and log in instructions will be emailed to you after you register. We’ve also created a document with information about the session that you can review before attending.
Please register to attend on our Event Calendar.
- Thursday, June 18: 12-1:30 PM
- Thursday, June 18: 3-4:30 PM
- Friday, June 19: 1-2:30 PM
- Friday, June 19: 3-4:30PM
Our process this year will look a bit different from previous years. Over the past four years, we have continued to build off of the great goals and initiates laid out in our last plan, and have had thoughtful and meaningful ongoing conversations with you through consultations, listening tours, surveys, director forums, informal discussions, and collaborative work opportunities. We continued to utilize the information and data you’ve shared with us to build three potential strategic initiatives—Sustainability of service, Succession planning/leadership development, Equity of service— to focus on in the next few years.
But we want to make sure we heard you correctly, ask if there are other opportunities for MLS, and ensure that staff working at all levels and in all types have the opportunity to engage with us. We know this is a busy and a difficult time for our members, and we are committed to being thoughtful of your time and your energy as we reach out to engage with you.
In addition to the sessions listed above, we’ll be providing some passive opportunities over the next couple of months to provide feedback. Information on that will be coming soon. And our staff is always happy to talk with you to hear your thoughts.
We are working toward presenting our new plan at our November Annual Meeting, and while the meeting may look different this year, we can’t wait to share our plans with you.
Finally, you can follow our plan progress on our Resource Guide, which will be updated as we move through the next few months.
As always, I welcome your thoughts and suggestions.
Sincerely,
Sarah Sogigian
