Strategic Planning (Dream Planning™)
Yancey Consulting calls its strategic planning work dream planning™. As an expression, strategic planning is a misnomer. Everything worth dedicating time, resources, and action stems from a clear desire, vision, or dream. When vetting, testing, imagining, and organizing actions, your motivations are much more dynamic and zealous than the word strategic embodies. No one feels strategy with a burning desire. At YC, we lead with the dream. We are never planning for the strategy. We are always planning for the dream. Dream Planning is a more suitable frame than strategic planning because it accurately positions the yearning or needs driving the planning at the center. We believe that strategies are subservient to dreams. They never lead them.
Systems Analysis and Redesign For Just Environments
Because transformation is our mission, we focus on systems change. That means we look to analyze power structures and root causes of whatever is manifesting as present conditions. Our view considers interlocking policies, regulations, customs, and practices that form the container for decision- and culture-making. Once we understand how we are where we are, we assess where power, policy, and patterns can shift to produce outcomes and conditions that are favorable for our total environment, including our earth.
Ecosystem Mapping and Field Analysis
Yancey Consulting defines an ecosystem as the interplay between a defined ECOLOGY (the composition of interdependent things) + SYSTEMS (the governing interconnectors at play) + INTENTIONS (the values that motivate actions and conviction). In our ecosystem mapping and analysis work, YC identifies and documents the ecology that is interconnected, the roles of each member of the ecology that puts them in relationship to each other; the system that governs permissibility; the climate that informs the availability and accessibility of resources needs; and the positioning that stages power dynamics
Research, Evaluations, and Assessments
We conduct research and evaluations in the service of just, equitable, and thriving societies. The function of evaluation is to see if our client partners are reaching, making progress toward, or missing the goals they set so they know how to think about the next steps. Knowing whether to pivot or persevere requires unambiguously knowing. How can one know whether they are having the impact they seek if they don’t question? Evaluations, which require connecting to those directly impacted and landscape analyses, are modalities of accountability, learning, seeing, feeling, and understanding the impacts of decisions and actions. They are the counterbalance to good intentions.
Founder and Leadership Transition Planning
Founders are special beings. They are entrepreneurial, do what it takes to get things done, put in tons of uncompensated labor over the years, and have often resourced the organization or company personally when cash flow was tight. They invest so much into bringing the organization or company to life that they become deeply intertwined within its fabric. Thus, we enter conversations about transitions, successions, or changing positions, responsibilities, and roles within or outside the organization with care, consideration, and deep humanity. We do not operate from the binary of in and out. We discuss and work with all stakeholders to understand their hopes and desired outcomes from this process and plan accordingly. This level of care applies to the dynamics of all leadership transitions.
Framework, Curriculum,
and Tools Development
YC has amassed intellectual property and signature frameworks. We customize frameworks and tools for client partners as a long-standing component of our practice.
Digital Discovery Lab™ (DDL) is a curated digital space with multiple “rooms” holding different topics or themes. It was designed to inform and gain feedback on ideas in formation that need input or design from a large group of stakeholders.
Click here to learn more about YC signature frameworks.
Building and Weaving Teams® open the door for wider engagement of stakeholders – both from within the organization and beyond, spanning various industries and sectors – in the planning process. The approach fosters a rich exchange of perspectives and opens up meaningful participation and collaboration in dream planning and other organizational work.
Click here to learn more about YC signature frameworks.
Yancey Consulting (YC) recognizes and honors the role that kitchens have historically played, particularly in Black communities, as areas of revolution, nourishment, pain, joy, and everything in between. Inspired by this ethos, YC’s Kitchen Cabinet™ describes a core working team charged with vetting the diligence, frameworks, strategies, and final recommendations that proceed to an organization’s decision-making body.
Click here to learn more about YC signature frameworks.
Yancey Consulting (YC) recognizes and honors the role that kitchens have historically played, particularly in Black communities, as areas of revolution, nourishment, pain, joy, and everything in between. Inspired by this ethos, YC’s Kitchen Cabinet™ describes a core working team charged with vetting the diligence, frameworks, strategies, and final recommendations that proceed to an organization’s decision-making body.
Click here to learn more about YC signature frameworks.
Framework, Curriculum,
and Tools Development
We customize frameworks and tools for client partners as a long-standing component of our practice.
Facilitation and Thought Partnership
We do more than steward processes. We understand the subject matter to elevate critical questions, identify strategic decision points, name patterns that impede progress, and mitigate divergences from the principle queries and issues on the table. We make room for conversations that emerge that need to happen at the moment. We approach agendas flexibly, staying true to getting what needs to be done. We ensure everyone’s voice is not only heard but also considered. Our aim is to unlock, provoke, and inspire.