Fast Lane
The art of problem-solving
How to create task forces to handle difficult issues
By Matt McClellan
Smart Business Cleveland | April 2009
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David L. Deming, president and CEO, The Cleveland Institute of Art
David L. Deming knows better than to try to run The Cleveland Institute of Art by himself. Instead, the president and CEO involves others in the process of developing a strategic plan for the CIA and its 2008 operating budget of $16 million, and then he focuses on guiding his team toward that plan.
“I am reminded over and over again through my career that you really need to have a vision for what it is that you want your school to be doing and what the direction is,” he says. “Without that vision and direction, everybody flounders.”
Smart Business spoke with Deming about why you shouldn’t try to do it all yourself and how to find the right people to help you make the right decisions.
Q. How do you create a vision for an organization?
A big part of building the vision is that you’re not pulling it out of the sky. You’re usually doing it by talking to a lot of people you have respect for and respect for their particular thoughts, dreams and aspirations. The vision that you usually come up with is built on a lot of communication with a lot of people.
When you finalize that vision, hopefully a good leader is finalizing that vision not in isolation but openly with key leaders in your institution.
Q. How do you ensure other people are involved in the process?
One of the principal things we look at is to have a small group of people representing the faculty, staff, and administrative staff and board to be an overseer of the process, because you really want buy-in from a lot of people, so you develop a lot of task forces of individual issues. Then you bring those task forces together, and they report to the bigger group.
You just collect a lot of information. A lot of research goes into a good strategic plan. Then it’s up to the board leadership, the president and the vice presidents to finalize an action plan to move forward on.
Q. How do you determine who serves on the task force?
The automatic first thought most people have is that you just seek out who you think are the best people who are going to come up with the best solutions or recommendations. But if you only do that, you will alienate everybody else.
So what you usually do when you create these task forces is you do ask certain people to step up to be leaders. But then you open it up for anyone who wants to join that task force to do it. You never know where great ideas can come from.
Sometimes you have people on your faculty or staff who might be shy, they aren’t going to be as vocal at times. But you definitely want to give them opportunities to step up and have the input when it’s really important to have at the beginning of those processes.
