Skip to main content

Gino Wickman's "Get a Grip" and "Traction" -- Strategic Planning at MinistryCPA

By

Each November, MinistryCPA professionals set a course for their next year by revisiting the firm’s long-term and annual strategies. Concepts introduced by Gino Wickman in his companion books Traction and Get a Grip contribute significantly to the design of MinistryCPA’s system for vision and growth.

Wickman’s primary tool for his Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) is his Vision/Traction Organizer (V/TO). His model seeks to depict an organization’s answers to eight questions in one or two pages (discussed and illustrated within pages in Traction).


  1. What are your Core Values? (pp 35-45)
  2. What is your Core Focus? (pp 46-52)
  3. What is your 10-Year Target? (pp 52-54)
  4. What is your Marketing Strategy? (pp 55-65)
  5. What is your Three-Year Picture? (pp 66-68)
  6. What is your One-Year Plan? (pp 68-69)
  7. What are your Quarterly Rocks? (p 70)
  8. What are your Issues? (pp 70-71)

You will want to read Wickman’s books for yourself, but the MinistryCPA team has a few observations to share.

·       The concepts introduced in Traction are fully illustrated in the follow-up book, Get a Grip. But a client who first introduced MinistryCPA to Wickman’s ideas suggested we read them in reverse order, an effective recommendation.

·       Core Values aren’t something a team can make up. Instead, they are identified as pre-existing and then appreciated and consistently followed. MinistryCPA professionals instinctively knew, but needed to identify, that its people already practiced uncompromising integrity, possessed “wired to serve” DNA, and sought to live as hungry, (people) smart and humble servants (as taught by the Bible prophet Micah (chapter 6, verse 8)).

·       A team’s Core Focus is also identified, rather than manufactured. A firm’s reason for being and niche serve as anchors for holding a team in place when the winds and waves of fads and misaligned ventures might put it in peril.

·       The point of Wickman’s 10-Year Target is not necessarily locked in on 3,650 days—he’s seen a range from 5- to 20-years work well. The point is to agree on a “larger-than-life goal that everyone is working toward.”

·       The Marketing Strategy section led the MinistryCPA to develop actionable objectives—describe your ideal customer in terms of demographics, geographics and psychographics; identify your “uniques”; articulate your product/service delivery process; and determine whether you can incorporate a guarantee.

·       Wickman’s Three-Year Picture, One-Year Plan, Quarterly Rocks, and Issues guidance lead his followers to implement their BHAGs (Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals) in actional steps and accountability.

MinistryCPA has incorporated aspects in Wickman’s EOS into its annual “Playbook” with gratifying success. If we’ve piqued your interest, we suggest that your team read and understand Wickman’s vocabulary, then complete his “Organizational Checkup” in Traction on pages 10 and 11. We did and found that we had a cohesive team that has a variety of perspectives but is on the same page when it comes to Vision.




Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Church Car Purchase for Pastor

By
Question: A church would like to purchase a car for the pastor's use. What is the best method to accomplish this goal? Should the car be titled in the pastor's name? What will be the tax consequences of this arrangement? Answer: The church has two main alternatives for this purchase:  Title the car in the pastor's name and reimburse him for business expenses Title it in the church's name and treat personal use as taxable compensation There are fewer immediate tax consequences for the latter. Since both are viable options, we will discuss both situations in this post. If the church chooses to give the car to the pastor and register it in his name, he is free to use it for whatever personal use he desires with no tax consequences. However, the fair value of the car is taxable as compensation at the time it is given to the pastor. Internal Revenue Code section 102(c) clearly states that gifts given to employees by their employers are taxable compensation. The...
2 comments
Read more

Rental of a Church Parsonage to a Non-Minister

By
Question: A church owns a parsonage, but the pastor does not use it as he owns his own home. The church rents the parsonage to a tenant other than a minister or employee of the church. Will the church be responsible for paying income tax on these monies as Unrelated Business Income (filing a Form 990-T) even if the money is used to carry on the business of the church? Answer: Whether the money is used for church purposes is irrelevant.  IRS Publication 598  states: "If an exempt organization regularly carries on a trade or business not substantially related to its exempt purpose, except that it provides funds to carry out that purpose, the organization is subject to tax on its income from that unrelated trade or business." Fortunately, in the case of rental income from real property, such income is "excluded in computing unrelated business taxable income" (Publication 598). Caution: see content below regarding debt-financed property.  However, a second concern not a...
Post a Comment
Read more

Can Form 4361 be filed after the deadline?

By
Question:   Is it possible to opt out of Social Security after the 2-year deadline? Answer:  Unlike other employees, a licensed or ordained minister has the option to opt out of Social Security and Medicare (FICA). If a minister wants to opt out they must file Form 4361 by the tax deadline including extension, in the second year in which they have received ministerial income of $400 or more. This election is final, and the minister cannot opt back into FICA taxes.  At MinistryCPA, we have received questions from ministers who have exceeded the two year deadline and desire to opt-out. There have been several court cases which provide guidance in answering this question. Some have argued that the minister was unaware of the deadline, had mistakenly believed they had filed a timely election, were given incorrect advice by an IRS employee, or their opposition to participate in Social Security and Medicare did not arise until after the 2-year deadline had passed. In each of th...
Post a Comment
Read more