So your leadership team recently drafted a new strategic plan. It's about 80% complete and now it's time to test it outside the board room for accuracy. Then it will be time to gain buy-in and engagement across the organization.

What should you be thinking about as this process gets underway?

I think I am like most people in that I use some of my holiday season downtime to catch up on leisure reading I haven't had the opportunity to get to over the previous months. So, when I found myself flipping through my latest issue of the Defense Acquisition Research Journal (DARJ), I was pleasantly surprised to see an article titled "Motivating the Knowledge Worker," by the Defense Intelligence Agency's (DIA) Dr. David E. Frick.

The title immediately drew me to the article because it is the same topic Dan Pink will be discussing at Ascendant's Mission-Driven Management Summit (MDMS), March 6-8, at the National Press Club in Washington, DC.

On the Harvard Business School blog earlier this week, there was a post on how Steve Jobs Solved The Innovator's Dilemma. The posting was quite interesting -- and relevant to those of us in the social and public sector -- because essentially, it's not about profitability, it's about passion.