Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations, and Results (SOAR) is a strengths-based framework for strategic thinking, planning, conversations, and leading.
It is “strengths-based” because it originates from a management approach known as Appreciative Inquiry (AI) [1], which deals with the co-evolutionary search for the best in people, their organizations, and the relevant world around them.
Unlike the more popular SWOT Analysis [3], SOAR leverages and integrates AI principles to create a transformation process through generative questions and positive framing.
A Brief History of SOAR
SOAR emerged from Jacqueline M. Stavros’s 1998 dissertation, which proposed a relational process for building an organization’s future using AI [4].
This capacity-building framework demonstrated how organizations could have appreciative and inquiry-based conversations to see:
- Where they are (mission).
- Where they wish to go (vision).
- Who they are (values).
- How to build capacity (at individual, organizational, multi-organizational, or global levels) and capabilities to thrive and grow.
Two years later, this capacity-building and capabilities framework was reworked into the SOAR framework based on guidance from David L. Cooperrider and L Kelley [5].
Since then, practitioners have used SOAR to generate positive change in various organizations, including Visa, John Deere, BAE Systems, and even the U.S. Army [2].
How to conduct a SOAR analysis?
SOAR is a scalable and flexible framework, and there is no one right way to use it. A popular approach taken by most organizations is as follows:
Step 1: Identify stakeholders
Establish who will participate in the exercise and decide how you will meet. To encourage holistic collaboration—internal stakeholders must represent different areas of the company.
It is also a good idea to include external stakeholders—customers, suppliers, and community members—who can provide valuable insights.
Step 2: Identify Strengths – what can we build on?
Starting from a place of strength allows participants to connect with others and create new opportunities and images of the future.
SOAR begins with an inquiry into what works well.
The goal of identifying strengths is to carry the best of the past into the future. It is easier to let go of the current state of affairs when people believe in moving forward and know they won’t lose what they are most passionate about.
Consider the following questions (and perhaps other related questions) for your organization:
- What are we most proud of as an organization?
- What makes us unique?
- What is our proudest achievement in the last year or two?
- How do we use our strengths to get results?
- How do our strengths fit with the realities of the marketplace?
- What do we do or provide that is world-class for our customers, industry, and other potential stakeholders?
Being inclusive and using generative questions encourages forward movement and positively impacts the well-being of stakeholders and the organization’s health.
Step 3: Scan Opportunities – what are the possibilities?
Scan the internal and external environment. Decide on what profitable opportunities, such as new markets, products, services, or innovations, could be actionable strategic initiatives.
What profitable opportunities, such as new markets, products, services, or innovations, could be actionable strategic initiatives?
Scanning opportunities are about harnessing the power of imagination and dreaming. Engage every individual in the opportunity to imagine their dream. Ask the following questions:
- How do we make sense of opportunities provided by external forces & trends?
- What are the top three opportunities on which we should focus our efforts?
- How can we best meet the needs of our stakeholders?
- Who are possible new customers?
- What are possible new markets, products, services, or processes?
- How can we reframe challenges to be seen as exciting opportunities?
- What new skills do we need to move forward?
- How can we distinctively differentiate ourselves from existing or potential competitors?
Together, Strengths and Opportunities identify an organization’s positive core—the sum total of its unique capabilities, assets, resources, networks, and creative thought that will carry the organization into the desired future.
Step 4: Define Aspirations – what are our dreams or wishes?
Define a compelling vision of the future. This vision must have the commitment of the organization’s members and must carry forward the very best of the past. It must inspire and challenge the status quo.
Aspirations must inspire and challenge the status quo.
Aspirations are, in a way, a blueprint for change that integrates the past and the future. To start developing clarity, distill the essence of the best of the past and the positive desires for the future in terms relevant to today’s organizational reality.
Create possibility statements that capture people’s highest aspirations that describe (in narrative form) a compelling vision of the future. Ask the following questions:
- When we explore our values and aspirations, “What are we deeply passionate about?”
- Reflecting on the strengths and opportunities conversations, ask who we are, who we should become, and where we should go in the future.
- What is our most compelling aspiration?
- What strategic initiatives (projects, programs, and processes) would support our aspirations?
These aspirations serve as the north star in guiding the organization’s strategic plan.
Step 5: Define Results – what meaningful outcomes look like?
Strategic management cannot be successful until execution delivers the desired results. Define specific, measurable outcomes and link them to customer and community needs.
Ask the following questions:
- Considering our Strengths, Opportunities, and Aspirations, what meaningful measures would indicate that we are on track to achieving our goals?
- What 3-5 indicators would address the triple bottom line of profit, people, and the planet?
- What tools should we adopt to achieve the desired results?
- What measures will tell us we are on track to achieve success?
- How do we translate our vision of success into tangible outcomes?
- How do we know when we’ve achieved our goals?
Step 6: Create Potential Strategies
Develop strategies and define actions to enable the organization to reach its goals. Align aspirations with specific results to create strategy statements.
Teams must organize around each goal area, plan actions, and gain individual and collaborative commitments. This also means planning for resource and capacity development—support, resources, training, etc.
Ask the following questions:
- What strategies are we interested in pursuing over a one-month, three-month, and six-month timeframe?
- What is our capacity to work on these strategies? (Considering staffing, funding, evaluation, training needs, etc.).
- Who needs to be involved in these initiatives (organizations/people)? What roles will they play?
Identify integration linkages between goal areas, monitor, improvise, innovate, and re-inquire. The strategic plan must become a living process of inquiry, continually aligning strength with opportunity in service of the future the organization wants to create.
SOAR vs. SWOT
SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) [3] has been the de facto tool for organizational strategic planning for many decades.
The central focus of SWOT is to construct a competitive advantage by understanding the organization’s “as-is” state. It focuses equally on each of the four areas.
Because SWOT was designed in the 1960s, it does not take into account the fluid design that requires stakeholder connections and aspirations to adjust constantly to new information in a dynamic global environment [6].
Like SWOT, SOAR too works to be better than the competition, but it strives for more by taking the organization beyond the competition to become a better organization than it had conceived it could be.
SOAR also integrates well with the Blue Ocean Strategy [7], which states that organizations must create and capture new markets by focusing not on the competition but on creating and capturing new market opportunities in a blue ocean (Blue oceans refer to untapped market space, demand creation and the opportunity for highly profitable growth).
SOAR integrates well with the Blue Ocean Strategy
Here are the major differences between SWOT and SOAR:
While SWOT concentrates on internal strengths and weaknesses and external opportunities and threats, SOAR begins with a strategic inquiry.
SOAR is “generative” by nature, which means it engages people in conversations that inspire curiosity, imagination, and action. This creates a positive frame for individuals, organizations, and communities to generate new perspectives, creativity, and innovative ideas.
SOAR reframes weaknesses and threats that arise during the dialogue and proceeds to identify the strategic core of what the organization aspires to become, along with grounding those aspirations into measurable future results:
Why use SOAR?
Historically, strategic planning was reserved for organizations’ most senior levels. SOAR flipped this idea and embraced the AI principle of wholeness by intentionally inviting stakeholder representation into the process [9].
By including employees at different organizational levels in the strategic planning process and asking questions to guide a strategic conversation, organizations can gain insights beyond what senior leaders and board members can.
They can even invite external stakeholders—customers, suppliers, and community members—into the process. This magnifies the organization’s ability to build strength configurations that inspire new or improved products, services, and processes.
Because SOAR looks at strategy as everyone’s responsibility, it can be applied at nested levels in an organization, from an individual to a project, team, department, division, or organization:
SOAR originated from one of the core tools of AI called the “5Ds” or “5I” which focuses on the positive in any group or organization and identifies ‘what works’ to create a positive, inclusive future:
This framework is “generative” by design, meaning it engages people in conversations that inspire curiosity, imagination, and action. Generative questions create a positive frame for individuals, organizations, and communities to develop new perspectives, creativity, and innovative ideas:
A generative image influences both how people think and the decisions and actions they take. Over time, as people notice themselves and each other making different decisions and taking different actions, a new normative order of shared assumptions arises.
It shapes the culture, which in turn influences what people think.
Many models of change discuss dealing with “resistance.” However, resistance is only relevant if one is pushing against something.
SOAR is grounded on the principles of AI, which, as a process of change, offers the opportunity to experience doing something different by focusing on the desired state. This makes the process more pleasurable, and the problem of resistance disappears.
Limitations of SOAR
SOAR framework offers a refreshing departure from traditional analysis methods. However, it is essential to evaluate these limitations and potential drawbacks critically:
- Excessive focus on positivity: While SOAR emphasizes strengths and positivity, excessive focus can lead to overlooking critical issues and potential risks.
- Limited Focus on External Challenges: SOAR’s optimistic lens may prevent organizations from adequately addressing external challenges and industry dynamics. Pursuing strengths and aspirations might undermine the need to navigate competitive pressures and evolving market trends.
- Unrealistic Aspirations: While setting ambitious aspirations is a key element of the SOAR, setting goals that are too lofty or detached from the organization’s current reality can result in disillusionment and frustration among stakeholders.
- Lack of Critical Analysis: SOAR might downplay the significance of critical analysis and honest self-assessment. In contrast to traditional frameworks that emphasize weaknesses, SOAR might inadvertently discourage organizations from critically evaluating potential areas for improvement.
- Absence of Risk Management: SOAR’s emphasis on strengths and aspirations might sideline proactive risk assessment and mitigation, leaving organizations vulnerable to unforeseen challenges.
- Cultural Sensitivity: Applying SOAR in diverse cultural contexts might require careful consideration. The framework’s emphasis on positivity and aspirations may not align with cultural nuances and preferences, necessitating adaptation to ensure relevance.
A balanced approach involves leveraging the framework’s strengths while acknowledging its weaknesses.
Overall, SOAR provides a dynamic and generative process that focuses on strengths, whole-system solutions, and stakeholder inclusion while building positive psychological capital.
Sources
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2. “SOARing to High and Engaging Performance: An Appreciative Approach to Strategy”. AI Practitioner, https://aipractitioner.com/product/ai-practitioner-august-2007/. Accessed 19 Dec 2024.
3. “SWOT Analysis – How to Do It Properly”. Strategic Management Insight, https://strategicmanagementinsight.com/tools/swot-analysis-how-to-do-it/. Accessed 19 Dec 2024.
4. “Jacqueline Stavros”. Jacqueline Stavros , https://www.researchgate.net/publication/285057448_Capacity_building_Creating_your_organization’s_future_based_upon_appreciative_inquiry_methodology. Accessed 19 Dec 2024.
5. “SOAR: A new approach to strategic planning.” Jacqueline Stavros, David Cooperrider and L. Kelley, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/285056937_SOAR_A_new_approach_to_strategic_planning. Accessed 19 Dec 2024.
6. “The Generative Nature of SOAR.” AI Practitioner AI August 2013, https://aipractitioner.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/aipaug13-ai-in-asia-imposed-v-self-generated-change.pdf. Accessed 20 Dec 2024.
7. “Blue Ocean Strategy”. Strategic Management Insight, https://strategicmanagementinsight.com/tools/blue-ocean-strategy/. Accessed 20 Dec 2024.
8. “SOAR 2020 AND BEYOND”. Jacqueline Stavros, https://aipractitioner.com/product/soar-2020-and-beyond/. Accessed 20 Dec 2024.
9. “The Power of Appreciative Inquiry: A Practical Guide to Positive Change”. Diana Whitney and Amanda Trosten-Bloom, https://www.amazon.com/Power-Appreciative-Inquiry-Practical-Positive/dp/1605093289. Accessed 20 Dec 2024.
10. “Generative process, generative outcome: The transformational potential of appreciative inquiry”. Gervase R. Bushe, https://beedie.sfu.ca/sms/admin/_DocLibrary/_ic/516afa954a865ea4bd0f970ce3f47435.pdf. Accessed 20 Dec 2024.
11. “A Blueprint for Change: Appreciative Inquiry (2005 VOLUME 8 ISSUE 3)”. Terri D. Egan and Ann Feyerherm, https://stat.tamu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/A-Blueprint-for-Change-Appreciative-Inquiry-Egan-Feyerherm.pdf. Accessed 21 Dec 2024.
12. “CURRENT TRENDS IN STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF SWOT AND SOAR APPROACHES”. Pongsiri Kamkankaew – RMUTT GLOBAL BUSINESS ACCOUNTING AND FINANCE REVIEW, December 2023, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/376934398_CURRENT_TRENDS_IN_STRATEGIC_MANAGEMENT_A_COMPARATIVE_ANALYSIS_OF_SWOT_AND_SOAR_APPROACHES. Accessed 21 Dec 2024.