Photo by Lisa Fotios: https://www.pexels.com/photo/firends-at-consert-15788999/
What do corporate strategy sessions and Jimmy Buffet have in common?
We have all been there. You are honored to attend a strategy development conference with a group of rising stars, where the direction of the company will be mapped out and blessed. You enter with fantastic – even transformational – ideas in your head. You and your small group fill pads of sticky notes with exceptional thoughts and plans. You group and regroup them according to the process being played out by a well-known strategic development consulting firm. You are chosen as the spokesperson for your team to present your epiphany to the beaming and supportive C-suite/SVP/BU sponsors, which you do with grace and a touch of humor. You are at your creative peak and receive congratulations from your team and adulation from your peers. What a great day that Thursday is! Full of promise. Friday you drive/fly home basking in the glow of knowing your idea was timely and well received.
On Monday, you realize that Jimmy Buffet wrote a song to describe the day you return from the strategy session. “Come Monday, it’ll be alright. Come Monday, I’ll be holding you tight.” It is your email and your regular job singing to you and you realize that you have spent four hopeful days in a golden corporate haze. It is a deflating feeling to realize that Come Monday, your role in the company didn’t change and the rush of your tactical job responsibilities will overwhelm the strategic visions of last week.
How did this happen? What went wrong?
With over 30 years of experience in family companies and multi-national corporations, I have identified trends that can lead to disappointment with the results by the C-suite and disenchantment with the process by participants. In many cases (most often), it is the fault of the consultant failing to get to the root cause of why the company wants to run a strategic direction process. They fail to lead the sponsors to understand their answers to some very basic questions:
What will change Come Monday? What concrete steps will you commit to in facilitating that change? What is the number of incremental headcount you intend to add (or immediately reassign) to support that change? What will you agree to NOT do Come Monday? How will you support the participants when those changes bring pain to external customers? What about those inside the company whose priorities are no longer supported?
Are you looking “for input” or are you open to a new corporate direction? These are two very different objectives and should not be linked together. If a sponsor says that they want input into the new corporate direction, that is a contradiction of terms. Input is often a soft way to say “buy-in” to a decided strategy, whereas it takes a comfort level for vulnerability to be open to a new corporate direction.
What are the guardrails that you want to establish for the exercise? Too often, consultants and sponsors do not specify the constraints that are placed on the participants in hopes of receiving an unrestrained flow of ideas. In the end, there are always constraints and if they are not communicated early in the process, and understood, the outcome of the exercise will be disappointing.
What is the communication plan leading to and following the exercise? Will the founders or the corporate board be communicating their commitments to specific outcomes (positive AND negative)? How will the participants feel validated for risking their time and ideas in the days and weeks following the exercise?
What are the new SMART objectives for the company following this exercise? SMART goals are Specific, Measurable, Actionable and Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. While one or two should be stretch goals, these should not all be BHAGs, or Big Hairy Audacious Goals since most BHAGs do not survive first contact with reality.
At the end of the day, the sponsors must convince themselves and their facilitator of their answers (and the sincerity of the answers). Waiting to conduct a strategic review may be the hard and best decision for your company and your facilitator should BEGIN from that point of view. If you are not convincing the person who has a vested interest in conducting the review process and making sure that all participants experience value from the resources invested, wait until the time is right. If all the participants are ready to jump in with both feet, then proceed with gusto and enjoy the process and the benefits of executing the ideas that come from it.
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