Topics—Actions
Example—Strategic Plans That Get Results
How to get involvement, buy in, and action on your company’s strategic direction.
Meridian group has helped many companies build a stronger sense of strategic direction. We are rarely experts in our clients lines of business, but we are experts in building teamwork and commitment to decisions.
John Cline, the CEO of a small regional warehouse and distribution company, posed his problem. "Our previous four offsite strategic planning meetings lacked follow-through. How can we change that?"
The Basics for Successful Projects
I outlined to John some important people considerations when building a successful project:
- People want to be involved in decisions that affect them.
- People closest to a problem know most about it.
- People invested in a decision will be motivated to make it work.
- The best decisions are those that involve the people affected.
John needed to commit his senior management team to the annual offsite strategic
planning meeting. He needed to make it their meeting, their strategy.
Over lunch with John, I suggested a process:
- Meet with the top management group. Let them know that this year they are responsible for the plan, but as their leader you will guide them through the decision process. (For the general form of a participative decision process, see Making Better Decisions. This is the same process you can use for managing the overall retreat, and for each of issue.)
- Talk with each manager individually. Interview them if you have not already done so (see Cultural Interview). Listen particularly for their concerns about direction, issues with past strategic plans and hopes for future plans. Listen, don't ask leading questions, don't tell. Keep notes.
- After talking with each executive, look over your notes for common themes and issues. Briefly outline the issues at the next executive meeting. Discusses them and any other issues or concerns they have around strategy and the offsite. After discussing the issues, ask the group to brainstorm (step two of the four-step decision process in Making Better Decisions) and select the top six to ten issues or topics for the offsite meeting.
- Turn these topics into a one-page questionnaire for each manager to take to their own department meetings for completion. Each manager's team should respond to the questionnaire. This expands the participation process and builds wider commitment to the plan. Generally, the questionnaire should include the following:
- Rank order the following six to ten (?) issues that the executive team plans to discuss at the offsite.
- Is there anything else you would like to see discussed, answered, or resolved?
- What would you most like to see as the outcome of the offsite—what must we do or decide for it to be a success for you?
- Other comments, suggestions or issues?
- Compile all the questionnaire responses and discuss them with the management team, at least a week before the offsite. Have them decide on the final offsite agenda and schedule, and how the company will be managed in their absence—how communications will be kept open.
Give Decisions To The Group
Later in the lunch conversation, John asked, "How long do you think a strategic planning meeting should be?"
I replied, "I am used to them being two or three days, but that is a decision the group should come to based on how much material they have to cover, and how much time they feel they can take away from the office. You can pose the question but they should decide themselves. That is part of building ownership of the off-site, and guaranteeing follow-through."
Ownership and Follow-Through Go Hand in Hand
A process like this gives ownership of the offsite to the leadership group. It makes it "Their Offsite" and "Their Strategic Plan." Using this process John will have a top-flight plan. Just as important, he will have a motivated team that takes on the responsibility to follow through, something he sorely missed from previous off-sites.