Category: Business Planning

One emerging trend we’re noticing in our work is the number of companies using meditation and mindfulness practices to increase individual and group productivity, improve well-being and health, and reduce stress in the business environment.

Moreover, recent neuroscience research demonstrates at the brain’s molecular level that meditation and mindfulness, even if practiced for just 20 minutes per day, can have dramatic effects on brain function as measured by brain scans and brain function testing. Continue reading “Mindfulness as a Competitive Strategy”

(Adapted from The Executive Guide to Facilitating Strategy)

As a leader in your organization, part of your role during strategic planning is to help establish goals that provide a foundation for the rest of the plan. It is important that you ensure the foundation is solid.

Here are 4 responsibilities your role requires in ensuring the goals established are strategically developed and aligned with the plan:

1. Lead a visioning exercise for helping your team members discover their goals. This is a powerful and creative method for gathering and shaping ideas and future thinking. Here is one I recommend – Painting the Picture, which you can learn more about in The Executive Guide to Facilitating Strategy.

2. Ensure that the goals represent all of the key areas of strategic focus for the organization. To ensure that this is the case, ask the integral question (as one part of the quality check of the goals): “If the organization achieves these goals, and only these goals, will the organization most likely have fulfilled its mission?” If the answer is no, something is missing.

3. Be sure to separate content discussions from wording discussions. Much time can be wasted in adjusting the wording of a goal. Content discussions sound similar to, “Should we also include something about… ?” Wording discussions frequently sound like, “The better word for that is…” Discussions about word adjustments typically are not a valuable use of the whole group’s time. Therefore, consider recording these suggestions and moving on. Then, have a smaller group address wording outside the session.

4. Ensure that all of the quality checks are met. There are a set of critical questions outlined in The Executive Guide to Facilitating Strategy that should be addressed during the quality check. If you cannot answer yes to these questions, reconsider the goals your team developed.

Need some help in carrying out your role as the leader during the strategic planning process? I recommend expert facilitation services to help guide you during the strategy work.

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Certified Master Facilitator Michael Wilkinson is the CEO and Managing Director of Leadership Strategies, Inc., The Facilitation Company and author of The Secrets of Facilitation 2nd Edition, The Secrets to Masterful Meetings, and The Executive Guide to Facilitating Strategy. Leadership Strategies is a global leader in facilitation services, providing companies with dynamic professional facilitators who lead executive teams and task forces in areas like strategic planning, issue resolution, process improvement and others. The company is also a leading provider of facilitation training in the United States, having trained over 18,000 individuals.

OK, you know this. You’re spending too much time answering emails. Getting interrupted by unimportant stuff. And worst of all, attending meetings, lots of meetings, sometime endless, pointless meetings. Continue reading “Caves and Campfires…”

First the good news: Starting Sept 30, US federal law allows small startup companies to raise equity on the Internet, without the expensive barrier to register the shares for public trading with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Companies can now raise unlimited amounts of capital simply by using social media sites or elsewhere on the Internet.

This will help address the problem many small business owners face by creating a mechanism to connect with investors, which until had to be done “privately” — which for many small companies meant not at all. Continue reading “Crowd Financing Debuted Last Week (sort of)”

(Adapted from my book, The Executive Guide to Facilitating Strategy)

To help determine your organization’s goals, utilize a visualization exercise that guides the team through a scenario ten or more years into the future. The visualization should help participants see what was accomplished, how it was accomplished, and how customers, employees, competitors, and any other significant stakeholders view the organization.

What follows is a sample of a visioning exercise using the meeting planners association.

Sample Visioning Exercise – Meeting Planners

The Set-Up	I would like for you to imagine yourself sitting at your desk back at your office. On your desk is one of those calendars that turns one page per day. And it is showing today’s date, May 21st. As you are looking down at the calendar, by itself it flips, to the next day, May 22nd. Then it turns again, and again. And then it starts turning faster. You see June and July fly by. You see September, October. It’s now in to the next year, and then it begins turning very fast as it goes to the next year, and then the next, and then the next, and on and on, until it suddenly stops. As you look down you see that calendar shows May 21st, XXXX, ten years from today.
The Presentation	Imagine that you look up from your desk and you find you are not at your desk at all. You are in the back of a large auditorium and there are rows and rows of people seated. Way up front, there is someone speaking who is announcing an award. As you listen, you realize that the person speaking is the president of the International Association of Meeting Planners and the award is the Chapter of the Year which goes to that chapter whose outstanding performance and value to its members best exemplifies a level to which every chapter should strive. The president says, “At no time in the history of this award have the members of the seven judge panel been in unanimous agreement of the organization most deserving of this award, until now. And this year I am proud to announce that the award goes to the chapter based in ______.” There is a standing ovation as people get out of their chairs to applaud. You hear one person yell, “Fantastic choice.” Another says, “It’s about time.” The applause goes on for several seconds. When the applause finally dies down, the president says with a grin, “I guess you all like the judge’s selection. Let me give you a list of the accomplishments this organization has achieved over the past several years.” The president begins listing the accomplishments that made this chapter so deserving. Listen to what the president is saying (four-second pause). Fill in the blank. What was it that the organization accomplished?” Feel free to open your eyes to record, or keep your eyes closed as I continue.
What Members Say	On screens to the right and left of the stage, a video comes on. You see a group of people sitting in a circle, with one person, apparently a facilitator, asking questions. As you listen, you realize this is a focus group made up of about 16 of the chapter’s members. One member begins speaking, “The thing that is great about the chapter is…’ (pause) Fill in the blank. What did that customer say was great about the chapter? Another jumps in, “That’s all fine and wonderful, but the thing that really makes this organization stand out is…” (pause). What did that person say? Then another says, “I’ve been a member for about 25 years. And sure, they were doing some good things before. But in the last ten years, the chapter has really gotten it right. They started focusing on the three things that really mattered. What could be more important than …” Fill in the blank. What were the three things that really mattered? (pause)The video fades out and the president begins to speak again, “I would like to ask the head of the chapter to come to the stage please. Would you give a warm welcome for…” And once more, there is a standing ovation as the head of the award-winning chapter comes to the stage.
What We Did	In accepting the award the head of the chapter explains, “I hadn’t seen the video before, but that 25-year member got it right. As it turns out, it was exactly ten years ago today that a group came together to develop a plan that described where we wanted to be and how we were going to get there. And I can honestly say that this first step was critical to getting us all on the same page and focusing on the same things.”Standing in the back of the room, you begin to smile because you were at that planning meeting ten years ago. You were a member of the team that got the ball rolling that resulted in this award. The head of the chapter continues, “Let me tell you just a little bit about what we did. In that first year, though there were a lot of issues, we had to start with first things first. So the first thing we did was…” Listen to what the head of the chapter is saying. What was done that first year? (pause) “Once we got that in place, the next thing we had to do was…” Listen again. What was that second thing? (pause) “But I would say, the most important thing came in year three. And this one thing is what really accelerated us and has resulted in the levels of achievement you see. In year three, we…” (pause) Listen to what the head of the chapter says…What was it that the organization did? (pause) “And so in closing,” the head of the chapter says, “on behalf of the members, employees and Board of our chapter, I thank you for awarding us with this great honor.” And once more there is a standing ovation as the head of the chapter leaves the podium and the meeting ends.
What Employees Say	As you are leaving the gathering, you overhear a group of employees from that chapter talking. They are saying that they didn’t believe the organization would actually change, but that it did. They begin discussing what it feels like to work there, how these changes have improved their lives. Listen to what they are saying. How does it feel to work there? (pause)
The Close	As you go back to your desk, you sit down and want to record some of the things you heard. Whenever you are ready, open your eyes if you haven’t already and take a minute or two to write down several sentences about what you heard. What was it that the presenter said? Why did the chapter deserve the award? What results were achieved? What did the customers say? What was it that the head of the chapter said was done to bring about these changes? What did the employees say about working there?

The visualization exercise should guide the participants through a scenario ten or more years into the future that allows them to visualize the organization achieving tremendous success.

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Certified Master Facilitator Michael Wilkinson is the CEO and Managing Director of Leadership Strategies, Inc., The Facilitation Company and author of The Secrets of Facilitation 2nd Edition, The Secrets to Masterful Meetings, and The Executive Guide to Facilitating Strategy. Leadership Strategies is a global leader in facilitation services, providing companies with dynamic professional facilitators who lead executive teams and task forces in areas like strategic planning, issue resolution, process improvement and others. The company is also a leading provider of facilitation training in the United States, having trained over 18,000 individuals.

Entrepreneurship is as invaluable to large organizations as it is to small ones, perhaps more so. While big companies often can provide the resources start-up businesses lack, they also typically provide all sorts of bureaucracy, slow decision-making and red tape that can stifle entrepreneurial spirits. This can apply to for profits or nonprofits, or for that matter, some departments of government agencies, such as driver’s ed programs, or gift shops at national parks.

The flip side of that is an entrepreneurial person or a group (sometimes called a “skunk works” team) that uses innovative and risk-taking strategies to convert an idea into a profitable finished product in a large organization. Those people are sometimes described as “intrapreneurs” as in entrepreneurs “inside” a big company. They pursue the goals of the organization, working hard to break through the innovation gridlock that prevents many large companies from taking best advantage of their resources. Continue reading “Intrapreneurial Business Plans”

(Adapted from The Executive Guide to Facilitating Strategy)

In the course of developing strategic plans, organizations often find themselves taking a step back to ask the question, “How can we differentiate ourselves from the competition?” The answer to this question often results in the development of positioning strategies.

In his book, The Discipline of Market Leaders, Michael Treacy defined three primary positioning strategies. He found that the best organizations in the world, while at least adequate at all three, typically distinguished themselves and built their success around one of the three areas. I have added a fourth positioning strategy (marketing dominance) based on my strategy development work.

Exhibit – Positioning Strategies

You can use the four positioning strategies to help your team understand how it is winning today and how it will need to win in the future.

The Process

The process for developing positioning statements includes the following steps that support our overall methodology, Drivers Model – taught in our training, Secrets to Facilitating Strategy.

1	Educate the team on position statements and positioning strategies	After completing the review of the briefing book review and SWOT or just the briefing book (if positioning statements are done instead of the SWOT), educate the planning team on positioning statements and positioning strategies.
2	Define your current and future positioning strategy	Have the team identify which of the four fundamental positioning strategies represents the way the organization operates today, and which positioning strategy best characterizes how it will need to operate in the future.
3	Identify areas for positioning statements	After defining the future positioning strategy, the next step is to identify the areas for developing positioning statements. Positioning statements have two parts: the external trend (“We believe…”) and the action that will be taken (“Therefore, we must…”). There are traditionally two approaches to writing positioning statements. The first approach is to base the areas for positioning statements on the most important external trends from the briefing book review and SWOT. The other approach is to identify first the key actions we know we need to take and then identify what is happening in the external environment that mandates the action.
4	Identify strategies to respond to the trends	With the key trends identified, the next step is to brainstorm strategies to address those trends. For positioning statements, the strategies need only use the “verb-object” format; there is no need to include “purpose” since this will be covered by the “We believe…” portion of the positioning statement.
5	Format the positioning statements	With the trends and strategies identified, you can now create the positioning statements that combine the two. The trend will be used in the “We believe…” portion of the statement and the strategies will appear in the “Therefore, we will…” portion of the statement.
6	Perform a quality check	The final step in the positioning statement process is to review each of the quality check items to ensure that all the checks are met.

More about these steps is outlined in depth in The Executive Guide to Facilitating Strategy.

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Certified Master Facilitator Michael Wilkinson is the CEO and Managing Director of Leadership Strategies, Inc., The Facilitation Company and author of The Secrets of Facilitation 2nd Edition, The Secrets to Masterful Meetings, and The Executive Guide to Facilitating Strategy. Leadership Strategies is a global leader in facilitation services, providing companies with dynamic professional facilitators who lead executive teams and task forces in areas like strategic planning, issue resolution, process improvement and others. The company is also a leading provider of facilitation training in the United States, having trained over 18,000 individuals.

In strategic planning, it is important that all voices be heard, and that includes yours. Unfortunately, if you are like most leaders, your voice comes with considerable baggage. When the boss speaks, people listen. And, they listen differently from when other people speak.

Sure, there will likely be some people in the room who treat your voice like every other voice in the room. Whether the idea comes from you or a first-year manager, these people will state their agreement or disagreement with the idea in the exact same way, regardless of the source.

Unfortunately, this probably isn’t the case for most of the people at the table. When you speak, most may be quick to respond when they agree, and very, very slow to respond when they disagree – so slow, in fact, that sometimes they may never get around to it!

As a result of the lack of challenge many leaders experience within their own walls, the views of the leader can easily overpower the group. And even when someone dares to challenge with a question, some leaders, often without knowing it, respond with statements that belittle the questioner or not-so-subtly communicate that challenging the boss is not welcome.

Consider the following strategies.

STRATEGIES FOR GETTING YOUR IDEAS ON THE TABLE WITHOUT OVERPOWERING THE GROUP:

Most people agree that a rigorous business plan is a good idea. Clearly it’s best to research the market and risks as thoroughly and objectively as possible. In contrast, a “creative” plan, one that involves sketchy research, is unlikely to meet with success.

Right? Well, maybe, but perhaps a certain amount of naivety might increase your odds of success. Here’s why: Continue reading “Are “Creative” Business Plans A Good Thing?”

As a strategy leader, you have seven activities to which I recommend you pay close attention to build a strong strategy that has full buy-in and commitment. Let’s examine each of these activities.

1. Gain your team’s commitment and buy-in to the process.

If your leadership team members are like most with whom I have worked, they are stretched for resources and have more on their plate than they can likely accomplish with the time they have. Therefore, for many of them, the prospects of taking valuable time and resources to develop a plan that will come up with more to add to their already over-loaded plates is NOT a welcomed idea.

So how do you gain their commitment to planning and their buy-in to a planning process such as the Drivers Model? I consider this my secret weapon for buy-in: the management briefing. With the management briefing, you will have your team identify the most critical issues facing the organization; then they will make adjustments to the planning process as needed to ensure that the process addresses those issues. The management briefing increases commitment to planning by providing your team with a road map that shows how what is important to them will be covered during the strategic planning sessions.

2. Ensure all voices are heard.

The fundamental secret of facilitation indicates that you can increase buy-in and commitment by having those impacted by the plan involved in the creation of it. However, everyone in your organization will be impacted by the strategic plan. Does that mean everyone should be at the table creating the plan?

No, of course not. Nor is it necessary. Involvement does not necessitate being at the table. For some, just giving them a chance for input through a survey or a suggestion box will be adequate. For others, focus groups, one-on-one interviews or other methods for gaining in-depth input may be more appropriate. One of your important roles is to determine who should be at the table and to put in place other avenues to ensure all voices are given the opportunity to be heard.

3. Ensure key information is brought into the room.

You may have been in the room when a team has made a decision based on the best information available, only to discover that if they had been aware of other information that had not been brought into the room, they would have likely have made a different decision. Sound familiar? Well, part of your role is to ensure that this doesn’t happen with your planning activity.

My company’s work in the area of consensus building has shown that one of the primary reasons people disagree is due to a lack of shared information. Many disagreements can be resolved, and even prevented, by making sure all parties have the same information. With the Drivers Model, the briefing book serves the purpose of ensuring all your team members start with a common set of information.

4. Get your ideas on the table without overpowering the group.

As indicated earlier, it is important that all voices be heard, and that includes yours. Unfortunately, if you are like most leaders, your voice comes with considerable baggage. When the boss speaks, people listen. And they listen differently from when other people speak.

Sure, there will likely be some people in the room who treat your voice like every other voice in the room. Whether the idea comes from you or a first-year manager, these people will state their agreement or disagreement with the idea in the exact same way, regardless of the source. Unfortunately, this probably isn’t the case for most of the people at the table. When you speak, most may be quick to respond when they agree, and very, very slow to respond when they disagree – so slow, in fact, that sometimes they may never get around to it!

As a result of the lack of challenge many leaders experience within their own walls, the views of the leader can easily overpower the group.

5. Ensure that the plan components meet the quality checks.

With the Drivers Model each component is dependent upon the components that came before it. So, for example, if you do a poor job of defining your mission and vision, your goals and objectives will reflect this. Likewise, if your goals and objectives are misaligned, your critical success factors and barriers will also be off. And if your critical success factors and barriers are inadequate, your strategies and action plans will be inadequate as well. Therefore it is essential that you do a quality job every step of the way through the planning process.

The Drivers Model is designed to help you do this. From vision and mission through to strategies and action plans, the Drivers Model provides a specific quality check for each component of the strategic plan. These quality checks help ensure that your plan is comprehensive, robust, inspiring, and implementable. As the leader, it is your role to ensure that each component of the plan passes its quality check.

6. Follow through and hold people accountable.

If you have been involved in strategic planning processes, you know that far too often it is a game in which considerable energy is placed in developing a plan that is then put on the executive’s shelf, only to be looked at when it is time to do strategic planning once again.

The Drivers Model strives to end this game. As see in Chapter 14 of my book, The Executive Guide to Facilitating Strategy, you and your team will assemble a detailed process for aligning the organization and ensuring monthly check-ins, quarterly reviews and an annual update to the strategic plan. This structured monitoring process is intended to help ensure that the plan moves from paper to implementation.

7. Decide if an outside facilitator would be helpful.

With an activity as critical as strategic planning, it is essential that the effort be facilitated by someone who is skilled in facilitation but also has considerable experience guiding a team through strategy. Some organizations have internal resources with both the facilitation and the strategy expertise. But others choose to bring in outside professional facilitators with years of training, experience and proven results.

When should you bring in an outside facilitator? It is your role as the leader to make this call. Get help making that call with these guiding questions.

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Certified Master Facilitator Michael Wilkinson is the CEO and Managing Director of Leadership Strategies, Inc., The Facilitation Company and author of the new The Secrets of Facilitation 2nd Edition, The Secrets to Masterful Meetings, and The Executive Guide to Facilitating Strategy. Leadership Strategies is a global leader in facilitation services, providing companies with dynamic professional facilitators who lead executive teams and task forces in areas like strategic planning, issue resolution, process improvement and others. The company is also a leading provider of facilitation training in the United States.