Facilitating Strategy Challenge
Facilitating Strategy Challenge
Facilitating Strategy Challenge
Imagine Yourself...
You were hired two weeks ago as the new VP of strategy for a large
international company. You have just been summoned to facilitate next week a
day-long emergency off-site strategy session with 25 of the top executives.
The firm had been very successful but has been struggling over the last two
years. This hasn't helped morale and opinions are running wild as to why the
firm is struggle and whose fault it is. This is further dragging the firm
down.
Each player has been in their position for several years, is brilliant,
understands the businesses inside and out, is fast-paced, and is opinionated.
Your job is to facilitate this team in developing a compelling turn-around
strategy that they own and will put their hearts into. You were excited about
the job opportunity, although you knew of some of the challenges of the firm.
You expected much more time to get rooted, know the players, and begin the
needed planning and change processes. So, you feel thrown into the situation
and need to move forward. Clearly you have a challenge on your hands.
Your gut at this point tells you that the firm's underlying problems align
more with clashing egos than with business know how and skill. The session
could be a very difficult one given the personalities and stress levels of
the players. The question is, how do you best prepare for this session?
UNDERSTAND NEEDS
Understanding both the business needs and the individual needs of the top
executives is important. The temptation for many of us in situations like
these is to focus on understanding the business needs first. However, in this
situation, understanding the needs of the players may be more important given
the time limiations. Why?People are emotional creatures. People are typically focused on themselves.
During the course of a day, a person will focus most of the thoughts on their
security, needs, goals, and wants. Parents may spend part of their day
thinking and attending the needs of others. However, very little time is
spent focused on thinking about others beyond these circles - unless required
to do ones job.
Meet individually with the executives
The temptation will be to focus on yourself. How do I successfully facilitate
this session? I have so much to learn. What if I don't present myself well?
What happens if the sessions isn't a good one? If you are too focused on your
needs at this point, you will likely fail.
Instead, focus on meeting with each of the executive individually. This can
help you to get to core business issues quicker, get to know their strengths,
begin to establish a relationship of trust, and most importantly to
understand their individual concerns. Ask for their input on how to move
forward and create anenvironment of trust for this meeting. This will help
them to begin to think about how they can help to be part of the solution.
Research shows that strong emotional and social skills carry 60% of the
responsibility for a person's success in the workplace, overshadowing such
skills as time management, motivation, vision and communication. (Social
Intelligence)
Determine how to create a respectful environment
Determine how you and the CEO can create a respectful environment for the
session. Meet with the CEO first, let him know like to meet with his
executives and let him know why. Once you have meet with the other executives,
organize your thoughts and share your findings. Focus on the strengths of
each of the players.
Ask the Right Questions
How can you and the CEO facilitate the asking of the best questions that will
get at the issues in the most constructive manner possible? Also, what
meeting ground rules should the CEO establish to ensure the meeting doesn't
go off track?
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