There is a strong need for executive management teams to periodically check out from day to day operations and check into a retreat focused on developing strategy. This import effort is a chance for the leadership team to focus on the future direction of the organization and to identify or update metrics that are critical for the organization to score well on, as well as to identify specific goals and strategies to achieve those metric scores.
This is hard work. It requires careful consideration of what the mission of the organization is, what the organization is capable of achieving in the near future, and extending that understanding as far out into the future as possible. It includes analyzing what is resisting short and long term results and determining what effort is worthwhile to expend on each obstacle. That information must then be translated into a set of metrics that will indicate progress and establishment of goals against those metrics that will stretch the organization as well as be reasonably achievable.
All this must be followed with an ‘unpacking’ of the this vision into a set of goals and associated strategies that will set the direction of the organization for some reasonable time. Often this is aided by reviewing previous goals and strategies, competition, industry trends, and other information that give the leaders ideas as well as clarify constraints.
The strategies that evolve are the result of tremendous learning. However, at the end of the retreat, that learning was only experienced by those that attended. An important step is to work with the rest of the organization, at all levels, through an involvement process to not only share the results of the retreat, but also to advance it and help everyone experience as much of the learning as possible. By holding meetings with cross-sections of the employees throughout the organization to explore the metrics, the metric targets, the strategies and their associated goals, many good ideas, concerns, and new directions will emerge, Even more important, employees will develop their own sense of direction for the organization and the mindset of ownership will evolve – and thus commitment to the directions that eventually emerge in the form of initiatives. This is critical, since the work of those initiatives will be carried out by those same employees.
Ownership and commitment evolve if employees feel they have the opportunity to not only give input, but to also make a contribution to the final plan. While the leadership team will have a great deal of their own blood, sweat and tears in the outcome from the retreat, there is huge value in making sure that they sincerely listen to what the employees say, not only to understand their words, but also to consider the view from the employee perspective and to make changes when appropriate.
After members of the executive team have engaged the employees in interactive sessions, holding a second retreat is a good idea. In that retreat, the metrics, targets, goals and strategies should be updated, and a first attempt at creating initiatives started. All of this should then be taken back to the employees and evolved yet again.
If it sounds like a lot of work, it is. This interactive approach, however, is the best way to help the organization learn and contribute to the direction of the organization. It is the only way to ensure that the direction has been evolved with the best thinking of the whole organization and at the same time ensure that the majority of employees will be committed to support that direction.
Since this is a big effort, consider only focusing on a portion of the whole set of strategies at a time, cycling through continuously so the conversation between the executive team and the employees is nearly continuous and the plans of the organization are current yet fluid.
Tags: Strategic planning