Strategic Planning

A strategic planning forum benefits from facilitation.

Strategic planning sometimes follows the traditional SWOT approach, Strengths and Weaknesses focusing inward, and Opportunities and Threats looking outside the organization. These strategic planning retreats yield the most impactful results when small teams are coached and engaged in advance of the retreat. They can be assigned just one of those categories, or departments and department-pairings (such as sales and marketing, or operations and quality) can work together on all four categories in advance of the meeting. This pre-work allows the strategic planning offsite to have more concrete information with which to work. It also has the benefit of having engaged participants to be thinking of ideas, often in ways they may not realize until they are called upon to advocate for, support or object to a certain course of action.

An additional benefit of these ad hoc groups being coached to work together, is that relationship connections are strengthened, and the experience of exploring options generally results in an increased respect for others’ expertise and opinions. The retreat pre-work process can subtly raise the bar for those who have found they have not given enough attention to their portion of an assignment, and raise the level of commitment beyond just their own group to extend to the organization as a whole.

Facilitated SWOT retreats end with express commitments by participants to each other, about next steps so that the momentum results in action, milestones and results.

Culture and Values

For cultural or values-based strategic planning retreats, a combination of activities can produce optimal results. This might be pairing participants with someone in a very different role to discover they may have an equal commitment to values. It may involve some individual reflection, writing their own opinion before engaging with or being overly influenced by others. It may involve ranking values or cultural values, discussing their beliefs and rationale for a certain ranking.

A team coach and facilitator helps the client conclude a culture and values retreat by providing specific behaviors with examples in the company’s history which positively illustrate the value being identified. It is only by living into the values and experiencing them and sharing those examples that values become more than a chart on the wall. Then they become the living commitment of all who have been involved in the retreat, and then cascade out, to those who hear about it subsequently.

Playful Process

An option for a strategic planning retreat is a proven coaching process in which each group member creates a lego structure as a symbol, to represent their innovative version of the solution.  When a group does this in a free-form yet guided format, as a response to prepared strategic questions, you have a tangible representation of the group’s wisdom.   The combined symbols provide a source of information, and a way of talking about it, that exceeds the possibilities in other business forums such as email, white papers, flow charts or flip charts.

The team coaching discussion based on this creative process enables the group to identify the similarities among team members, as well as creative outlier ideas, synthesizing the information to create the best possible solution. This process is called Lego Serious Play©, developed, yes by that same company that makes the plastic blocks, which can be used for strategic planning, service development, product development, mission, vision, culture, problem-solving and other new and uncharted challenges companies face.

Innovative problem-solving is fostered by engaging at a level of play-with-a-purpose.  Evidence abounds of how significant discoveries have been made in a state of relaxation and reflection. It is said that Thomas Edison would formulate a problem for his imagination to solve, sit in a rocking chair holding a ball, and when he was nearly asleep, the ball would drop from his hand waking him, and a new solution would be evident in his mind.  In chemistry, the mystery of the benzene molecule ring shape was revealed in such a state by Kekule.

We have all had experiences of insights while running, showering, listening to music, or simply reflecting. In organizations, one of the ways to engage that intellectual imagination is to reclaim the relaxed purposeful state that is play, to invite in the right brain imaginative parts. The coaching parameters and prompts for this process are customized to meet the client’s desired outcome.

Other game format or puzzle format activities can be custom designed to achieve the client’s goal for strategic planning.

Gestalt Process

A Gestalt group process, The Cape Cod Model, is often used as it is oriented towards strengths in the group dynamic, not just among individuals. The focus is on increasing awareness, of individual reactions as well as the flow of conversation and the nature of the energy that is shared. Often we don’t know what we do well, or discount it. The value of a team coach is to highlight these strengths, pausing the group process, and then having the group continue, fortified by an awareness of strengths they may not have articulated.

Other coaching dimensions of this model include an optimistic stance. That is not necessarily that a certain new product is bound for success, but rather that the team will be able to deal with whatever comes up. In support of that optimism, the group is coached to try something new.  Small experiments in new behavior can create important desired impacts. Even strengths can be enhanced, or can be overused if there aren’t other tools in the tool kit.

Graphic Facilitation

Many people are visual learners, and a group meeting can stimulate the best ideas when the creative right brain is involved, as with graphic images. Graphic facilitation and team coaching may provide imagery based on agendas created in advance, or may be a method for documenting and “recording” the process of a group. The point of the images is to stimulate ongoing discussion – not only to represent the finished output. By providing visuals, the group is engaged in the issues or decisions which are discussed. By creating an image for participants’ comments, they are being acknowledged. It also relaxes stressful thinking and stimulates attention. Watching the graphics be created is quite engaging. A shared image supports group learning and extends group memory. Graphic facilitation and team coaching invites all to listen for the story in what is being said, listen for the meaning behind the words.

A visual representation of the dialogue and agreements creates a compelling visual summary as you watch it being hand drawn in the moment. This type of coaching naturally stimulates collaboration and creativity. Graphic facilitation is good for capturing patterns in ideas, and the progression of ideas from germination to maturity.

Using large sheets of paper that cover the wall, images are drawn so everyone in the room can see. Not merely flip chart sized, the whole-wall pages provide for the unfolding of ideas. It’s literally a process of getting everyone on the same page.

The neutrality of seeing different ideas displayed circumvents the yes-you-did or I’m right-you’re wrong linear thinking discussions that can happen when just words are being used. By illustrating someone’s point, they are being acknowledged without having to lobby for it. By seeing others’ points on the wall, they are exposed to new ideas without having to defend their position or dissect another’s ideas.

Graphic facilitation and team coaching keeps a group out of disagreeing over the details and literally raises the level of the conversation to key points. As the graphics are developed and represented, participants easily see what has been omitted and have a chance to incorporate or omit it deliberately.

Graphic facilitation reduces arguments that are due to thinking patterns or mental models. Each functional specialty thinks differently, for example quality control thinks differently from engineering who has different thinking styles from sales. Graphic facilitation rises above those differences. The result is coaching a democratic process rather than deferring to hierarchy or most expressive verbally. This coaching allows for a group to explore and establish priorities, by being able to see all the options and innovative ideas in the room.