For any Board or senior management team it is vital to spend dedicated time together at periodic intervals to reflect, think and plan. Normal, routine meetings won’t do because they typically have a crammed agenda and there is simply not enough ‘quality’ time available to focus and engage in dedicated strategic discussion and fresh thinking.
But, to be successful, strategic meetings need special preparation and careful planning. Ideally, you should be thinking and planning at least 4-6 weeks before the meeting itself.
Strategic away-days can, of course, serve to address many types of narrow or broad strategic topic. Just a few examples: to review progress of the current business plan; to review and refresh an organisation’s vision or mission; to discuss the implications of a major move by a competitor; to decide the major business goals and budget for the next year; or to engage in some broad ‘blue-sky’ thinking about the future. Also, of course, strategic meetings can include major, related leadership or organisational issues – like structure, culture, skills development, technology or communications.
So, here are a dozen ‘must do’ tips I would particularly recommend, focusing, in particular, on a facilitated strategy-centred meeting:
i) Don’t treat a strategic away-day as just another, regular executive meeting: Away-days are special meetings. The scope of matters discussed is broader than the usual management meeting, with participants there to take an organisation-wide perspective rather than focus just a particular function. The frame of reference is the long-term, not the short-term. Participants will have to deal with information and issues that are often ill-defined, uncertain or speculative, which can make some executives uncomfortable. Also, away-days must be planned and ‘owned’ by the CEO (or most senior executive), even though he/she may not actually run the meeting itself.
ii) Define the objectives of the meeting in terms of the wider strategy process: The success of a strategy away-day is largely determined by what happens before the meeting, not at the meeting. It won’t be effective or efficient just to schedule a meeting, perhaps add a meeting facilitator, and then let discussion take its own course. Instead, you should first consider where exactly your organisation is in the strategy process and then decide what specific outcomes you want from the meeting to fit in with that wider process. For example, does the group need to hold an expansive conversation about broad strategic options, or is the focus on preparing next year’s budget/plan?
iii) Avoid cramming too much into a single strategic meeting: Two separate meetings, or a short series of half or full days over a few months, are usually more effective than a single meeting. There are a number of reasons: holding just one meeting severely limits the time available to deal with any issues in depth and participants’ energy and attention will start to wane after a few hours; breaking up the process over a number of meetings gives participants time to reflect after each session and prepare better for the next occasion; and having a gap between meetings enables useful, supportive tasks like collecting more data or consulting others to be carried out.
iv) Carefully consider who needs to attend the meeting: The number and range of participants should be determined by the scope and objectives of the meeting. An expansive discussion about broad options benefits from a larger group (as long as it is well-facilitated), whilst decisions are best made by smaller groups. Consider inviting a few other individuals to help balance the overall make-up of the group (e.g. a newly recruited senior manager who may bring a fresh perspective) or outside experts or service providers for parts of the meeting where their input will be valuable. Overall, keep numbers limited to what is necessary, otherwise you’ll have more of a ‘town meeting’ than a ‘strategic away-day!
v) Use an external strategic facilitator. Appointing a facilitator for your meeting makes a lot of sense, especially when: you need to stimulate some fresh/wider thinking; if there is some serious divergence of views or opinions across the team which need to aligned better; if you want to ensure equal, strong input from everyone in the team; if you’ve got some rather difficult group dynamics; or if there is a lack of in-house expertise in strategy or a lack of agreement on what strategic process or pathway to follow. Also, of course, using a facilitator will leave the senior/team leader free to actively contribute to discussions in the meeting.
It is possible, of course, to use someone from in-house as a facilitator, but they inevitably will not be able to bring the same objectivity or freshness as an outsider. Whoever is used as facilitator, though, an essential principle is that they should keep themselves fully independent: their job is simply to guide the process – not to influence the content of any decisions made!
vi) Ahead of the meeting distribute a background/data briefing pack: To orientate participants about the meeting and provide a common foundation for discussions, prepare a set of background reading and send out at least a week ahead to all attendees. Stick to hard facts and figures only, or as as much as possible: there will be enough subjective opinion raised at the meeting itself!
vii) Plan a suitable meeting structure, process and set of techniques: This critical stage involves, firstly, designing an overall structure, agenda of topics, time-plan and set of specific objectives/outputs for each agenda session. Secondly, selecting what particular discussion/interaction process and what particular frameworks and range of supportive techniques and aids will be most suitable for each session. Avoid using an agenda made up simply of blocks of time with a broad topic for each block and relying on free, open discussion to come up with useful outputs: this is invariably not as effective as using a semi-structured approach for each session with at least some particular questions to work through.
ix) Ensure a comfortable environment and relaxed meeting ‘tone’: If you want a group to work well together for several hours, make sure in advance the meeting room itself is well-aired, quiet, temperature-controlled, and large enough for participants to walk around at intervals for a break. Of course, make sure that the layout of the room is suitable and seating arrangements comfortable for everyone (arranged in a U-shape or complete circle is usually best, and certainly avoid ‘theatre-style’ rows). Natural daylight in the room is preferred by many people for a long meeting. To help reinforce a convivial, relaxed atmosphere, it helps if participants have some time to relax socially together before the meeting (e.g. dinner the prior evening). A ‘smart-casual’ dress code on the day also helps.
x) Manage conversations carefully on the day: Begin the meeting with some introductory points (e.g. welcoming everyone and summing up the aims of the day) and an overview of the day’s agenda and giving some simple guidelines (‘ground rules’) on how sessions are to be handled. Once the meeting has got going, for each agenda session, the meeting leader (or facilitator) should give a clear overview of the objectives and how it is to be handled. Try and avoid sessions opening with any long data presentations (e.g. PowerPoint), as they often leave people ‘flat’ and bored. Let the facilitator lead and gently steer and progress each conversation and ensure things like everyone has a fair chance to speak.
xi) Fix definite review/decision points along the agenda of the meeting: At regular points during discussions, try to assimilate the range of points raised up to then and offer a simple summary to the group. Also, at key stages in discussions – especially after an allotted time for a topic has been reached – the meeting leader/facilitator should bring the conversation to some form of ‘closure‘: that doesn’t necessarily mean reaching a particular decision, it can simply mean, for example, agreeing a set of issues or prioritisation of issues to be discussed later or agreeing to investigate a topic further.
xii) End the meeting with a wrap-up review & check everyone is aligned: If participants have managed to maintain a decent focus and progression to their conversations throughout their meeting, the result should be the outcomes wanted. In the final session, then, it’s a good idea to summarise and overview the outputs from all previous sessions and check everyone is clear and agreed. There should also be an overall check on which executive is to be responsible for taking forward or overseeing each issue/decision/action.
What sort of away-day are YOU planning? If you’d like a free, no-obligation call, online conversation or face-to-face exploratory meeting at your offices, to help shape ideas and thinking for your event, please call Mike on 01994 278118.
Or email Mike at: mike@owenmorrispartnership.com