Catalyst Strategic Consultants - What is Doug Bouey thinking about these days?

Re: Avoiding the Cover of FORTUNE

Appreciation

Planning to Plan

September 11, 2001

This time of year, Presidents and heads of organizations look forward in the corporate calendar and plan out the year. Included in that schedule is a retreat, a strat planning session, a brainstorm, blue sky – there are different labels.

Why?

To set goals
To build buy in to the corporate agenda
To team build
To get some new ideas on how to reach objectives
To wrap corporate arms around a new concept or orientation
To resolve key impasses that impede the organizations progress

There may be other reasons, other names, but the fact is that getting the troops together once in a while out of the ordinary course of biz can be important. Some leaders view them as unnecessary, some build their whole year around them. I quite often hear them referred to as marker events. “That hasn’t been an issue since Kananaskis.” “ Ghost River really got us going.” “Since Emerald Lake , we’ve struggled.” I’m glad that our clients count the sessions we facilitate as among the pivotal moments in corporate history.

I guess if they weren’t important they wouldn’t be held. A session can be a strong expression of corporate vitality – an energizer. Or It can dissolve in alcohol and repeat tired patterns of stilted interaction. It can be just dull – who needs just another meeting?

This letter has always had two aims - to build our business, sure, but also to provide real help to leaders. In that spirit, here’s the outline I use when someone calls and says, “We’re having a session, and …”. In other words, here’s how I plan a planning session to maximize impact and leverage. After all, our reputation rides on creating sessions that are much more powerful and memorable than if we weren’t involved. You should meet a high test too, so that your people look forward to the next one and can tell you - without looking it up - what happened at the last one. So here is the outline:

Purpose of Group:

Purpose of Meeting:

Ground Rules/ Tone:

Activities: Prework

Agenda

Evaluation and Expected Outcome:

Next:

I believe it is incumbent on every organization to create and install a planning discipline. It’s a critical part of Spiralling Up, our conception to engineer sound corporate growth. Without a mechanism for setting out and following up on goals and corporate objectives for the year, the ship is rudderless. Even if it’s the President clueing the rest into a direction taken, the strat plan cycle is a key piece of corporate equipment. That means, at minimum, an annual session with quarterly followups.

Purpose of Group:

If you are clear on what your assembled group exists for and can say that clearly, pointing them in the right direction gets a lot easier. And the answer has to be a bit more penetrating than the old standby (and escape from precision) “make money”. Of course we have to make money. We have to continue organizational life. But a directors’ retreat is different from a divisional meeting. It can be clarifying to say of a sales division that they “supply the revenue to reach corporate goals” as I was able to put it recently. It gives a basis for testing the relevance of what is to be done at the meeting. Are we advancing the purpose and exactly how does this meeting do that?

Purpose of Meeting:

No leader can afford to call a meeting and not be totally sure why. If purpose is unclear there is a sponsorship cost. Claiming the attention of the gang in these pressed times is expensive: no one wants to have their time wasted. See the list at the start of this note and see if one of those fits. Maybe it’s “build next years’ strat plan.”

Ground Rules/ Tone:

Some meetings are heavier than others. Sometimes, the intent can be to reward an achieving group, to lighten up and build the bonds. I don’t think anyone would say work is too much fun these days. In fact, if a meeting occurs without something memorable happening, I would count that a failure. Not to make light of the need for intense focus and high attention. Filling in this element of our preplan is so you don’t install a hard-driven agenda when the intention is to freewheel. When you need a close order schedule to come out the other end, use the hard point by point approach. Every meeting has an intended feel, a flavor. Know it beforehand so you can build to create it on site.

Activities:

Finally we get to the meat, you say. Well, there’s a difference between an uncooked steak bleeding alone on a cold plate, and a well aged New York broiled to a turn surrounded by baked potato and fine vegetable, presented in an inspiring environment with a nice Cabernet. When a well planned meeting comes together, it’s the culmination of some forethought on all the elements I’m urging on you - they see their expression in the agenda. This is how we actually spend the precious time we’re allotted.

Prework: Some sessions require background to reach their full value. When I run a session, I want to have met everyone beforehand so I know where they’re coming from. I can also make sure we address what the group wants to touch on. If we can then develop and feed out an agenda beforehand for adjustment, the buyin for the meeting is much stronger. And when the right resource materials are ready, it can make a big difference in the quality of deliberation and decision. On the other hand, I have sat in on so many meetings where the attendees are slurping coffee and having their first look at someone’s hard advance work as we start. . .Let’s face it, the real stuff is in the live action: I’m not in favour of loading up on the prework that won’t be read anyway.

Agenda: Here it is, the blocked out plan for each module of the meeting: the time involved, the approach to each topic. Some read like Queen Elizabeth’s itinerary – you know: 8:02 HM descends stairs, 8:03 HM shakes hands with well-wishers, 8:04 HM enters automobile “. Most meetings are not directed to ramming content down throats or forced marching across vast territory, with little expected or allowed spontaneous interaction. Why have such a meeting? Send an email. I find a solid planning retreat works in blocks of about 1 ½ hours each. Setting out the blocks and orienting each to honor the preplan results in a fine session. Overplanning and underallowing time is a common source of frustration. Let folks start with a light note, go right to the intended topic, hit it hard and take your first break early.

Evaluation and Expected Outcome:

If you’re reasonable and know what you’re looking for, you may just get it! This includes being specific about the sort of documentation that will constitute acceptable output of the session with distribution and communication guidelines. Some Presidents don’t want paper: they want a shift of the sense of urgency, commitment to a new system. Laying this out in preplanning helps direct the agenda toward the intended result.

Next:

Call Catalyst and book your session! No seriously, every meeting occurs in a business context and calendar. Folks need to know what will happen with the plan or their input, where it will go, how it will be used. And the followup is what determines the ultimate impact of what you have done. If it doesn’t translate into action, it was worse than having no meeting. Disciplined companies book their followup sessions.

I am indebted to my esteemed colleague, Bernie Novokowsky, for the initial outline this is based on. It works great and has become a reflex with me when someone says: We’re thinking of having a session and …” I’ve put a form you can use here on this website. Pick it up, start filling it out. You’ll be on your way to plan a strong session.

Doug Bouey

[ Top ]