For many companies, the main task in the current conditions is to maintain business, i.e. survive. According to some estimates, only 15–20% owners (managers) think about prospects and development. How to look into the future of the company and engage in strategic plans? Such an effective tool as holding a strategic session will help with this. Let's talk to a strategy expert about how this tool works and what its features are.

— Alexander, according to you, the more difficult the market situation, the greater the interest in holding strategic sessions. How can you explain this?

— Indeed, in 2022, in just six months, I spent about 60 days as a consultant at strategic sessions of various companies. This is a record figure, if we take all of my almost 30 years of experience. It is important to consider that this is actually the first time the business has faced such difficult challenges. Yes, many companies in this situation have focused all their efforts on survival - hence the “fire-fighting”, short-term plans (maximum month) and the expectation that everything will be resolved in some miraculous way. However, about 15–20% companies still look into the future and set themselves far-reaching goals. And a strategic session is just the very tool with which you can answer even the most difficult questions. 

— What issues are you talking about?

— These are questions that reflect the main pain points of business. For some, they relate to general issues: what actions to take in the current situation, how to achieve growth in indicators, where to get new ideas, how to think about business prospects, etc.

Many questions are posed more specifically:

• What to build a business on next and where to make money?
• What will help you stand out from your competitors?
• How to get key employees interested in business development?
• How to avoid price squabbles with competitors and offer customers something valuable?

Companies that have previously developed a strategy are now reviewing it. But even if it remains relevant, new approaches to implementation may be required - taking into account changed conditions.

— Let's start with a definition: what is a strategic session?

— I like this formulation: this is group work in a format that allows you to jointly develop strategic decisions that are significant for the company, with the organization’s leaders participating in the session. Let me emphasize that we are talking about strategic decisions, and not about operational or, say, tactical ones. And one more important point: a strategic session is a joint, group work that allows you to use the potential and strong competencies of key employees of the organization.

I would highlight several main tasks that are solved during a strategic session:

• Generating ideas that ensure business growth,
• An assessment of the current state of the company, from which we will build when searching for ideas,
• Identification of key growth points,
• Compiling a list of strategic initiatives,
• Upgrading hypotheses (alternatives) for business development,
• Finding strategic focus
• Defining the essence of strategic initiatives,
• Formation of a plan for strategic changes,
• Evaluation of developed ideas,
• Summing up the results of the completed strategic period,
• Discussion of current external challenges,
• Making decisions regarding business development.

During strategic sessions, to summarize, issues related to business development are resolved. Operational and tactical issues are not discussed here - there are other formats for them.

Of course, it is impossible to cope with all the tasks in one session - here you need to realistically assess your capabilities.

In addition to the main tasks, secondary tasks can also be solved during a strategic session. For example, this is the formation of a common information field for the management team, uniting them around one goal, training to work in a group, increasing the involvement of key employees in the business development process. But it is important to remember that these goals are secondary, not primary.

— How long does it take to conduct a strategic session? What points need to be taken into account in the process of preparing for it?

— Depending on the main goals, the session may take half a day or 2–4 days. It will take a whole series of strategy sessions to develop a strategy.

Of course, first you need to define your goals, otherwise all subsequent actions are meaningless. After this, a scenario for the event is developed, and it is important to take into account who is in the group - what the relationship is between these people, how they interact, what their psychological characteristics are. Here we decide on the tools that will be needed during the session. The next step is to determine the timing and realistically assess whether we will cope with our goals in the allotted time. When the session comes to an end, it is necessary to record the results and decide on the next plan of action. Both in preparation for the session and during its conduct, one of the key roles is played by the facilitator* - a participant on whom the success of communication in the group depends.

*from English facilitator - “assistant, mediator” (derived from the Latin word facilis - “favorable, easy”).

— What kind of specialist is this - external or working in the company? What is required of him?

— This can be either an internal or external specialist. An important point is that the facilitator should not depend heavily on the customer. In addition, if a company is developing a strategy or solving strategic problems, then the facilitator simply needs experience in participating in strategy formation, and considerable experience. He should also have experience in conducting strategic sessions. And in addition, he is required to understand the laws of business, know the main trends in the market where the customer operates, the ability to quickly switch to professional slang in the team, and pose the right questions to the participants in a timely manner.

Having almost 30 years of experience in consulting, I will add that if you involve a consultant in the facilitation who helps companies solve management issues, especially in terms of working with strategy, then this is the best option. 

An important skill for a facilitator is managing group dynamics. This person is also required to be flexible and able to make adjustments to the session script if unexpected moments arise. One of the main tasks of the facilitator is to involve each of the session participants in the discussion, regardless of their status and position. At some point, the facilitator can escalate the discussion, controlling its further course and being responsible for the consequences. And finally, this person should not be boring: strategic sessions necessarily bring drive and energy.

— Let's talk about why a facilitator should have expertise. How can he use it during the session? 

- It is obvious. Imagine that the management team is discussing issues worth tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars, with large investments and significant market share at stake. Who will the owner or top manager trust to work with the team to bring it to a common understanding and make the necessary decisions? Let's say we are talking about a team from the prestigious English Premier League. Who should you entrust it to - a golf coach, a player on an amateur football team, or a professional coach who has already achieved victories in this championship? There are no options here. However, it is up to the client to decide who will help steer the business toward a multimillion-dollar future.

Let me give you an example. The owner of the company decided to hold a strategic session to bring the team to a common view of the strategic project, clearly define goals and objectives, and draw up a plan for implementing the strategy. A team building specialist was offered to become a facilitator. Yes, he had good experience in conducting working groups. But in the end, instead of a strategic session, the customer received a bright and unforgettable team building event. As for the assigned tasks, there is nothing even to discuss: a huge list of tasks, poorly interconnected, without understanding their priority and methods of implementation. I have had the opportunity to observe how very advanced and experienced consultants in the field of sales or marketing conducted strategic sessions as facilitators. The result of such events is a lot of ideas for sales or marketing, but almost no ideas regarding strategy and business development in general.

If you need to generate a list of ideas or brainstorm, in this case you can involve a facilitator who does not have expertise. However, when it comes to developing a strategy or, for example, upgrading a business model, you will need expertise and the necessary competencies to rid the development team of “rose-colored glasses” with the help of the right questions.

— How can a client determine that a person is truly a strong facilitator?

— We have already talked about the need for expertise. The next step is to clarify how many hours of strategic sessions the specialist has, discuss the scenario, and find out how quickly this person can immerse himself in the specifics of the business. You can ask for contact details of clients with whom the facilitator has already worked - to ask about the results. As for me, I do not wait for such a request and provide each potential client with contacts of owners and top managers who invited me to conduct strategic sessions in their companies in the past one or two years. It is important that the client trusts the facilitator, because we are talking about the future of the company, about its strategy.

— How often do you observe that companies make mistakes in the process of preparing for sessions and during their conduct? Can you highlight the most typical ones?

- Yes, mistakes happen, and that’s par for the course. But if you know what you might encounter, then there is a chance to avoid many difficult moments. Let me list the classic mistakes:

1. There is no scenario: we are starting to conduct a session, but we do not have an exact idea of how to move towards our goal. Hence the lack of timing, although in some cases we do not create timing according to the script.

2. There are no goals: we have prepared a scenario with timing, but we do not understand what we should get in the end. And even drive and energy during the session don’t solve anything, because at the end it’s not clear what’s next.

3. Not a strong enough facilitator. Accordingly, he does not support group dynamics, is afraid of breaking the hierarchy, does not follow the rules of the session, and is subject to the influence of group members.

4. The strength of some participants is not taken into account. Sometimes too strong figures are attracted to participate in the session. With their authority, charisma, and confidence, they put pressure on other members of the group - those with less status and strength. In such a situation, the facilitator is required to be able to neutralize the pressure of these people and give the floor to others.

5. It takes a long time to solve secondary problems, leaving no time for the main ones. For example, while we were working on team building, the session was almost over. To avoid this, it is necessary to identify priority tasks during the preparation process and record them.

6. A record number of ideas. It would seem, what's wrong with that?! But if we chase quantity, then the quality of ideas begins to suffer, and no emphasis is placed on the ability to implement them. One of my clients once asked the question: “How many ideas will we get during the session? Last time we generated 90.” I ask a counter question: “How many of the 90 ideas did you manage to implement?” You can get 300 ideas and raise the tone of the team. But then workdays come with current, operational tasks. And it turns out that there are not enough resources to implement all the ideas. Therefore, it makes sense to think not about the number of ideas, but about their quality and possibility of implementation. If the team implements 15 out of 25 ideas, then this is much better than 15 out of 300. The fact is that a large number of unrealized ideas reduces the team's motivation.

7. There is no division between a strategic session and strategy development itself. Without much experience, clients and facilitators think that the session is the key tool for creating strategy. Not really. We view strategy development as a complex project. As for the session, this is one of the tools that helps develop a strategy and subsequently successfully implement it.

8. The line between operational and strategic is not drawn. It happens at a session that the group seems to have just been talking about the future - and suddenly it quietly moves on to discussing the purchase of new chairs. It should not be. A strategic session is only for solving issues of the future of the company. If operational issues come up, they should be written down and put aside to be resolved later. It is important to develop this skill - to think strategically, and not just live by operational tasks, which is what 80% companies usually do.

9. During the session, analytics are not taken into account, there is no assessment of current trends, etc. In essence, we find ourselves in a club of dreamers, whose members are bursting with ideas. But these ideas will most likely remain unrealized.

10. The business owner has formulated goals and objectives, and he wants to hold a strategic session so that managers and key employees are convinced that they are the ones who developed the solutions. I refuse such projects (so-called “deceptions”) if the owner continues to insist on his own.

11. Self-elimination of the owner and top managers during the session. They expect the team to become alert, energized, and then they will tell them what exactly needs to be done. In this case, we are also dealing with a substitution of goals. And in the end, this will take a serious toll on employee engagement. Preliminary agreements with the customer, compliance with the rules of the session and the use of special tools help solve this problem.

— Obviously, holding a strategic session requires serious resources, experience and competencies...

- You're right. Before the session, you need to conduct thorough preparation, collect data, organize a meeting with experts, make a list of those trends and tendencies that will give impetus to the strategy or may become a limitation. I find it strange if a company owner or manager is thinking about a multimillion-dollar business, but is not ready to invest resources (money, time, etc.) into it. For the sake of the desired future, you need to work hard here and now.