How to run a strategy day that actually works
Ruth has facilitated a lot of strategy days. Some of them were genuinely useful. Some produced a wall of Post-it notes that nobody looked at again after the train home. The difference between the two is almost never the quality of the people in the room. It is almost always the quality of the preparation and the structure.
Start with the question, not the agenda
Most strategy days begin with an agenda. That is the wrong starting point. An agenda tells you what you will discuss; it does not tell you what you are trying to decide. Before you book the room, write down the one or two questions that the day needs to answer. Not topics. Questions. 'What is our growth strategy?' is a topic. 'Should we expand into a second service line in the next twelve months, and if so, which one?' is a question.
If you cannot write the questions down before the day, the day will write them for you, which takes about three hours and leaves you with four hours to actually answer them. That is a bad trade.
Who should be in the room
For a team of up to twelve, everyone who will be affected by the decisions should be present. For larger organisations, the rule Ruth uses is: include anyone whose absence would mean the output needs to be re-explained or re-negotiated afterwards. If you are going to have to sell the outcome to someone, they should probably be in the room.
One person should be responsible for keeping time and process. That person should not also be the most senior person in the room, because those two roles are in conflict. If you do not have a natural facilitator internally, that is a reasonable reason to bring someone in.
What to do with the output
The output of a strategy day is not the flip chart. It is a short written document, produced within 48 hours, that records what was decided, what was not decided, and what the next three actions are with named owners. If that document does not exist by Thursday, the strategy day did not happen.
Ruth sends a draft of this document to the client within 24 hours of every session she facilitates. It is not long. It is usually one page. But it is the thing that makes the day real.
If your last strategy day produced a lot of energy and very little follow-through, the problem is probably in the output stage, not the day itself. Worth thinking about before you book the next one.