You don’t need a lot of experience with strategic planning to have experienced a bad strategic planning meeting.
The opportunity to spend 1-2 days unrestricted in a room devising the next quarter’s strategy will excite some and terrify others. But a well-planned and organised meeting can be a great opportunity to connect with and reengage the leadership.
Below are 5 tips to assist in strategic planning meeting success.
Book them in early.
Your strategic planning meetings are quite large events on the calendar. They can take 1-2 days to complete which is a solid amount of time for any leader to commit to. However, you know well in advance that the meetings will occur. So, book them a year in advance. That way there are few excuses available regarding attendance.
Get out of the office
These meetings should promote creative thought and encourage out-of-the-box thinking. If the meeting is occurring in the same room as the rest of your meetings it is unlikely to foster this process. Strategic meetings should occur away from the office in a space that encourages new ideas and fresh takes on old problems.
Define the Objectives
Most leaders loathe these meetings for the substantial time they take away from their day-to-day. They have likely done them before with little success in either reaching agreement or implementing the ideas after. Be clear before the meeting about what the agenda is and what the desired outputs for the meeting are.
Appoint a referee
Appointing someone who can essentially referee the meeting is a must. It is not difficult for a meeting to get derailed and distracted. When it does you need someone who can bring everyone’s attention back to the task at hand.
Be clear with what’s next
Your team want to know that the 1-2 days of their time won’t be for nothing. Ensure that the meeting has clear outputs and next steps and that those 2 will be followed up on shortly.
TAKEAWAY: Your business needs a clear strategy and that strategy should be formed with input from the leadership team. By implementing the 5 tips above you can devise a better strategy, get more buy-in from your leaders and see that strategy implemented more successfully.