Case study - All things Vision

As we do with every new client, we took some time to get to know the individuals, the leader and the team itself.  We do this though GRIP calls which give us a chance to get to grips with their situation.

After speaking to every individual on a confidential basis, we then themed findings and offered the feedback to our client, the team-leader.  The comments were anonymised to protect individuals’ identity, but we shared our comments and began discussing the meeting purpose, outcomes and content.

We were able to demonstrate a tried and tested process in strategic visioning and share the clear outcomes that would be achieved.  We tested some of the discussions with our client to gauge the boldness of the vision required.  We stress-tested to understand if there were directions of travel which were not open to the business.

The agenda flow was agreed and pinned down.  We were ready to get started on the detailed planning work!

When preparing for a meeting like this we must consider several different aspects…getting ourselves ready, the client, speakers and the team.

Initially we finalised the agenda and transferred our notes into a detailed spreadsheet with clear process, outcomes and owners.  We drafted, prepared and printed all charts and other content required within the meeting agenda.

This agenda involved an external speaker who was inspiring different thinking from outside of the client’s industry.  We met with this individual and ensured they were briefed, could empathise with the clients specific situation and therefore the team whilst understanding some relatable inspiration from their own area of expertise.

The client booked their meeting venue, but once this was done we took care of the rest.  So, we liaised with the venue to finalise start, end, break and lunch times, room layout, kit and material needed.  This gave us the opportunity to check out the room and familiarise ourselves with the wall space – critical for any graphic facilitator.

We turned our attention to the team and began communicating with them in order for them to prepare appropriately.  We needed them to do some pre-thinking and pre-work so ensured emails were sent out in plenty of time.  This email included PREP – our orientation tool: Purpose; Expected Outcomes; Roles & Plan.  We also shared logistics, request for pre-thinking and pre-work.

Finally, we reconnected with the client, spending some time coaching them on the best route to a successful meeting.  This included their opening speech, how they might connect throughout the agenda items, what they might share to inspire their team and provoke some movement and alignment.

We finalised our logistics and arranged to be at the venue the day before in order to prepare it, dress it and ensure it was as engaging and conducive as it could be.

We begin all our meetings with a great Orientation. This involves setting the scene, covering PREP in person and getting input from the group early on. This involved a check-in which connected every individual mentally to the tasks at hand.

When embarking on a Strategic Visioning journey we find it vital to look back at the recent 2-3-year history. This often highlights huge learning which the team can take into the next phase of the journey. What were the highs, lows, successes, failures? Were there any consistent barriers or blockers? Were there any consistencies or major differentiators and what were the characteristics? How was their recent history affected by people, decisions, external factors or internal influencers?

When team membership is changing its also critical to consider the context the team are current operating in. Pooling understanding, expertise, perspectives, viewpoints both internal to the business and external can help develop shared knowledge and understanding. The external speaker also came within this slot and helped give a very different view, enriched through a Q&A afterwards.

Next, we began future pacing the conversation and encouraged the team to ideate. They did this by creating social media posts and mood boards to describe the type of impact their legacy had had on the business and the industry.

We reigned these crazy dreams back in a little and encouraged the group to consider what themes they had noticed and did this by getting the group to take a walk, in pairs. When they returned we clustered and further brainstormed. Then at the end of Day 1 we purposefully left it there and encouraged the team to eat together and get a good night’s rest.

Overnight we checked in with the client and ensured the meeting was on track. We discussed direction of travel, and they were very happy with the stretch the group had applied to the topic. We made some small adjustments to Day 2’s agenda, but overall we were on track.

Day 2 started with some reflections during the orientation and the group shared some realisations they had had overnight. This led the team straight back into the theming conversation from the previous evening, so we re-opened it and got started. These themes were developed into Vision characteristics which added colour to the overall key message.

Throughout the day we were able to workshop their content multiple times and develop the work into different pieces of collateral.

We set a sub-team up to create the narrative to this Vision – this would become some rough text which began crystallising their intentionality. We did not spend time wordsmithing this during the meeting however, opting to leave this as an action back in the office.

A further sub-team focussed on the KPI’s or Goals, attempting to land the 5 key Metrics and Measures they could share to tangibly track their progress over the coming 3 years.

Finally, the team knew the work to be completed fell into some simple workstreams, the team split to begin scoping out these programmes while the information, ideas and deliverables was fresh in their mind.

We tied the meeting together by pinning down a plan for the team to take all the work forward. We ensured everyone was involved, allocated individual owners and clearly put timeframes around the items.

The meeting was closed with a fun activity and a rousing summary statement from everyone in the room!

This successful meeting demonstrated how 2 days well spent in an offsite can do so many things:

• Completely aligned a newly formed leadership team to a single Vision, with multiple themes demonstrating depth and robustness.
• Crafted a narrative they can all use to communicate consistently; critical to being on the same page, whilst also communicating with business partners, stakeholders and sponsors.
• Agreed the Metrics & Measures which are so often missed when a team think about their future.  These are critical to tracking progress, justifying value, demonstrating impact, protecting budgets over the coming years.
• Demonstrated how a brilliant environment can empower a team to thrive and work together.  They have belief in themselves and muscle memory in high performance together.
• Created an extraordinary event which stays long in the memory of everyone involved.  “Do you remember when we…” will be used a lot in their future together.