Your next strategic retreat—virtual, in person or hybrid—must be designed for both the formal and ... [+]
“These are the times that try men's souls.” This quote from founding father Thomas Paine could easily describe today’s economic climate, with the friendly amendment of “men’s and women’s souls.”
Trying times indeed. After months of remote work and inconsistent communications, your organizational strategy, alignment and engagement may no longer be at an optimal level.
Business leaders are faced with the double whammy of increasing revenues and finding (and keeping) enough of the right people to do it. If you want to attract more high-paying clients, these are the times to try a new kind of strategic retreat.
Many business leaders stage a retreat with the famous phrase “lead, follow, or get out of the way” in their minds. This saying has widely been attributed to Paine, but never conclusively proven in his writings. Others from General George Patton to Chrysler CEO Lee Iacocca to media mogul Ted Turner (a biographer wrote a book by that title) have also used the phrase, meant to inspire action within an organization from the top down.
Forget top down in 2022. You want bottom up.
“One thing is certain however, in today’s turbulent, ambiguous, fast-paced and hyper-connected world, this leadership phrase is long overdue for a makeover to: Get out of the way, listen, and then lead!” says Scott Hamilton, a facilitator of strategic retreats.
Hamilton is CEO of the Executive Next Practices Institute, a global forum for innovation and development, and Nextworks Strategy, a value and growth advisory firm, both connected to University of California, Irvine Beall Applied Innovation. We met when he invited me to speak at events at UC Irvine.
Hamilton has helped organizations such as Nestle, ARAMARK, DirecTV, Golden State Foods, Printronix, City of Irvine, Altura Communications, and hundreds of others to help craft a better strategic planning to execution process.
“In 2022, you may be concerned about your team’s focus or current understanding of your customer,” says Hamilton. “Maybe you’ve also decided to schedule that long overdue strategic offsite to get things back on track.”
Here is where the biggest top-down error is made.
“Certainly, the CEO or key leader sets the vision and purpose, but beyond that maximum ideation, adaptability and inclusive thinking needs to be driven at the team level,” says Hamilton. “In other words, get out of the way and let the creativity happen.”
Hamilton says you also want to have a strategic process this year that takes advantage of your individual contributors’ reflections and perceptions shaped over the past 24 months and create an environment for those “hallway moments of truth telling” to unfold during the formal planning sessions about your current or proposed direction.
“How will you listen for and capture those random collisions of ideas in your planning process that often lead to the greatest breakthroughs in operations, services, customer centricity and competitiveness?” asks Hamilton. “How will you ensure that you tap into the diversity of your organization at all levels?”
Back in the prepandemic times, it used to be around the water coolers where the real conversations took place. In a hybrid workplace, where is the new safe collaboration zone?
“Your next strategic retreat—virtual, in person or hybrid—must be designed for both the formal and informal participant interactions, with a heavy dose of customer and operational analytic data to provide a factual foundation,” advises Hamilton.
