7 Ways A Strategy Day Provides High Value To Your Company
While driving the CEO to the airport a couple days after a two-day strategy session, I asked him, “Was it worth it?”
Even though he was exhausted from all the thinking and deep discussions, his response was nothing short of stunning.
The CEO began explaining why the flights, hotels, time away from the grind, and our facilitation fee were worth it to him and his company. (By the way, at Delta Awesome, we measure the merit of a strategy day against ALL IN costs, which include opportunity costs).
By the time the CEO was finished talking, he mentioned at least seven ways the strategy days were worth it. (Of course, this made me feel pretty good.) Before I share his list of why it was worth it, let me start with a key ingredient of how we kick off a strategy day.
HOW WE START A STRATEGY DAY
Besides the prep work to set the agenda, location, and logistics to prime a client for a successful strategy day, the most important part is kicking off the session with this question:
What’s your definition of success?
At the particular strategy day referenced above, there were six of us sitting in a room, and the definition of success was stated as:
“What is the best and highest use of this team inside of this company in the next six months and beyond.”
This statement is a critical prompt to align the team’s focus and begin deep strategic planning. It’s also reflective of a typical prompt we develop when we work with clients.
7 KEY WAYS A STRATEGY DAY IS WORTH IT
The following is a summary of the ways a CEO told me our strategy day provided value to him and his team:
Team alignment. The total team had grown from 70 to 100 people and from an executive team of one (former CEO) to four. The CEO was constantly trying to get everyone “on the same page” and using “the same vocabulary.” The strategy day helped them find common ground and common language to be in lock step together.
Novelty. Novelty is about uniqueness. During the strategy day, novel ways of thinking formed in the group because everyone was able to collaborate and share. We use a variety of mental models designed to get ideas out of their minds and onto paper in fun ways. These models were successful and helped the team envision new ideas without feeling entrenched in old values.
New approaches. The CEO was pleasantly surprised by the different options we presented on how to approach good and bad problems. We were able to help them develop ideas for radically different business systems within their industry.
Personal growth. The CEO shared how he felt himself growing in his leadership during the session. By observing the conversation more than running the meeting, he watched his team step up to the plate, share ideas, express and refine ideas amongst each other, and in the end, he made the decisions.
Dropping low quality ideas. During this two day strategy day session, we collected 72 discrete strategic initiatives amongst the six team members. We codified, refined, and organized them, and the company left with eight, high impact strategic items to work on. More importantly, a new level was set of what makes an interesting but not achievable idea.
Group agreement plus a single source of truth. Everyone got the opportunity to bring their best ideas, including feeling seen and heard in their wisdom and perspective. However, it was equally important that final decisions were clearly stated in the operational notes and everyone was in agreement. A large effort during a strategy day is bringing diverse voices together and narrowing them into a cohesive point of view.
“I feel an immense sense of relief.” This statement captures it all. When the CEO made this comment, it was a perfect example of how much a leader carries on their shoulders, and the impact of being able to let go of that burden. Strategy days are designed to provide space and help teams see the forest through the trees. Strategy days aren’t breaks from the work. They’re a chance to step back, reconnect, and realize the imagined versus real pressures a team is feeling on a daily basis. In this case, the CEO was able to release some of that pressure, and find a new sense of his in his role.
MONTHS LATER, WAS A STRATEGY DAY STILL WORTH IT?
The most interesting part of a strategy day is what happens months later.
Does its value still hold true?
How does a CEO and team feel after the high has worn off?
We often run alignment sessions once a quarter (a short 4-hour session) as a check-in between strategy days so we can help teams stay on track and accountable. In the case of this team, we worked with them six months later. If we were to measure the value of their strategy day from a metrics point of view:
One of the eight initiatives was dropped because of a force-majeure situation
Six initiatives were either done or on target
And one initiative needed to be discussed in group as everyone kinda thought it was someone else’s responsibility
Back to their earlier definition of success, “What is the best and highest use of this team inside of this company in the next six months and beyond,” this company had accomplished six strategic initiatives in six months!
More importantly, at a time when dozens of their competitors were lost and adrift, this company was still growing and was the best poised in the nation (based on industry statistics) for sustainable growth.
There’s no doubt that the strategy day was a key element in this company’s success, aided in their ability to execute and stay focused, and was a likely cause of catalyzing so much of their growth, which impacts revenue, retention, and reputation, among other business metrics. In our minds, it’s abundantly clear that strategy days provide point in time value as well as long term value to the company’s health and success, at least a 50X ROI for what they invest in one strategy day.