Strategic Planning Retreats & Business Strategy Consulting | Experienced Strategic Planning Consultants in Manchester, NH
“When people evade the work of choosing among different paths into the future — then you get vague mom-and-apple-pie goals that everyone can agree on. Such goals are direct evidence of leadership’s insufficient will or political power to make or enforce hard choices. Put differently, universal buy-in usually signals the absence of choice.”
- Richard P. Rumelt, Author of Good Strategy Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters
Create Momentum | Strategic Planning Retreats Clarity, Alignment, and an Actionable Strategic Plan.
Strategic management is more important than any other leadership competence. With just a single strategic retreat, you can accelerate your business
strategy execution by 50% or more. Your team will leave with a prioritized plan for overcoming obstacles and a strategy map that inspires action.
Your satisfaction is guaranteed - or you keep the results of our work, including reports and we walkaway.
We have decades of experience, including "C" level leadership competence across a wide range of industries and organizational structures. Our clients have leveraged our strategic growth consultants and retreats to build, buy, and sell companies whose combined worth is in the trillions.
Strategy and leadership team alignment - facilitated by expert business strategy consultants.
Imagine what’s possible when you and your team create the level of strategic clarity, employee commitment and leadership team cohesion that the world’s most successful companies have leveraged to skyrocket their success and momentum.
Now, more than ever, an agile and strategic approach to management is critically important for senior leadership teams
According to a HRB* survey, 81% of CEOs acknowledge having to change their plans throughout execution. However, only a
small portion of the same group of leaders view their team as capable of making changes quickly. Businesses are facing an
unprecedented rate of change due to disruptive technologies, and the constant evolution of customer expectations. More and
more business leaders are struggling to come to terms with the fact that what worked yesterday will not work the same way in
a few short years. Source: Harvard Business Review Analytic Services Survey (2013)
Our comprehensive strategic planning framework includes a team-driven analysis of your business’ strengths, challenges, and priorities
and compares your results to the research. Seeing what similar organizations do to effectively engage their people, drive accountability, and
ensure a sustainable profit model changes subjective conversations and intuitive strategic discussions into data-driven, confidence building
dialogues. Every member of the strategic management team has a voice in the process and the leaders complete the retreat more aligned,
committed and confident in not only the company’s strategic roadmap but also how they will hold one another accountable for results.
Is it possible for your team to triple their results this year?
As an experienced strategic planning firm, our programs get your team focused and rallying around your top priorities and opportunities.
Strategic Planning Retreats Facilitated by Expert Strategic Planning Consultants and Certified Business Growth Curve Specialists
Our corporate retreats help your team create an actionable strategic plan to be used for daily decision making, in a high-end, immersive and interactive experience.
Managing company growth is challenging, but our strategic business planning services enables your team to:
implement a prioritized strategy
align the right efforts of your workforce
reinforce the most befitting culture for the organization
cascade the leadership team’s plan for where the company is going
define and clarify short and long term goals (and obstacles)
set clear, measurable milestones that inspire forward movement and mark progress
develop performance metrics and staff accountability protocols
A retail company with $20M+ in revenue, struggling with the technological and competitive disruptions of our times, and a dreadful, diminishing profit margin. We were hired to facilitate a strategic planning retreat.
First, we facilitated a goal-based, data-driven strategic assessment that compared their organization and the collective perspective of the leadership team against what successful and productive companies do at a similar stage of development.
The business insights gleaned inspired creative discourse and at times, fiercely territorial discussions. This is to be expected and thus it’s essential to work with experienced strategy consultants for your retreat.
We had to facilitate the team through distractions, irrelevant diatribes, and taxing conflict; all while maintaining trust and pushing through to the goals of the meeting. The retreat was “intense, but invigorating” by their own words.
The President, who was also a founder, shared that he was attempting to balance the need for growth with the desire to maintain the company’s homegrown feel and entrepreneurial spirit. While appreciating the intent, peers expressed distress that “old-school” thinking was impeding progress.
Initially, there were very few things the leadership team agreed upon, except that they were missing a sustainable multichannel strategy.
A large executive team (of 20) completed our online strategy assessment and verbal interviews and came together for a multi-day facilitation. With a palpable sense of unrest, the team had to start by relaxing into the fact that to gain a strategic focus and direction, they first had to let go of their value of efficiency over creativity (at least during the retreat).
One of the newer members of the team used the opportunity to share his observations regarding the inflexibility and “old-retail-mentality” of the team. After a short, heated debate, we facilitated a powerful productive conflict exercise that restored the creativity in the room, and we were off to the races.
They identified their top five challenges as:
hiring quality people (and retaining employees)
products not differentiated (solving digital disruption)
outdated marketing
slow getting programs to market (and processes implemented)
meeting changing customer expectations
On the opposite side of the spectrum, they identified their strengths as:
clear core values
strong communication between leadership and staff
staff buy-in for change
foundational project management systems
Fast forward twelve months.
The executive team has shrunk from 20 to 12 (two retired, three jumped, two changed roles, one is spearheading AI initiatives). The consensus is this change was a necessary and overdue shift.
The company is making strong headway towards eliminating redundant resources and retraining (upskilling) high to mid-performers, while overhauling their recruiting and hiring practices to attract more diverse talent.
The team shared they are more cohesive and committed to their business transformation. The CMO said, “I’m amazed at what this clarity has brought to the team. I mean, we were all in agreement before our strategy session about our problems. But I didn’t realize that our plan was just a bundle of ideas and ambiguous targets, as opposed to a clear, actionable, measurable strategy.”
While our strategic planning process cannot predict execution success, through the facilitated experience, your team will create a revived sense of optimism and your own growth playbook.
As experienced strategy consulting firms, we have seen time and again how our strategic planning process and growth planning framework benefits our clients
A few of the outcomes and benefits of our strategic business planning workshop:
Improved EQ and team interaction which improves communication and collaboration among key members of staff.
Introduce a plan for growth and a common language for accountability that will engage all staff in the strategy for growth.
Research-based work processes allow managers to plan and execute strategies without wasting time on guesses and trial-and-error.
Relieve the fear and qualms about growing the business with more targeted analysis of specific growth issues
Offers a map of the best practices to employ for optimal performance.
Grow leadership skills in the areas of reducing unproductive behaviors and reducing conflict and tension.
The company's key challenges are identified and organized according to the stage of growth and the agreed-upon strategy for rapid implementation.
Identify and analyze key indicators which will enable a company to focus on important areas of impact and benchmark performance.
This statistic, which accounts for 71% of employees becoming disengaged within 6 months of being hired, is countered by identifying and supporting core values.
Understanding the benefit of caution to measure risk while assessing the outcomes of potential actions, while being shrewd about that fact that too much caution or too much confidence will impede growth and frustrate leaders.
Clarity through categorization and prioritization: Focusing issues under People, Profit/Revenue, or Process creates clarity and makes sure each employee is included in the conversation.
Shorten sales conversion time
Analyze what areas of the business need improvement so that the company has common goals and objectives.
Management training that empowers employees leading to greater productivity, engagement, and retention.
Researched business growth methodologies allow your people leaders to have greater confidence in making decisions that affect the company's goals and employees.
Leaders learn to recognize when to transition and prepare for obstacles that come with every stage of growth.
By focusing more on meeting customer needs and exceeding their expectations, a company can eliminate the chance of losing a customer to a competitor.
Focus on the priorities that will bolster staff engagement, satisfaction, and productivity.
Get closure from past business challenges.
Evaluate how to increase performance.
Determine where constriction in specific revenue/business growth is occurring and develop strategies on how to release that constriction.
Identify the team’s alignment on your greatest strength and ignite the plan to build on it.
Insight from self-diagnostic assessments enable the leadership team to analyze the underlying reasons for workplace dysfunction and apply motivational change strategies to ensure productive environments.
A clear graphical overview of key initiatives, as well as a plan for the means needed to complete them, assists in maintaining a company’s vision for improvement.
Create a strategy that will engage each department and assign tactical actions; engaging every employee.
About Our Business Strategy Consultants and Strategic Planning Firms
TurnKey Coaching & Development Solutions has served 1000+ companies (public and private) with management
consulting services, business growth consulting, and leadership, employee, and team development services. Our team has
30+ years of senior level business leadership experience, serious credentials, and 5000+ hours of consulting/coaching and
training fulfillment experience.
We are a business growth consulting firm with a focus on helping businesses grow their
revenues and profits while cultivating an engaged, collaborative culture. We help our clients increase their market share,
develop clear key performance indicators, implement industry best practices, and drive next-level results (or when needed -
turn the business around).
There are several advantages that we offer our clients.
Our clients include both small to medium-sized companies and large enterprises, including privately-held, public, and family-owned companies. We have experience in many industries, including manufacturing, retail, healthcare, technology, construction, transport, financial services, and more. Our consulting work in diverse and successful businesses gives your team the opportunity to learn from our experience.
A few of our clients include:
Southern California Edison, Group 1 Automotive, RiceTec, Culinary Institute of America, Goodwill Industries, Corelogic, Rolls-Royce, N.A., Costco Wholesale, US Army Corps of Engineers, Cenikor
A strategic approach to leadership is, on average, 10 times more important for strategic growth and business success
than any other leadership competency. This is what the Management Research Group discovered during their 2013 study of 60,000 leaders
in more than 140 countries and across 26 industries.
What exactly makes a strategic approach? The research also found that leaders who were high-performing in the competencies of
strategic foresight, objective/critical thinking and analysis, quality decision making, strategic planning, and an extended-range
approach to problem solving were six times more effective.
Businesses with competing priorities, ambiguous roadmaps, poorly defined performance indicators and inadequate strategic analysis are destined for subpar results
Planning is crucial for every serious business enterprise. Unfortunately, most strategic plans are incomplete, which leads to a series of problems including lack of accountability, poor execution and frustration. This often leads to missed opportunities for the company. This is why our process is different. Our framework is clear, data-driven and aligned with the organization's vision and mission. It also helps leaders articulate their short term goals and specific strategies for the next three to five years.
It is important for each leader to speak up at the retreat and when the loudest voice drowns out those with valuable perspectives, it leads to team frustration and a plan that is good-looking but lacking in its full potential. The problem is, a lot of business owners don’t take the time to anticipate problems before they happen. They don’t have a system for handling them, or they don’t have a plan of action for what they’ll do when they do happen. This is the biggest cause of failure in startups, mergers/acquisitions, and companies growing faster than they can handle.
Your leadership team’s online organizational assessment will reveal a number of blind-spots and landmines. Examples include:
Business/Profit Design
Staff Morale
Chaotic Periods
Communication Gap
Flexible Planning
Problem Diagnosis
Customer Migration
Employee Turnover
Inadequate Profits
Limited Capital
Staff Buy In
Staff Satisfaction
Market Change
Systems Development
Cash Flow
New Product Development
Hiring Quality Staff
Resistant to Change
Growth Plans
Project Management
Expanding Sales
New Staff Orientation
Cost of Lost Expertise
Marketing Position
Anticipating Problems
Staff Training
Typically, strategic management consultants, at this level, require a hefty retainer; often more than 10K per month and $100K/year and up for a
similar growth strategy facilitation.
Fortunately, there's a proven, more effective and cost-efficient way.
Your team will benefit from our innovative strategic management and strategic facilitation:
clarity: a leadership team that knows your company's real opportunities and growth strategy.
confidence: your team builds trust and cooperation through tough conversations and discussions about the big problems.
collaboration: each leader on your team buys into the elimination of silos and the cohesive behaviors required for more effective collaboration.
discovery: there are hidden agents that make growth difficult.
prioritization: identify the top five challenges (of 27) that your team faces.
competency development: improve your team's ability to diagnose problems and gain consensus, as well as the authentic commitment required for rapid change.
Align your team and grow your business with our strategy consulting services.
Contact us today to learn more about how our business growth consultants can support your retreat and company goals.
Our Strategic Planning Retreats facilitate a common language for growth and an organized strategy for unified strategic management
(sans the cost of learning by failure)
But don't just take our word for it. Read what clients have to say:
“I’ve owned businesses for 50 years and currently employ more than 1000 employees and I had no idea that a strategist, trained in this process, could help us in this way. Frankly, our first experience with Anisa Aven and the Stages of Growth X-Ray program was like a dream come true for me. The team’s revelations were just incredible to hear, for instance, “One of the best things we have ever done as a team,” and "I feel energized and hopeful now!" I'm very excited about our direction and we'll be doing more of these!"”
- T. Brundage. Founder and CEO, Multiple holdings in the financial services, storage facilities, and real estate management industries
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“Prior to being exposed to the Stages of Growth, some of our companies were like hamsters running in circles with limited forward motion frantically focused on distractions and non-critical issues. Our most successful portfolio companies are now implementing the tools and processes that will lead to growth and improved profitability. I recommend the team at TurnKey and the stages of growth to any business entity."
- J.Parks, Angel Investor and General Manager VC
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“The biggest "aha" for me, and there were a number of them, was the moment I realized that my team put "sufficient cash flow for growth" at the bottom of our problems.
I have worked with this team for 10+ years, and realized at that moment that our priorities were not in sync and our perspective on what's most important was totally out of whack! This shifted everything about how I approach our executive team updates, meetings, and execution strategy now.
I am very grateful for TurnKey Coaching & Development Solution's guidance and help. We are on the right track now.”
-- T.M., EVP Manufacturing Services, Global Manufacturing company
"[The program] helped me as a leader in my company gain an understanding of the effect of growth on our staff. Understanding that focus and that my leadership style needs to change as the company grows was a huge wake-up call for me."
- L. Franklin, CEO, Service Based Company, Boise
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“As a senior executive in a fast-growing company that is currently at Stage 5 in the 7 Stages of Growth, I can tell you that the X-ray/27 challenges & Strengths/builder/protector/stages of growth process have been more valuable to our company than words could ever express. It has helped the leadership team understand, and then navigate the stages of growth based on an accurate and brutally honest snapshot and assessment of our company at scheduled and timely intervals. Having experienced it firsthand, I can tell you that it helped us make better decisions, helped us lead with confidence, see what issues and challenges we needed to address, and ultimately help us set the right priorities, strategies and plans in place - and correct them when needed. Lastly, these tools enabled every employee in the company to be in alignment on all aspects of our business and specifically critical Initiatives. This alignment made it easy to communicate clearly and effectively to the entire organization daily, weekly, monthly and annually that drove growth while building a solid unwavering culture that drove our success.
I can’t tell you how many times this process gave us a calm assurance that we were “doing the right things” because we could see from the x-rays and data what we were experiencing and being challenged with - was actually exactly what our company should be experiencing at that moment in our growth curve. And we could see what we needed to change or address at that exact stage of growth to continue up the growth curve.
I am thankful that our consultants and leadership team bought into and supported investing in these tools, assessments, and the process. We are leading our industry and continuing to achieve almost all of our goals thanks to these assessments and the process that surrounds them.
"
- T. Sumney, CIO, Real Estate Services Company
Still on the fence? That's OK. We get it.
Maybe, you’re considering running the meeting yourself or perhaps your executive or business unit leader is
convinced they can do a better job than anyone else?
While it is possible to have the organizational leader facilitate the meeting, it is not recommended. Your CEO, founder, or business unit leader may be more knowledgeable about the organization than anyone else and while free, is a very attractive price, 99% of the time, the results will be ineffective. According to the research, a skilled strategy specialist improves the outcomes including greater team alignment and constructive conflict, innovative and creative problem-solving, and better communication.
We agree, there are a lot of things to think about when evaluating strategic consulting firms.
Unfortunately, however, the companies that fail to implement a strategic approach to management, all to often fail because:
they continue to focus on the 80% of activities that produce 20% of the results, rather than the 20% of actions that produce 80%
they try but fail to stay ahead of the constantly changing VUCA environment
the team is not truly in agreement but operating in silos, more comfortable avoiding conflict than pushing through disagreement to team cohesion
the execution strategy doesn't inspire the discipline to complete the job
the team has become complacent with the status-quo and incapable of being resourceful enough to accelerate growth, resolve employee engagement issues, or even envision greater stability
It's time to pay attention to how much impact each issue has on achieving your goals.
Why You Need to Hire a Strategic Planning Consultant?
Our data-driven, strategic alignment program can help your team, quickly:
understand your company's specific correlation between company success, employee engagement and leadership competency
experience the improved quality of your efforts, products, and services which results from team certainty
execute in a more focused, coordinated full-steam way
name the problems - solve the problems.
turn your vision into reality with bigger, faster results
Don't hesitate!
We offer a special complimentary consultation to discuss our program and whether it's a fit for your team and company goals.
We can only offer a limited number of strategic growth consulting packages because the program requires an intensive effort for all parties - our consultants and your leadership team.
Thus, it's important to lock in your retreat, if we are good match, before the spaces are full.
Align your team and grow your business with our strategy consulting services.
Discover if your goals and organization are a good fit for our process and framework. Ask for a complimentary consultation:
CALL 281-469-4244
ABSOLUTELY RISK-FREE
We begin with a two-step process that protects your investment and reputation before the workshop. This also includes:
1) a strategic assessment and research-backed report
2) an executive debrief on the results.
This gives us both a "pilot" commitment with limited investment and a "no-risk" guarantee. If you are not convinced after the stakeholder debrief that the program will produce the results you seek, we will walk-away, and you can keep the comprehensive report and initial action plan.
If at the conclusion of this first phase, you are not 100% convinced that our framework is the best fit for your team, we walk away, and you keep the reports. To secure a spot for a strategic assessment, call us today:
281-469-4244 or email: SOGX at TurnKeyCoachingSolutions (dot) com
Business leaders can get ahead of issues, predict how growth will affect the business and understand what must be done in order
to grow the business with our data-driven framework and expert strategic planning consultants
Known as the Stages of Growth Enterprise Development Model, this highly-effective strategy development process has been successfully utilized by thousands of successful organizations worldwide. A research-backed program, developed by James Fischer, founder of the Origin Institute, this Strategic Management Assessment & Growth Strategy Model is based on a six-year study of entrepreneurial companies including interviews with over 650 CEOs. The research helps our strategic planners to understand and decipher the patterns, behaviors, and characteristics of growth or failure in entrepreneurial enterprises and business units. Your team’s perspective on your company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats is then compared to the most successful organizations for a unique perspective on how to achieve your business growth goals.
Our framework is an in-depth guide to best practice strategy development, including expert facilitation, team assessment, facilitated alignment. You will also learn the different stages of development and the challenges you'll encounter. Before your corporate retreat concludes, your team will identify the key steps to achieving your business growth objectives.
A few components of the framework include the rules that govern business growth, the hidden agents to be prepared to overcome, and the 27 challenges every business will face and when.
There are a few unique “rules” that govern the stages of business growth:
movement from one stage to another begins as soon as you land in any stage of growth
what you don’t get done in a specific stage does not go away
time will make a difference
if you aren’t growing, you’re dying.
There are invisible factors that will consistently derail your growth plans, unless they are identified and rectified. Hidden agents:
agents that lie beneath the surface and create obstacles to growth
surface issues look much different than what it really is
ability to address the real issues
become constrictors if real issues aren’t addressed
The research uncovered 27 primary challenges that every business unit, company or non-profit organization will face. When we identify your team’s primary challenges it:
forces the team to put words to their top 5 critical issues
provides an opportunity to see how the leadership team defines the top challenges
forces discussion that moves the team toward alignment of the goals and solutions
A little more about what the research uncovered about each stage of business growth:
Stage 1 Start Up: 1 – 10 Employees
What does a Stage 1 company look like?
A Stage 1 company has 1-10 employees, and at this stage of growth, it's all about survival.
A Stage 1 company is CEO-centric — meaning the CEO is likely the ‘specialist’ who has created a product or service and is now getting his/her idea to take shape. It's the energy, passion and vision of the CEO that is the driving force behind the company's success today. The CEO also makes all the decisions and brings in all the sales. Therefore, 50% of the CEO's time should be spent as the technician, or the specialist, while only 10% of his/her time should be spent as a manager. The other 40% of the leader's time should be in creating and fine-tuning the vision of the company.
Stage 2
Ramp Up: 11 – 19 Employees
What does a Stage 2 company look like?
A Stage 2 company has 11 – 19 employees. CEOs of Stage 2 companies are still the center-of-the-universe in
their business or division. They need to remain nimble and hyper-focused on critical analysis before reacting
to the increases in activity and workload, CEOs/leaders can ask themselves these questions:
Am I still focused on driving profits and revenue and is my team?
Does my team understand how to distinguish the difference between busy-work and bottomline impact priorities?
Where in the business am I the cog in the wheel?
Am I delegating, empowering, and mentoring others to do their best?
Can I trust them to completely replace me? And, if not, what am I willing to do now to create a capable team that doesn't need me?
How regularly do I pay attention to our key indicators of success? Can I recite our KPI's by heart?
At this point, leverage your strategic planning retreat to ensure you have clarity about your core competencies. Profits come from planning and managing the financial side of your business (or division). What exactly is your revenue group(s) or if you are a cost-center division, how and when will you save or make the company money?
Stage 2 companies have double the trouble and must pay attention to the same priorities as a stage 1 company (cash flow, adequate profits for growth,and expanding sales) while also addressing the need for quality, competent staff.
Stage 3 Delegation: 20 – 34 Employees
What does a Stage 3 company look like?
A Stage 3 company has 20-34 employees.
At this stage of growth, it's typical to experience a workforce revolt, as the company undergoes destabilization and chaos caused by more more opportunities, work, and revenue but without the processes in place to manage the workload or the history to tackle problems with confidence.
It's essential to get the company focused on the right path for improving performance, while fostering staff buy-in. The team has to develop patience, agility, resilience and a fondness of ambiguity, as things will need to change quickly during this stage of growth. It's also important that the CEO/leader learns to be facilitative and supportive, as opposed to dominant now. A predictor of future success is whether the CEO/leader can let go of the reigns now and train, mentor, and empower his/her team to be their best.
The top challenges of a stage 3 company include staff buy-in, leadership/staff gap, weak profit design, employees resistant to change, and the core values of the organization being unclear.
Stage 4 Professional: 35 – 57 Employees
What does a Stage 4 company look like?
Stage 4 is all about internal focus and internal processes, whereas Stage 3 was all about delegation and the CEO letting go. The necessity of that lesson will become painfully clear if the leader heads into Stage 4 still micromanaging — he/she has to let go.
This stage is all about professionalizing your company/division. The first aspect is building an effective team of individuals that can work together, as opposed to independently functioning individuals/groups. Unfortunately, creating this team might mean that you need to let some personnel go, however it's also a time when you have to pay attention and prevent unwanted involuntary employee turnover.
Growing a company this far means you know how to make good decisions and execute on them. You are aware of your competitors, the economic climate, short-term and long-term opportunities. You know how to make plans and get things done. You take time to focus on the details but are always prepared and can spring into action when needed. However, It's now time to move from running a company and to directing one. This is never an easy thing to do, especially for a founder or a leader used to having to be in the driver's seat. While it may seem like the top priority at this stage is people or profits, it's actually a critical time to focus on ensuring efficient and effective processes first.
Stage 5 Integration: 58 – 95 Employees
What does a Stage 5 company look like?
With a team of 58-95 employees, the company is growing rapidly. Revenues and profits are the primary focus - as the organization's girth requires a reliable, growing and flowing stream. By now, processes should be shored up and thus, the process is the last priority (profit then people then process). However, if process was back-burnered in stage four, leader beware - the leaky bucket will drain your margins and burnout your people.
This stage of growth for a company, a non-profit, or a division is all about integration. Focusing on integrating your processes with your teams can create exponential opportunities. This is often the first time a company begins to think in terms of departmental budgets, and for good reason. Your team has to be empowered to think critically and analyze options against the numbers. Your managers will need a solid strategic plan, a well-considered budget, and OKRs (objectives and key results) to measure every action against to move to the next level.
Now is the time to focus on efficiencies at scale. Leaders that fail to understand the importance of integration at this stage will suffer losses as the complexity and size of the organization dictates consolidation.
Stage 6 Strategic: 96 – 160 Employees
What does a flourishing Stage 6 company look like?
There's a rhythm now and a deliberate cadence and order to the company's success. Leadership styles and cultural norms are well established, processes are in place, and the leadership team can go fishing, at least a little more often. If integration of processes and managerial empowerment has solidified, then your team leads have the authority, resources, and roadmap for keeping the machine whirling. Is it time to relax or be more strategic?
This stage is called strategic because it's time to revisit your business design. Check and recheck the profit model, your plan for innovation, the market and competitors. Stage six warrants celebration but divisions/organizations need to be wary of becoming complacent or overly confident in its "if it's not broken, don't fix it" mentality. If you know where the banana peels lie, you're less likely to slip. Make a concerted effort to forecast how disruptive technology, automation, more agile competitors, consumer buying habits, governmental regulations, and other factors may impact your organization. Make this a part of your multi-year strategic planning process and strategic considerations.
A few of the top challenges a stage six organization will need to pay attention to include:
- keeping your eye on growing profits and what the competitors are up to
- a robust new staff orientation will prevent churn
Talent development, career pathing, and succession planning foster a "people first" culture which is important at this stage for not only engagement and productivity but to lower voluntary turnover.
Remember the bigger you get the more often and in more ways you'll need to communicate the mission, vision, and progress.
Quick tip: Share the company/division's goals, successes and setbacks at least weekly with all employees.
Stage 7 Visionary: 161+ Employees
What does a Stage 7 company look like?
A CEO's challenge in Stage 7 is all about transitioning into a large organization without losing what made it such a successful entrepreneurial business. Management's efforts to professionalize the company often crush the entrepreneurial spirit that is so necessary in order to not to be left behind by newer entrepreneurial firms. A Stage 7 business, non-profit, or organizational unit has greater than 161 employees. Size creates complexity and layers of bureaucracy that can quickly impede performance and growth. Stage 7, called the visionary stage, is a very different world than what's been encountered in the first six stages.
Key success factors include leadership coaching and conflict competency, business acumen, critical analysis, and ability to not only manage change but inspire others to see change and innovation as a reason for choosing to work within your organization. Watch for profit erosion, as even a couple of points may mean there's disengagement in the ranks, waste, inefficiencies, etc. that need to be solved via crowdsourcing your frontline contributors, which will bolster their self-esteem and belief that they matter and are making a contribution to something bigger.
Effective leaders at this stage spend 75% of their time coaching, mentoring, and driving the vision of the organization, 20% of their time managing, and only 5% of their time being the specialist.
Beware of unresolved problems from previous stages which can be like barnacles, teaming up with with low-morale, turnover, or poorly trained managers to cause drag and burn up your people and profits.
How to Evaluate Strategy Consulting Firms and Select the Right Strategic Business Planning Consultant for your Corporate Retreat
A qualified strategy consulting firm will have the skills to help your team build a strategy that will drive and
optimize your growth in the long run.
As you evaluate strategy consulting firms, look for deep experience in strategic management, strategic retreat services, and
growth consulting. Verify the strategic planning consultants' qualifications and knowledge of your industry, and hands-on experience
in strategic planning with companies of comparable size. According to the research, the size of the company is the common denominator
of an organization’s complexity. Thus, ensuring your chosen business strategist understands there's no such thing as a one-size-fits-all
formula, will ensure a successful retreat.
What does a strategic management consulting firm do?
Strategic management consulting firms provide a variety of services to organizations. These services include strategic planning, leadership development, organizational design and restructuring, and change management.
What is the difference between Strategic Management Consulting and HR Strategy Consulting?
Strategic Management Consulting is the application of knowledge, skills and experience to meet an organization's long-term business objectives. HR Strategy Consulting is the application of knowledge, skills and experience that may be used to meet an organization's short-term business objectives.
How do strategic planning retreats work?
A qualified strategic planning expert facilitator leads the executive (or business unit management) team in a facilitated,
prioritized review of the company’s top priorities, challenges, strengths, goals, and opportunities. However, an effective strategic planning
retreat produces so much more than a traditional SWOT discussion, including clarity, alignment, and a prioritized plan of attack.
To encourage engagement and establish a safe space, set up the room in such a way as to encourage interaction, creativity, and authentic
communication. The leadership team must be able to see the other team member’s faces and thus address disconnection, disinterest, and discord
in the moment. For the outcome to be meaningful, dissent must be encouraged and productive conflict guidelines are a key ingredient for
success. The space should be big and comfortable enough to allow everyone to participate in the group discussion and brainstorming without
feeling intimidated. There’s also something important about making sure that leaders can move away from intimidating energy and a big room
grants permission for some movement, as needed, to dissipate the discomfort.
Our proven strategic planning process launches with a data-driven, research-backed analysis of your leadership team’s perspective regarding
the company’s gate of focus, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, builder/protector ratio, threats, priorities, blind spots, organizational
health, employee satisfaction, and more. As an experienced strategic planning company, we then compare the aggregate data to the research
from more than 650 successful companies at similar stages of growth to reveal the issues most likely to need attention now. The outcome
enables a focused, productive dialogue that is facilitated to encourage constructive dissent and ultimately clear priorities and an aligned
leadership team.
What IS the strategic planning process?
Strategic planning is a forward-looking business growth planning process. It utilizes past and present information to develop
an actionable plan for the future.
Utilizing a proven strategic planning process ensures that goals are set, strategies are developed, tactics are identified, and that
competencies and resources are available to achieve those goals and strategies.
Strategic planning starts with an examination of current operations, resources, market share, competency gaps, etc. This is done through
a trend and employee/team analysis and examination of the progress to date. This endeavor, coupled with facilitated alignment of the
leadership team, aims to create a company that anticipates future events and is prepared to react or respond quickly and effectively.
How do you plan a strategic planning retreat?
A successful strategic planning retreat requires a great deal of forethought. First, make sure there are clear objectives
and a safe environment (conflict rules) for engaging in healthy discourse and dissent.
A good strategic planning retreat will involve the leadership team and only when appropriate, the chairman of the board, essential
directors or other lead employees (no more than 20 total is recommended).
A highly-structured and expertly facilitated strategic planning retreat, requires two, full-days for most teams, off-site. The larger
the team or the more urgent the challenges, the more discussion will be required to produce team alignment; a critical component of a
successful strategic planning process. The strategic planning retreat should also be well-organized, include significant pre-work and
analysis and include professional catering.
What are the steps in the strategic planning process?
A strategic planning retreat includes the management team of a business uit, or the executive team of the company.
Effective strategic planning retreats are most effective when facilitated by a seasoned business growth consultant in an “off-site”
meeting room to minimize distractions and ensure optimal attention. The outcome of an effective strategic planning retreat includes a
prioritized and aligned plan of action for both solving immediate problems, as well as identifying long-term strategic goals. By aligned,
we mean making sure the leadership team is aligned around the mission, vision, values, and strategic priorities. For a strategic planning
retreat to ‘work’ - the outcome must include team alignment, which is often more challenging than identifying the goals, tactics, or
strategies.
We are an experienced strategic planning company with a proven process. We begin by conducting a thorough analysis (aka Business
Health Check), a survey of the executive or management team’s top priorities and perspectives on the challenges the business (or business
unit) faces, and the approach to driving results. By starting our strategic planning retreat with the aggregate data, the team is empowered
to spend more time closing the gaps pre-identified than on arguing about what’s most important. The result is a prioritized, aligned
strategy for growth.
How do you facilitate a strategic retreat?
How do you facilitate a strategic business planning meeting?
Prior to the strategic planning retreat, communicate the expectations, logistics, objectives, and pre-work to the
leadership team or other participants.
To encourage optimal engagement, charge each leader with delivering three to five goals or challenges to overcome for
their division in each of the three primary gates of focus - people, process, and profits. If the unit is a cost center
and not a profit center, then the goals/challenges would be about cost-savings and/or efficiency improvements.
While you want your team to consider and evaluate their progress towards their goals, an effective strategic retreat
will be an utter failure if it’s just another “how are things going” meeting.
The agenda must be solidly focused on:
the data - where we are as a company
the goals - where we want to be
the actions - what it’s going to take to get there in the areas of people, profit, and process
the derailers - what will prevent us from being successful
the blind spots - what are we not prepared for or unwilling to address
the competencies - what skills, knowledge, abilities do we need to accomplish the goals
the metrics - what are the success measures
Additional tips for managing strong personalities and facilitating an effective strategic retreat:
Team alignment is essential but difficult to facilitate. Your team will need to have the ability to engage in healthy,
productive conflict to ensure a unified, cohesive team approach for driving results together.
Strategic retreats can be hard to set up and run, particularly if you have type A personalities that all think they
are correct, or worse have a compelling need to be right at all cost. Establish and communicate the rules of
collaborative engagement in advance. Then, adhere to the rules of civil, constructive discourse during the retreat
and empower each participant to hold their peers accountable to the rules. Otherwise, you'll end up in a conference
room with half the team yelling at each other, and the other half withdrawn in silence, plotting how they will ignore
the plans and do what they think is best.
It’s essential to a successful strategic retreat to make sure that everyone involved is dedicated to the success of
the business and not to personal gain or prestige.
The stronger the team and the more complex the business, the more likely an external, expert facilitator will be a
worthwhile investment.
Which businesses need strategic planning?
A business needs to formulate a strategic plan, not just when it is not progressing as effectively as desired, but in order
to ensure consistent, intentional and relevant progress towards the identified goals.
All businesses - no matter how small or big - need a plan. It’s worth repeating the adage: failing to plan, is planning to fail.
Business is a constantly changing pursuit and strategic planning helps ensure that businesses, of all shapes and sizes, remain up-to-date,
proactive, and ready to seize opportunities or resolve challenges, before they derail the company. For example, if a business’ profit margins
are diminishing, a strategic plan proactively informs the leadership team about how, when, and in what manner to correct the situation. Another
example might be when the industry in which the business operates makes a shift from being labor-based to automation.
The leader(s) must be able to reassess the business goals, and adjust the strategy quickly to remain competitive. When a company has failed
to identify its targets and tactics, confusion, frustration, and a meandering pathway to success (or failure) is assured.
What makes strategic planning successful?
While every company’s strategy is unique, there are helpful guidelines for ensuring a successful strategic planning retreat.
Here are a few things that make strategic planning successful:
Strategic Clarity: focus on a clear definition of the process, tactics, goals, and responsibilities
Time Bound: the time frame is typically one year to several years; but every objective must be time-bound within the plan
Measurable objectives: the strategy should focus on quantifiable objectives that answer the question, “How exactly will
we know when we've accomplished this goal?”
Vision, Mission, Values Aligned: the strategy should clearly roll up to and align with the vision, mission, and values
of the organization
Facilitated Team Alignment: achieving big ambitions and goals require a unified team, rowing in the same direction
to execute the strategic plan successfully. It’s critical that the team has an opportunity to actively disagree and work
through dissent to drive results as a cohesive team.
Regular Cadence of Accountability: to be truly successful, the strategic plan cannot be a one-time event. It must be used
as a guideline for progress and a reminder of the goals
Cascade throughout the organization: leverage the strategic plan to create clarity and a value-creation mindset across
the organization. All employees deserve (and want) to understand how their role impacts the company’s future, how their
role creates value, and that who they are and what they do matters.
An experienced strategic planning company’s role is to help your team create an aligned, inspired, strategic plan, worthy
of inspired action and a passion for results.
What are the elements of a business plan?
A business plan is not one plan but many plans: a marketing plan, an operations plan, a human resources plan,
an implementation plan, and a financial plan.
The true measure of a business plan is its ability to show what you want to accomplish and how you plan to accomplish it.
A business plan lays out how you will use the resources at your disposal to pursue your objectives. It’s the road map for
the business. It covers ideas that will ensure the business performance and profitability, and solutions for overcoming the
challenges it will face in pursuit of the company's goals.
A good business plan introduces a company to the world in a written form and provides a roadmap for driving results.
What's the difference between a strategic plan and a business plan?
A strategic plan is more flexible and more fluid than a standard business plan.
In a strategic plan, the organization shifts its focus and attention to the future, while in a business plan, the focus is
on making the business case for why the business exists and how it will create value in general.
In a strategic plan, the business focuses on what it plans to create and what the organization must do to make it happen,
as well as how exactly it will respond to threats and opportunities. The strategic plan is the immediate approach, tactics,
strategies, and key performance indicators.
A business plan is a guide on how a business is going to be executed and make profits.
Certain questions need to be answered:
- What is the business? What services/products does the business offer?
- Where will the business be located?
- How much investment is required? What are the investment sources?
- How much does it cost to start up, to grow, to expand, etc.?
- How many people will we employ to fulfill the business goals?
- How are we going to market the business?How will business be managed?
- What type of records will be kept?How will income be handled?
- What are the opportunities? Who are our competitors?
- How will we create our USP (unique selling proposition)?
Where do strategic plans go wrong?
They Fail to Be Realistic While Also Being Big and Aspirational
A recipe for strategic plan failure starts with unrealistic objectives and a poorly aligned team. The worst-case scenario
is when the plan is a fantasy and the wrong people were consulted in creating the plan.
Strategy is a living concept, involving many factors such as market changes, customer behaviors, organizational capacity,
competitive landscape, financial influences, profit model analysis, leadership and employee capabilities, and more.
It is vital that the right people are consulted and participate in the creation of the strategic plan. Those who are most
likely to acquiesce too easily or tell you what you want to hear are not the ones who matter.
What is the impact when a company is destabilized by chaos?
As a company grows and achieves certain goals, they add more headcount. In doing so, the company introduces complexity
to the organization. Additionally, volatile economic environments, more nimble competition, technological advancements (i.e. artificial
intelligence, faster processors, alternative energy, etc.), changing consumer habits, government regulations, and climate change are
just a few of the external factors that will derail a company’s plans.
As pressure builds, a lack of strategic clarity and vague decision parameters can have a destructive influence on your team’s ability
to achieve the goals. On the other hand, when the company makes a concerted effort to systematically revise the strategic plan on a
regular basis, and identify the key process, people, and profit parameters that are required for successful movement from one stage
of growth to the next, an organization can more effectively navigate business changes.
Tip: The research in Dr. James Fischer’s book, Navigating the Growth Curve demonstrates that there are
predictable periods of chaos based on a company's stage of growth.
As a seasoned strategic planning company, we help leaders leverage the research to better plan and respond to periods of chaos.
How does a company evaluate if it has a weak business/profit design?
First, evaluate how your business creates value for customers and whether the value creation process is sustainable.
If net margin is inconsistent, evaluate how this value is distributed across your organization, your customers, the operating
environment, market demand, competitors, regulations, the broader business ecosystem, etc. Where are the financial fissures, and
what’s essential and what’s not.
Where many companies falter is failing to keep a sharply tuned eye on the numbers. If the management team is not beholden to a
budget or the leadership team doesn't know the margins, and their responsibility to the margin, there’s a business acumen problem
to address.
An experienced strategic planning company can help you evaluate your business profit model and devise a plan for success.
Our strategy development retreat leverages a proven assessment, historic comparisons, and a facilitated process
to ensure your priorities will make your business more agile, innovative, and profitable. It helps you to develop a clear vision
of where your business is going with clarity and rationale for what needs to be resolved now, and in what order. The first leading
measure of a quality plan is your team’s alignment and our management consultants won't close the session, without it.
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TurnKey Coaching & Development Solutions is an enterprise learning and development, and management consulting firm.
We provide both supplemental as well as fully managed LSO services, including:
Level & budget appropriate Coaching Programs including executive coaching, mid-level, global leadership, HiPos, and Performance Improvement programs
Outplacement Services: scalable, hybrid packages combining high-touch with high-tech for uniquely powerful yet cost-effective service
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, and Anti-Racism programs, including Cultivating a Culture Shift end-to-end program via Lean DEI. Additional services include diversity and inclusivity keynotes, management training, D&I executive strategy, HR audits, culture and change management and HR tech solutions.
Digital Coaching Portal: an affordable, enterprise solution combining high-tech with high-touch.
Culture Change: Ai-driven engagement, employee feedback and culture shift platform enabling employees to adapt to change faster, retain your star performers, and foster a"best place to work" environment.
Our retreats leverage a proven, research-backed approach to ensure your vision is clear,
your leadership team is aligned, and the top priorities are in fact, the most important objectives for your
stage of growth and historical trajectory. We do this by juxtaposing your growth strategy and the team’s
perspective on your biggest challenges, then we compare this with what the most successful companies have done
to succeed in similar situations. Finally, we facilitate discussions that result in hyper-clarity and an
energized, aligned team.
