Our clients
We work with business executives who are leading company-wide strategic growth and innovation and want to rapidly align teams with a unified, customer-driven vision.
Our clients are typically influential executives who lead a major business function such as a Business Unit, Operations, Technology, HR, R&D or Marketing. They are generally members of the Senior Leadership Team – General Manager, CEO, President, Vice President, Executive Director – or they’re on the fast-track to get there.
They’re the problem solvers everyone turns to when the company needs to make a critical decision that crosses functional lines. These executives have a relationship with influencers in every organizational silo and know who to call to get the right people on board.
They need to optimize new, collaborative work cultures to accomplish their goals. They can bring together the right people in their organizations to solve a problem, but they lack the environment and triggers for dialogue and engagement that result in aligned, actionable plans.
Are you experiencing barriers to growth and innovation?
In many established companies, long decision cycles stifle innovation and change. Most companies squabble over resources and argue about accountability when they are not focused on achieving a unified vision. This can be costly because by the time a decision is made, your competitive advantage may have been lost.
It's difficult for one executive to drive an ambitious company-wide strategy for growth (or anything else), even if it’s the CEO. You need shared ownership and commitment from every executive in the company that their best people will prioritize work that benefits the company above departmental demands.
Today’s competitors can quickly outpace a company with an aging, outdated product or service portfolio. Mature companies without cohesive strategies for change that are clear and actionable find it’s almost impossible to rebalance resources and rocket in a new direction.
That’s not to say these organizations are unsuccessful. Some are currently market leaders. However, many find it very difficult to bridge organizational silos to explore new opportunities, work through difficult issues, and make complex decisions that will increase innovation and competitiveness.
Perhaps you can relate to some of our clients’ issues:
Investing time and money in disconnected initiatives and projects. Without a unifying vision and agreement on how to move forward with priorities, plans, and deadlines, there is no way to evaluate if opportunities align with the organization’s best interest.
Everything is a #1 Priority, putting pressure on already constrained resources. Strategic initiatives (old and new) are a mix of disparate projects so it’s difficult for leaders to make direct comparisons and agree on trade-offs around value and urgency.
Organizational silos that don’t work well together. Each department and team protects its resources and blindly executes on its priorities without understanding the bigger picture, leaving little room for growth and innovation.
Wasting time in ineffective, unfocused meetings. Functional teams meet and create solutions only to go back and rehash the problem again and again because everyone is not on board with an aligned, cohesive plan.
Everyone is constantly fighting fires. Leaders and their teams cannot get ahead of urgent issues to work together on a long-term solution.
Their push for innovation results in incremental ideas when a break-through is needed. Leaders have already gathered the low hanging fruit and need a systematic approach to deliver transformational results.
Our five outcome-oriented practices engage and align teams for success now and in the future.
Rapidly uniting your team to work together on a unified vision for growth and change, so they agree what success looks like and can communicate that vision to others.
Engaging your people’s experience and expertise about your business to eliminate obstacles that are capping your growth and ability to innovate.
Gaining agreement on clear and actionable plans that align execution so every member of the cross-functional team knows what milestones they have committed to, when they are due, who will do the work and how they will be held accountable.
Initiating a problem-solving team culture that applies strategic thinking practices to resolve urgent issues while staying focused and aligned on your highest value work – strategic growth and innovation.
Co-designing a communication process so teams stay united as they handle issues, generate potential solutions, and agree how to move forward with priorities, plans, and deadlines.
What you can expect to gain from working with us:
You’ll have a complete picture of your strategy, with a clear roadmap to guide your journey and a shared commitment to action.
You will have active teams engaged in real work on the most critical issues affecting company growth and innovation. You’ll accelerate your progress and avoid false starts, saving both time and money.
Your leadership team will be able to proactively drive company-wide plans. They’ll agree what’s both critical and uncertain about the future so they can rapidly identify options for addressing complex situations like rapidly changing market conditions or a disruptive new competitor.
You’ll have real collaboration among all company functions. No more siloed thinking. Cross-functional teams will be able to collaboratively make decisions, set priorities and sequence their work as they consolidate plans.
With stronger strategic thinking practices, your whole company will be able to pivot more nimbly. You’ll be able to rapidly align your resources and priorities with iterative plans that meet existing and emerging strategic needs.
Why does our system work?
We bring cross-functional teams together in tailored facilitated sessions, online or in person, to discuss important issues and make key decisions. Then we help you use that time to the max. Our skilled resources handle difficult dynamics, stimulate creativity, turn dissent into creative friction and help teams come to agreement for productive engagement.
Our highly-interactive sessions use visual facilitation to get everyone on the same page. As they use our visual tools, your united teams begin to see the issues, generate potential solutions, and agree on how to move forward with priorities, plans, and deadlines.
When your people learn from one another it is a catalyst that strengthens trust, builds confidence in decisions and activates commitments so we provide an environment for collaboration and triggers for excellent dialogue and engagement.
Best of all, our visual process compresses 20 dispersed meetings into 1 transformational event of 3-5 steps designed for you based on your unique circumstances.
You walk away with…
…a complete picture of your strategy, with next steps to kickstart your transition and a shared commitment to action.
Next steps identified, prioritized and assigned.
Risk analysis and mitigation strategy.
Gap analysis of what remains to be determined or planned
Success metrics defined
Digital assets of all decision points and meeting takeaways
Visualizations that have everyone talking about the same things in the same way so they can take action.
How is our approach different?
No more disjointed flip charts or notes from this-that-or-the-other-meeting that don’t make cross-functional cooperation visible. Our clients are looking for clear, cohesive plans that get all their people on the same page, mobilized for action.
No more tip-toeing around the sacred cows, white elephants, ostriches with their heads in the sand or whatever animal fits your cultural mythology of things that cannot be changed. We work with clients to take on significant strategies and use the creative friction generated by their passionate conversations to polish new ideas for growth and innovation.
No more super-secret-sauce strategic planning. We make strategy accessible. Our visual frameworks make it easy to explain your decisions to those who weren’t in the room. They also help us transfer skills and grow your people as your company grows.
It’s true. We don’t do everything.
We take extremely busy people who don’t have a moment to spare, drop them into an environment to stimulate collaboration, and engage them in a process that makes everyone feel their time was well spent. If you’re looking for training on how to collaborate, generate a strategy, and align and engage a team around it, we’d refer you to the many associations and business schools who specialize in this training.
We approach every project with flexibility, thoughtfully tailoring our approach to meet our client’s unique needs. This helps us create an environment that accelerates strategic work. If you’re looking for a turnkey 1.5-day strategic planning retreat to check a box for your Board or Funders, we’d encourage you to check out facilitators in your area who advertise programmed retreats with set agendas.
Your next step…
If you really want to get your people on the same page and empower them to take action, book some time on our calendar or drop us an email. We can bounce some ideas around, answer your questions and make sure our tailored solution is the right fit for you and your organization.