Leading Team Kickoff Meetings

I support my client’s in designing and planning all different kinds of a day or multiple-day team meetings. The purpose of these meetings could be strategy planning, visioning or organizational change meetings, such as restructuring departments.

If you are planning a lengthy meeting (a half a day or more) where you are bringing a leadership team together or individuals who are part of a new project team, what you do and how you do it really matters. If this is a complex project, this first meeting sets the tone for the project in so many ways. It has the opportunity to create the clarity and excitement that can generate fabulous momentum for a new initiative. Or it can derail your efforts before you have started.

Here are a few tips that occurred to me this week in reflecting upon a couple of recent clients engagements:

The Work you Do Before the Meeting is as Important as the Work you Do in the Meeting. If you having a meeting with 8-20 people, I suggest interviewing participants to understand what their orientation is to the project. If it is 8 people, you can interview all of them. If it’s twenty, interviewing 30-50% of the people should be sufficient if you are getting at a cross-section of different backgrounds and perspectives. Draft a list of key questions (5-8) and schedule 30 minute interviews. Act like a reporter and get the full story by probing and reporting what they say. Because I tend to listen deeply and type fast, I typically take verbatim notes. I then integrate the notes stripping out the names, and identify the themes.

This will give you a picture of where people are at with their understanding of the initiative and their general feeling and perspective. This informs where and how you need to have what conversations.

Don’t Assume. If this is a new team but people know each other, don’t assume they know each other well. Don’t assume they know about each other’s backgrounds and career progression. It is helpful to have everyone give an introduction to each other as they may learn about some capability that they didn’t know their colleague had that could be beneficial to the project.

Start with the Basics & Level Set. Here is where I often see leaders trip up. They just want to move right into the “what” discussion. It is important to talk about how the team will work together – support one another, make decisions, deal with conflict. It’s helps to articulate general guidelines, or what I call leadership operating principles. At first, if it’s a new team, this will be theoretical. But once you have experience with each other, then you can tweak your principles based upon what you are seeing show up in people’s behavior.

Go Slow to Go Fast. Getting the basics right lays the foundation for having easier, more aligned conversations in the future, especially when the pressure is on. So don’t skip the previous steps.

Process Matters. Focusing just on the “what needs to be accomplished” is deadly. Pay attention to how you are going to address a topic area is just as important. Sometimes it’s helpful to have an unstructured discussion and sometimes breaking into groups and giving people a short, clear directive can help the team cut through and get right to the core of an issue or brainstorm a better solution.

Here’s to a productive meeting!

© Copyright 2016 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC. All rights Reserved.

Follow up Friday: With Strategy, The Key Word is We

This week’s reflection question was: It’s great to have a strategy but the bigger question is, now what? How do we make it come to life? (Please note, this was written on Friday but published today:) ).

I noticed I framed this questions differently than previous weeks. Instead of asking “you," I asked “we.” When setting and executing on strategy, this is a key word. No one has all the information on what is going on in the market, with your customers or how to get people to get stuff done. You need coordinated activities that deliver value in the places you want to.

This all seems obvious, but the smarter, more insightful and more ambitious you are, the more at a disadvantage you may be if you think you have all the answers! Especially today, with so much change and disruption in business, you really need everyone in sync with each other and staying focused on the right goals.

I was struck this week, in dialogue with clients, how often they believe that everyone has the same understanding they do –on what it is the organization is trying to achieve and how their job contributes. Lack of clarity is both, one of the biggest reasons why organizations fail to effectively execute on their strategy, and also one of the biggest levers you can use to get people more aligned.

This requires work. It requires engaging in an ongoing dialogue with your leaders and employees. Notice I say dialogue, not communication. Too often leaders say something – they speak it – and believe it is done or that people have understood. The notion of dialogue is that it is ongoing and entails a back and forth and testing of understanding. It’s a commitment and requires deep listening and presence.

This leads to making sure people buy-in to what they need to be doing and why. All of this is a process – day-to-day – that is required to not only get people on board, but keep them there. Strategy is never a “one and done” situation. It’s a more of, “here we are again – what does this mean, and how do we move forward knowing what we now know?”

© Copyright 2016 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved.

Magic Monday: What Do You Do After You Have Your Strategy

Words of Manic Monday by The Bangles and modified by Susan Shaner. Musician: Dan Brodax. Where can you find the magic at work today?

What organization would not have a strategic plan? If they didn’t, they certainly would not admit to it – otherwise – what leadership is running the company?

The bigger question is – what do you do after you have the plan – written, agreed upon – now go execute on it? Here is what I have found: In the best organizations, the CEO writes their goals each year based on the plan and reviews it in a periodic, disciplined way. His goals are communicated and cascaded to his direct reports and to their direct reports, and so on. Then there is also discussion, not only up and down, but across the organization to ensure there is consistency and integration, using a common language. This process takes a lot of work and a lot of discussion – but it can save a lot of time in the long run.

Then there needs to be a clear and consistent way to manage the implementation of these plans. Few plans ever get executed as designed. Life happens. People don’t do what they say. Things take longer. Customers don’t buy in the way you thought they would. New competitors change things. Stuff changes.

This why strategy is a commitment and a disciplined process that must be revisited ongoing throughout the year in a proactive way. The companies who are not that effective do less, or little of what I mention above. They might talk about it, but don’t actually spend the time having the difficult or repetitive discussions to make sure people are on the same page.

There is no shame in what was done or not done in the past. The key is looking toward the future to see how things can improve. I gave a talk on strategy last week and had an executive invite me to her organization today. My first question was – why and why now? Is this part of an ongoing improvement in your process, the beginning of a new cycle, or has something changed dramatically?

It’s great to have a strategy but the bigger question is, now what? How do we make it come to life?

At Sage Leadership Strategies, this is what we do well – facilitate leadership teams to put the structures and discipline in place, and have the difficult conversations that will really enable things to happen in the way that you need to. Please call us for a complimentary discovery session: 203-730-2103.

© Copyright 2016 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved

Strategic Planning & The Power of Clicking

When you meet someone for the first time, within an instant you register a sense of them. You immediately feel a liking and want to move toward them or disliking and want to move away from them. Then you look for evidence to support this sense. Sometimes they surprise you with behavior that counters your initial gut reaction – either they grow on you or they do something that violates your trust or what “you thought you knew” about them.

When you click, you will forgive a lot. You can hear things from this person that, if said by someone else would put you in a space of denial or defense. Clicking is a short cut to getting and being in the flow, in the moment. There is no second-guessing. The dance of resistance or force doesn’t occur as it does in relationships where there is no click.

Paying attention to your gut is important. Your body doesn’t lie, but your mind might interpret the felt sense with a distorted filter. Use your conscious mind to make sure you are interpreting the signals accurately. Clicking expands your energy. If it’s positive energy, that will expand. If negative, that will expand.

When you experience the click, go with it if it lands you in an uplifting, creative and expansive place. If you click over a complaint, go with it if it helps you validate your experience. Stay with it to the extent it moves you toward focusing on constructive change. Leverage the easy, click relationships, as you will need this positive energy to manage your “nonclick” relationships.

This morning I experienced what I call a ripple effect of the click. I am enrolled in a yearlong mastermind group as part of my professional development. I clicked with two women and we formed our own support team to supplement our other activities. I got some direct feedback on things I needed to change. I believe 100% their objective is to support me without any static (competition, jealousy, hidden agendas, etc..). I was able to take in and work with this information, which took me to a more expansive place. If I doubted their intent, I would have closed down or rationalized my position. Instead, I shifted to a different mindset and energetic space.

My very next meeting was with a client with whom I click. I was able to give her direct feedback and she experienced a shift. The ideas flowed as we planned the offsite strategy meeting she is having with her leadership team in January.

This is the time for reflecting on the year past and projecting to the year ahead. Doing this with people you click with is exciting and regenerating. With people you don’t click, but need to work with, getting aligned may be more challenging, but it is crucial to your success.

Please contact me if you would like help planning or facilitating your next leadership & strategy meeting. Getting off on the right foot sets the direction and tone for the year.

© Copyright 2015 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved.