How To Lead
Effective Strategy
REVIEW Meetings
A Guide To Making Strategy Come To Life
1.
An Introduction To Strategy Re
view Meetings
2.
Defining The Pr
ocess
3.
Meeting Preparation
4.
The Meet
ing
5.
Follow-Up
6.
Maintaining Momentum
7.
Mistakes To
Avoid
8.
Summary
TABLE OF CONTENTS
An Introduction To
Strategy Review
Meetings
CHAPTER 1
If you want to improve performance in your organization, it all starts
with strategy. Strategic objectives are vital to the success of your orga-
nization’s future. But, unfortunately, many organizations (nine out of 10
by some estimates) hold strategy review meetings and then fail to exe-
cute.
If you want to ensure the success and productivity of the
se
meetings,
you need leadership buy-in, and you’ll need to practice som
e specific
steps. This guide delves into the five stages of holding an eff
ective st
rat
-
egy review meeting:
1.
Defining The Process
2.
Meeting Preparation
3.
The Meeting
4.
Follow-Up
5.
Maintaining Momentum
SUMMARY
What are strategy review meetings?
A strategy review meeting is exactly what it sounds like: a me eting focused entirely on strategy. It doesn’t matter what you call it (a business performance review, a data-driven review, a strategic review, a stat session, quarterly reporting, or even just a meet ing with your organization’s leadership), there are factors that all strategy review meet ings have in common—they are regularly-scheduled meetings that focus on using data to assess and impr ove progress on a number of priorities within an organization. These meetings are all about strategic objectives (or goals). What is your organization t rying to accomplish? Are you making progress toward these goals? What are you doing to improve your performance?What not to do at a strategy review
meeting.
A strategy meeting does not involve any discussion about operations. In strategy meetings, you should be asking questions like, “Are we showing results? Are we making an impact?” Save questions like, “What have you done this month? Are you on target to finish this project?” for an operations meeting. In short, operations meetings measure, “Are we doing things right?” while strat egy meetings measure, “Are we doing t he right things?”Strategy meetings
measure,
“Ar
e we
doing the ri
ght
things?”
CHAPTER 1 | AN INTRODUCTION TO STRATEGY REVIEW
MEETINGS
5
Why should I hold strategy review
meetings?
Did you know that leadership teams spend less than three hours a month on strat egy, and nine out of 10 fail to execute? You need to beat the odds. It’ll require work, but it’s work that is well worth it. Pre-scheduled, regular strategy review meetings (where all other topics of discussion are off -lim- its) can help your top management team avoid these common roadblocks. Do any of these sound like your organization? Top management teams spend r elatively little time together . Agenda-setting is unfocused and undisciplined in upper managem ent meetings. Top management meetings are not decision-oriented . Strategy and operations are usually combined into one mee ting, but operations fire-fighting always crowds out strategy. Both strategy review meetings and operations review meetings give you an opport unity to stop and look at data, but strategy review meetings take things a st ep further, allowing you to ana- lyze what the data is telling you and make decisions about course-correction and adjustments. Because it’s so easy to get caught up in day-to-day operations, strat egy review meetings serve to keep strategic objectives at the center of the management proc ess. With strategy “at the center,” your measures reflect your st rategic priorities, not just the common measures of the industry you are in. It also ensures that you fully execute on projects rather than just concentrating on your budget (without concern about whether or not projects get completed). Typically, leadership teams and strategy offices spend one to two days a year developing strategic
Leadership teams
spend less than three
hours a month on
strategy. And 9 out of
10 fail to execute.
CHAPTER 1 | AN INTRODUCTION TO STRATEGY REVIEW
MEETINGS
6
goals, but then go back
to their
jobs, where
daily
op
erations squeeze
out
st
rategy. The
binder
with
all the strategic thinking and planning just gathers dust on the shelf. At the end
of t
he year, organi-
zations look back on their strategy and try to guess what they did well and what the
y didn’t. They
report on what they did, not what they said they would do. And by doing that, they’re m
issing
something huge.
Let’s look at an example. An upper-manage
ment team of a New England convenience store chain
came up with a new strategy—“surprise and delight the customer.” They t
hou
ght the shopping
experience of their typical store was boring and that the
y needed to “mix things up.” So, ever
y few
days, they would reorganize their stores, thinking the
y were surprising and delighting their cus-
tomers.
However, by looking at mystery shopper information in strategy r
eview meetings, they learned
very quickly that people hat
ed it. Feedback they’d r
eceived indicated that the typical convenience
store shopper visited that store because it was convenient—it was small and they could get in a
nd
out quickly because they knew exactly where to go. Without regular strategy r
eviews, t
he man-
agement team would not have realized the negative impact of executing this particular str
at
egy. It
proves the old adage, “the only thing worse than bad news is bad news late.”
This story shows how important it is to check in on your str
ategic eff
orts. Of course, the realization
that “our strategy isn’t the right st
rategy” isn’t the only reason you need to review your objectives.
You may need to consider any of these possibilities: a changing environment, a new technology,
budget cuts/increases, as well as a variety of other factors.
The ultimate goal is to implement your strategy. And the first step to making that happ
en is t
aking
the time to review it. You know what they say—“what gets measured gets done.” But it’s not going
to get measured unless it gets look
ed at. That’s why it’s absolu
tely necessary to schedule time to
look at your strategy and review it. Only then can you start having an impact.
The ultimate goal is
to implement your
strategy. And the first
step to making that
happen is taking the
time to review it.
CHAPTER 1 | AN INTRODUCTION TO STRATEGY REVIEW
MEETINGS
7
What are the benefits?
Your organization has so much to gain through carrying out strategy review meetings. H ere are just a few of the benefits: Facilitating the identification and subsequent ado ption of opportuni ties for improve- ment. There are a lot of good ideas that come from discussing key issues more b roadly across the organization. For example, an oil and gas corporation communicated their strategy to all of their employees, and part of that st rategy identified a target custome r se gment (mid- dle- to upper-class women who wanted a clean, well-lit filling station and to feel safe while making purchases). The IT de partment had already been innovating some near-field commu - nication technology and developed a “speed purchase” too l to help this customer segment meet their needs by not having to pull out a wallet, which increased the speed of their pur - chase. It was wildly successful, and when it was implemented inside the convenience stores, it made for bigger p urchases. Providing a focused forum to identify winning and strugglin g areas or departments within your organization. When winning areas have been identified, best practices can be shared and implemente d throughout the organization. Conversely, once struggling areas are brought to attention, you can decide if the y need additional resources (either financial or human) to alter or invest in their strategy. You can also pair similar dep artments to share best practices and support struggling areas. Helping departments work collaboratively. Strategy meetings force departments to talk about key issues/thematic areas that t hey need to collaborate on. For example, take a soda company who has decided that by altering the look of their soda cans, they can be - come more efficient and save money. Senior leadership thinks it’s a gr eat idea and they move forward. However, the mar keting department, who has no knowle dge of this change, contin- ues with their previous branding and marketing campaigns. When the e rror was recognized,
Once you discover the
benefits of strategy
review meetings,
you
’ll be amazed at
how much it impacts
your organization.
CHAPTER 1 | AN INTRODUCTION TO STRATEGY REVIEW
MEETINGS
8
the manufacturing changes cause the company to lose money. A strat
egy review meeting
could’ve helped t
he company avoid this mess.
Improving transparency and accountability. Strategy r
eview meetings keep leadership
informed of what is going on within every level of the organization. They cut through the
in-
evitable force fields so leadership can engage and help
mitigate those problems. In addition,
strategy review meetings help reinforce goals for the organization—the
y help departments
feel accountable for progress toward those goals and encourage the work it takes to accom-
plish them.
Aligning resources and making informed budget decisions. Strategy r
eview meetings
highlight departments or p
rograms that may need additional funding to be successful. They
are also a good place to see if you are putting your money wh
ere your strategy is.
Strategy review
meeting
s keep
leadership
inf
ormed of what
is
going on within
every level of the
organization.
CHAPTER 1 | AN INTRODUCTION TO STRATEGY REVIEW
MEETINGS
9
Are there prerequisites for st
rategy
review meetings?
Absolutely. You can’t move forwar d with strategy r eview meetings unless these things are in place: Dedicated time on the calendar. Willingness to learn a new process and appr oach. Resources. Strategy review meetings are not just another staff meeting. They t ak e prepara- tion and follow-up. You will need people and time to make them successful. Most importantly, engaged leadership. We know of a 200-million-dollar operation that decided at the senior ex ecutive level that they wanted to de velop a balanced scorecard and hold strategy review m eetings. They hired consultants to come in and set up the process—ev- erything was set up for success. However, during the first three meetings, the chie f executive would kick-off the meeting, but then leave. In doing this, he signale d to the rest of the organi- zation that there were more important things than their strategy review meetings. As a r esult of this, the process failed within six months. Leadership in the organization sets the standards for what is acceptable and needs to lead by example. Those in leadership positions in your company need to understand “what’s in it for me ” and “what’s in it for us,” and commit to spending time and engaging in the meetings.
Leadership in th
e
organization sets the
standards for what
is
accept
able and needs
to lead by example.
CHAPTER 1 | AN INTRODUCTION TO STRATEGY REVIEW
MEETINGS
10
DEFINING THE PROCESS
CHAPTER 2
SUMMARY
To ensure successful strategy r
eview meetings, you’ll need to make
sure you clearly define the p
rocess. This means determining the right
meeting attendees and creating a good information-gathering process.
Make sure your meetings are timely based on your organization’s goals.
Get the team
to buy in to the agenda and the outcomes of the meeting.
Because these meetings take time and
eff
ort, reduce the bur
den of the
leadership team as much as possible so they’re sustainable.
Who should attend strategy rev
iew
meetings?
Getting the right team in place is extremely important to the succe ss of your str ategy review meetings—you need people who understand the organization, can speak with authority, and get approvals. Continuity in attendance is also critica l. This team will more than likely include the CEO (Managing Director, Executive Dir ector, City Manager, etc.), and her direct reports. If you are discussing a particular project, the n t he project manager should be in attendance. If you are looking at new data, the data collector shou ld be there. If the re is poor or exemplary performance in a particular de partment, then have the dir ec- tor of that department attend. Just make sure you have the ap propriate people for the ag enda being discussed. In most cases, you should include staff -level participants. A ft er all, they have the subject matt er expertise, and staff are oft en the parties truly doing the work—they can provide mor e cont ext for discussions. But think of the staff members as “special teams”—they’re not in the r oom all the time, but ar e there to cover specific items as necessary. What happens if the right people aren’t in the room? One school district was grappling with recruiting teachers. At their str ategy review meeting, they were attem pting to delve into the issues surrounding this challenge—in particular, how do they develop a more substantial pipeline of qualified t eachers? The people who could have answered that question, however, weren’t the re. The talent management chief and HR rep resentative were both absent, so they couldn’t shed light on what they had tried that didn’t work or what partic-Make sure you have
the appropriat
e
people for the
ag
enda being
dis
cussed.
CHAPTER 2 | DEFINING THE PROCESS
12
ular challenges they neede
d help overcoming. Without these people in the r
oom, the discussion
around this challenge proved useless, frustrating for all involved, and no decisions could be
made.
Who should not attend str
ategy
review meetings?
There are a few reasons why someone shouldn’t be invited to these meetings. Here’s a list of crite- ria you should run through to make sure you aren’t choosing t he wrong people: Don’t invite someone at the wrong level of your organization that might misconstrue the dis - cussion, or that wouldn’t be a good representative. Don’t invite someone who wouldn’t know what to di vulge to others and what to keep to themselves. Don’t invite someone who can’t see the big picture outside of their project, or one who wants to discuss the details of their project ad nauseam . At a strategy review meeting, participants do not need to know strategy specifics (like the next t opic of your marketing department’s ebook). They just need to know if a particular strategy is on tr ack and on bu dget. If there are problems, then they shou ld be discussed, but the mee ting participants shouldn’t get entan- gled in the details.
Not everyone should
attend a strateg
y
review meetin
g.
CHAPTER 2 | DEFINING THE PROCESS
13
When should strategy review
meetings be held?
As a basic rule, you should always make sure your meetings are timely. When scheduling, ask yourself, “When is new data available?” If the meeting focuses on your fall strategy, then it shou ld be held quarterly. If your meeting is thematic or department-focused, then it should be held mor e frequently—monthly or ever y six weeks. In general, quarterly meetings should be held within 30 days of the end of t he quarter, and monthly meetings should be held within 10 days of the end of the month. For example, a line manufacturing organization has their meetings on the tenth day aft e r the end of each monthly close. Data is due on day seven, a review document is sent on day eight, and the information is discussed on day 10. The meeting isn’t focused on how many widgets have been produced—it’s more about adjusting to more profitable widgets and customers, improving the forecasting process, planning for raw material costs, and developing new partnerships in appro- priate niches.When scheduli
ng, ask
yourself, “When is new
data a
vailable?”
CHAPTER 2 | DEFINING THE PROCESS
14
How do I get these meetings started?
Since these meetings take time and require team buy-in, here ar e some tips to help get things started: Check out the current executive meet ing calendar. See what meetings can be modified or replaced. T ry your best not to add to meeting time—instead, tr y to make better use of the meeting time you alre ady have. If the leadership team already me ets weekly, see if you can adjust one of the meetings each month to be more focused on strategy. If the team alre ad y meets monthly, see if you can adjust one meeting each quart er for strategy. Ensure that the top executive is engaged in and su pports the process. They need to be able to take on a leadership role during the meeting. They may need to be e ng aged in the prepara- tion depending on the subject being discussed. Create a set of common objectives and benefits for each of t he team member s invited. Include departments in meeting design. This will ensur e that it is a collaborative process and will help with organizational buy-in. The success of these meetings hinges not only on leadership engagement, but also getting an organization to work together in providing timely data reporting. Departments should feel like willing participants and se e these meetings as a useful tool to improve pr ogram performance. Be realistic when you start. At first, t hese meetings will seem like a lot of work. That’s because they are. They’re both a diff erent way of reporting and a diff erent w ay of managing. But, over time, with commitment , the meetings will get better and more eff ective. It’s not unusual for meetings to shrink as much as 75% in length as the p articipants get used to the format .
Be realistic
as
you
start with strategy
review meetin
gs. They
are a lot of wo
rk.
CHAPTER 2 | DEFINING THE PROCESS
15
How should the meetings be
structured?
Diff
erent types of
meeting
s need their
own f
requency.
CHAPTER 2 | DEFINING THE PROCESS
16
MONTHL
Y MANA
GEMENT MEETINGS
Analyze
Performan
ce Adjust
Initiative
s
QU
AR
TERL
Y
REVIEW MEETINGS
Refine Strategic
Is
sues Alig
n Resources
ANNU
AL S
TR
A
TEGY REFRES
H
Update Strategy M
ap
Revise Measures/Targe
ts
Propose Initiatives
and Budget
How can I reduce the burden?
These meetings are a lot of work. So, to the extent possible, put standardization processes in place. Determine a set calendar for meeting dates and reporting deadlines, and then stick to it. Standardize forms for collecting data or invest in online reporting tools that can greatly r educe staff burden and free up time for them to do a more substantial data analysis. This will generate better discussion at your meetings. Standardized processes can include the following: Data-collecting forms. A timeline—from sending out the data call, to the meeting invitations, to sending a follow-up note and so forth. Invite lists—have consistent invite lists for each meeting. Key contact lists—know who to co ntact for what in each department. Is there a contact within the department who can coordinate data collection, notify you of staffing changes if someone else should now be attending the meeting, and answer any clarification questions you have around the data or progr am specifics? A process for capturing and monitoring action items—if this follows a set model every time, you are less likely to get pushback. A process fo r data collection and report generation—aft er you conduct two or more mee t- ings, this will be easier to work on automating.
Put standardization in
place to make thes
e
meeting
s sustainable.
CHAPTER 2 | DEFINING THE PROCESS
17
meeting preparation
CHAPTER 3
SUMMARY
Schedule a mee
ting time and collect the necessary data. Make sure
you receive all the data in enough time to analyze it and wri
te a report.
Then, create an agenda and send it (along with the data analysis report)
to meeting attendees in advance so they can prepar
e. It’s important to
pave a path of success starting with the first meeting—teach me
eting
participants exactly what strategy review meetings are, establish a tone
of trust and collaboration, and adopt a decision-making process.
Schedule A Meeting Time and
Prepare Data
Once you put your meeting on t he calendar, it’s time to begin collecting data. Here are some things to think through and action steps to take as you begin the preparation process. Make attendance mandatory. When necessary, draft emails for leadership to send to ensure that everyone who needs to be in the meeting is there. This is where leadership commitm ent comes into play. A strategy review meeting withou t the right people in the room is an expen- sive waste of time. Limit the number of participants. Conversely, too many people can detract from the con- versation. Make sure the people in the r oom are people who might be called on to actively participate in the mee ting. Request accurate data in a timely manner. Inevitably, some departments wi ll be late providing this information, or out on vacation when you need it, so make sure the meeting is scheduled out far enough in advance that t here is ample time to gather the data. (Do not re- ward late behavior—if you don’t have the data necessary, just skip the r eview and force those with the missing data to lead the discussion the second time.) Review data. Go through the most recent data and write an analysis about tr ends or emerg- ing issues. Keeping consistent charts for presenting data is really helpful and will speed up your meeting. Update status indicators. Update green/yellow/red status indicators for each measu re and initiative. Make a report. Include data, your data analysis, and status indicator updates. Re member to keep your report format consistent from one meeting to the next.
Status Indicators
CHAPTER 3 | MEETING PREPARATION
19
GREEN
On or above pla
n
RED
Needs help,
will not
come back on track
naturally, needs
more resources or
an interv
ention
YELL
O
W
Off plan. But doesn’
t
need additional
help, just an
explanation and
action p
lan
Create An Agenda
What To Cover
To ensure that you’ll be using your m
eeting time wisely, think through these questions as you
begin to develop your agenda.
1.
The focus of the meeting should be on ma
king decisions, not having discuss
ions.
2.
Operations meetings should be separate from st
rategy meetings.
3.
Before you add an item to the agenda, measu
re it’s real value.
To help you as you’re choosing topics of discussion, ask yourself questio
ns like:
Why are we having this meeting?
What do we need to have accomplished when we are done
?
What are the key issues we should cover?
Keep in mind that a strategy review meeting agenda may just look like a review of goals, m
ea-
sures, and initiatives, a validation of strategy, and a continuation of current strategic projects and
direction. Every meeting does not have to include “bet the company” decisions.
Every meeting does
not have to inclu
de
“bet t
he company”
decisions.
CHAPTER 3 | MEETING PREPARATION
20
An Example Agenda
Make this example
agenda your own.
CHAPTER 3 | MEETING PREPARATION
21
A
C
TION ITEM REVIEW
Review short term action item status fr
om
previous meeting
.
O
VER
VIEW OF
THEME OBJEC
TIVES/MEASURES
Check color status of all objectives in the theme
Review key metrics and problem areas (yellow or
red)
REVIEW OF
INITIA
TIVE PROGRES
S
Review status of all initiatives and milestones
Review budget and discus
s alignment
DISCUS
SION OF
KEY IS
SUES
Outline any decisions that need to
be
made
Understand options and make decisions
REVIEW A
C
TION I
TEMS
Capture action items for short an
d long
term
iss
ues Assign accountability for
ite
ms
Get People Ready
You’ll need to pr ep the leadership and attendees eff ectively if you want your strategy review mee t- ing to be a success. Provide materials ahead of time so they can familiarize themselves wit h the content and formulate their own questions. This means once you’ve finished writing the report of your data analysis and created an agenda, you should send them to both le adership and participants immediately. The data should be pr e- sented with recommended decisions in advance of the me eting. If everyone comes to the mee t- ing prepared, it will allow for a more efficient use of time . Sending recommendations before the meeting doesn’t mean a decision has taken place—it just allows the leadership team to prepare appropriately. To ensure that this is succe ssful, consider pre-presenting and talking throu gh the materials with leadership. Feel free to be open about what will be discussed so that everyone is prepare d and feels that the process is transparent. (This will also help to make sure that the right people are in the room.)Make The First Meeting A Success
Training
Provide training on why you’re doing these meetings and how they should be run. (For exam
-
ple, share this ebook with the team
.)
Give an overview of the language and provide a tutorial session on performance measur
es
because not everyone speaks that language.
Teach or brief all participants on what strategy review meetings are and what
they are not.
Make sure people understand the diff
erence between strategy and operations, and owner
ship
vs. accountability.
Consider
pre-
presenting and talking
through the materials
with the leadership.
CHAPTER 3 | MEETING PREPARATION
22
Strategy: A strategy is a long-term plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal.
Strategy is diff
erentiat
ed from tactics or immediate actions with resources at hand by
its nature of being extensively prem
editated, and oft
en practically rehearsed. S
trategies
are used to make the problem or problems easier to understand and solve. Organizat
ion
strategy typically describes a fu
ture state, as well as the process of getting to that place.
Some people describe it as a destination, as well as a description of the road to take in
order to get to the destination.
Operations: The daily and weekly job of ensuring that your standard proc
edures are
operating as expected.
Ownership: In regard to strategy review meetings, this is t
he person that is responsible
for knowing and understanding particular objectives or goals. They would be responsible
for reporting about the p
rogress being made to achieve the objectives and the actions
being taking to close gaps.
Accountability: This term usually goes hand-in-hand with “ownership,” and implies that
a person is not only responsible for knowing and understanding particular objectives or
goals, but is also responsible for the achievement of key measures. This is not always the
case in a strategy review meeting because many of the goals requir
e multiple people and
teams across the organization to work well together to achieve the goals.
Consider scripting the first meeting, or having an outside facilitator sit in the first few me
et-
ings to ensure the process works (even if decisions aren’t made or the discussion is not high
quality yet).
Tone
Setting the right tone is extremely important—it should be one of trust and collaboration. Estab-
lish principles to build that trust. For example, trust can be built by provid
ing a fr
amework for the
review process and collaboratively agreeing on the principles by which the r
eview would operate.
There ar
e important
distinctions between
strategy and
operations, ownership
and accountabilit
y.
CHAPTER 3 | MEETING PREPARATION
23
Decision-Making
There are two extremes in a decision-making process. One is when those on a leadership team
talk, come to a consensus on the issue, and then move forward. The other is when a CEO or
director makes a decision—he or she might use input fr
om the leadership team to inform the
decision, but the final decision is made by an individual.
What is your decision making process? Would everyone in your organization agree or is the
process unclear
?
Whatever the case, make sure you adopt a common decision-making process. Below is an
example of one that could be held in your organization. Be especially cognizant of how step four
works (making a decision).
What kind of decision-
making pr
oces
s do
you have in place?
CHAPTER 3 | MEETING PREPARATION
24
Everyone on the team wo
rks
an issu
e until you all agree
What is your approach to maki
ng decisions?
Team m
embers provide
input during the di
scussion,
but ultimately, the top
executive wi
ll make
REVIEW DECISION
TO BE MADE
OUTLINE
AL
TERNA
TIVES
DISCUSS
OP
TIONS
MAKE
DECISION
DETERMINE
NEX
T S
TEP
S
THE MEETING
CHAPTER 4
SUMMARY
Encourage candid dialogue and critique in the meeting itself—people
tend to want to focus on the positives, but discussing the negatives is
critical. Take notes about everything discussed, including action items,
so that the meeting is productive
. It’s important to use your partici-
pants’ time wisely, so don’t be afraid to keep e
veryone task-oriented.
(Use that agenda you created!) In order to stay on track, do a “pulse
check” every so oft
en—if your conversation has gotten off
-topic or more
in-depth than you thought it would, consider saving it for another meet
-
ing and moving on.
Meeting Tips
Look at yourself critically. People want to put a positive spin on things. Don’t. If there is nega- tive information, it should be included and even a focus of the me eting. Use participants’ time wisely. Keep meetings to an appropriate length. Use “bullet formatting” instead of narrative to elucidate important points. Use facilitation techniques. Don’t let the meeting agenda get derailed . Have a “parking lot” for issues that arise that may warrant further discussion but ar e not ap- propriate for this mee ting. Stick to the agenda at all times if possible. Try to adjust for a future meeting, but not t he cur- rent meeting. Rem ember, you are changing behavior and teaching people to use time e ff ec- tively. Promote candid dialogue. Encourage people to speak up. Make sure they know that this is not meant to be punitive, but a collaborative process driving a continuous dialogue. Thi s may need to be prompted in the first few meet ings.
Take Notes
Someone should always be jotting things down. You need to be capturing action items, recom- mendations, and decisions during the meeting. There are two types of action items—those that ar e already approved by the le adership, and those which are potential action items that will be identified for the future. The potent ial actions items need to go to leadership for approval, which takes time and planning. Those action items might be relevant for discussion and consideration at future r eview meetings.Someone should
always be jotti
ng
things down dur
ing
every meeting.
CHAPTER 4 |THE MEETING
26
Once the meeting is through, review action items as a whole to ensure consensus and assign
responsibility and due dates. Make sure you have accountability for e
very action item before
leaving.
Stay On Track
What do you do if your meeting derails? Tr y scheduling breaks and determine if the content you are working on is appropriate for this particular meeting. Do a “pulse check” every so oft en. Are we going to make a decision now, or should we have a sep- arate meeting? Is this something we should table or ask a smaller team to make more progress on before it comes back to this team of peop le? Some difficult decisions could be worth sending your agenda off track. However, if you think you have an additional half hour of discussion le ft and you don’t think you’re going to make progress, then it’s not worth it to keep discussing it. If you know your leadership team gets distracted regularly, try start ing the first meeting with two questions: “What typically derails these meetings? How can we prevent that during this meet- ing?” This will give the facilitator permission to keep the meeting on track.Some diff
icult
decisions could be
worth sending your
agenda off track.
Know the diff
erence.
CHAPTER 4 |THE MEETING
27
follow-up
CHAPTER 5
SUMMARY
The meeting can’t be a success without following up aft
erward to make
sure action is taken on the decisions that were made. Distribute the
notes
you
took
during
the
meeting
to
both
the
meeting
participants
and
anyone else in the organization who needs them. And set up a process
for tracking action items and due dates so things don’t slip through the
cracks. Throughout the process, think critically about you
r measures.
You aren’t done yet.
In order for strate gy review meetings to be a success, you can’t just walk away when the meet- ing is over. There are several follow-up st eps you need to take. It’s important to distribute not es to meeting attendees within 24 hours of the meeting—this is when decisions are fresh and enthusiasm is high. Don’t miss this window of o pportunity! Actions happen most oft en aft er meeting minu tes are released. Make sure you’re communicating with everyone necessary. Depending on the m eeting and the content, you may want to send a second set of meeting notes to the r est of the organiza- tion to ensure that key decisions have been communicated . Next, set up a process for tracking action items and du e dates. Reach out to responsible par- ties to do a status-check on action items or send reminders a week or two bef ore they’re due. Finally, at start of the subsequent review m eeting, review and recap each of the action items.
Think critically about your measures.
Remember to use your meeting to re-assess your perform anc e measures. Which measures are working well and should be kept? Which per formance measure should be dropp ed or replaced b ecause they aren’t really telling us how the objective is doing? Manage any changing of measures to be proposed outside of the meeting and run future meetings with the current and the proposed to get consensus that the proposed is pr ovid ing better information than the current, not just a rosier picture for the person account ab le for the measure . Try to make sure targets are not constantly changing during the year, but do note under - performance or major shifts in the assumptions around the initial target setting process. (If targets are constantly changing, then the organization loses focus and any sense of urgency or realism to a strategic planning process.)
You can’t just walk
away when a strategy
review meetin
g is over.
You must
follow-up.
CHAPTER 5 | FOLLOW-UP
29
MAINTAINING
MOMENTUM
CHAPTER 6
SUMMARY
Sustainability is about culture change. You need to generate an unde
r-
standing of the process and get buy-in—make sure everyone involved
understands what the process is and why you’re doing it. (Especially
leadership.) Work on continually improving and streamlining your pro
-
cesses in order to reduce
the burden on everyone involved; make the
procedure for e
ach meeting repeatable.
Make sure your
strategy review
meetings don’t
become a burden.
CHAPTER 6 | MAINTAINING MOMENTUM
31
Sustainability is about
culture change.
Your goal should be making the strate gy review process a part of your company’s “business as usual.” Keep the me etings relevant and leadership engaged. How do you ensure that senior leadership engagement? First and foremost, make sure decisions get made in your meetings. T he meetings need to be focused solely on strategy with active and candid dialogue in order to get things accomplished. Other than the meeting itself, leadership involvement isn’t particularly time-intensive, so capitalize on the time that they are involved. Then, make sure results happen based on the decisions you make so leadership can see that it is making a diff erence. Identify lessons learned and how to improve the process going forward. Again, make sure your meetings stay relevant. Rate the quality of each meeting aft er it’s finished—what wou ld you change? How could you do it better? Listen and react quickly as a meeting facilitator. Wor k care- fully with the top execu tive to ensure you are delivering value. You also need to generate an understanding of the process and ge t buy-in—make sure everyone involved understands what the process is and why you’re doing it. Allow them the op portunity to give feedback/make recommendations. This process is meant to be helpful for ever yone, so make sure to work with each department to ensure that the process will also meet their ne eds.Make the process repeatable.
In order to make strategy review meetings sustainable, they can’t be a burden. So mak e sure they aren’t! A great analyst and reporting staff can make this seamless. Giving access to information on mobile products, sending automated emails, and p re-reading of the highlights are critical.
Employ the 7 simple
way
s to streamline
your meeting
pro
ce
ss.
CHAPTER 6 | MAINTAINING MOMENTUM
32
Follow these steps to streamline your me
eting process.
1.
Ensure a timeline.
2.
Automate data requ
ests.
3.
Use technology to standardize the format of your data. A consistent set of charts means that
time in meetings will be spent wisely.
4.
Allow visibility between meetings.
5.
Don’t allow leadership to miss meetings—make these strategy meetings the most im
portant
review meeting each month.
6.
Ensure you have a clean history of meeting actions and that there is follow-through.
7.
Constantly check on the value of the meetings. (You may even want to give a simple survey
about the meetings aft
er they’re through—have attendee
s r
ate the meeting on a scale of 1-5.
Ask them what they would change.)
MISTAKES TO AVOID
CHAPTER 7
SUMMARY
To ensure the success of your strat
egy review meetings, avoid having
the wrong people in the room and unengaged leadership. Stay away
from time-consuming prep
, but make sure that everyone is prepare
d
enough for the meeting to be eff
ective. It’s easy to get wrapped up in
“the big picture
,” so r
emember that you also need action items and
measures you can manage as takeaways from your meetings. And, of
course, always follow up. Follow-through on action items is critica
l to
these strategy meetings making a diff
erence in your organization.
Common Roadblocks To Avoid
Unengaged leadership: We can’t mention this one enough. If your leadership isn’t engaged, then your attendees won’t be either. The future su ccess o f your meetings depends on leader - ship buy-in. Poor data quality or poor response to data call: The data won’t be perfect at fir st—just make sure it evolves. You may have to push departments to pr ovide data at first. It’s okay if participants feel that they don’t have sufficient data—use these meetings as a forcing mecha- nism for them to start collecting it. An impro per balance between intermediate outcome measures and output measures: You need to be looking at outcomes and “the big pict ure,” but you also need action items and measures you can manage. Time-consuming prep: Streamlining every process and making things rep eatable is crucial. The wrong people in the room: Remember, meeting attende es ne ed to understand the orga- nization, be able to speak with authority, and get approvals. No follow-up: If there isn’t any follow-up, you’ve just wasted everyone’s time! Follow-through on action items is critical to these strategy meetings making a diff erence in your organization. No valuable discussion: This meeting is not a “show and tell” for everything a dep artment is doing. It is meant to have targeted discussions around key success or proble m areas.
If you’re leadership
isn’t engag
ed, then
your attendees won’t
be either.
CHAPTER 7 | MISTAKES TO AVOID
34
Behaviors That Will Derail
Your
Meeting
People can be as challenging as the process. Don’t allow these few behaviors to get in the way of meeting progress. Complexity—don’t allow presenters to get entangled in the details. Kee p the conversation at the right level by limiting the agenda and having a facilitator manage what is presented . “Siloed”—only present information that is relevant to the strategy for the people in the room. There is no need for a business unit to present information that is not connected to the enter- prise strategy. Doubting numbers—do not allow any fighting about the numbers. They are what they ar e. Make it a point to clean up the source for the next meeting, but do not waste time during your current me eting fighting the data. Your meeting isn’t about details—it’s about strategy. Forgetfulness—do not tolerate executives ignoring their prep work. Show it as blank and le t the CEO or equivalent manage the non-perfor mer. Heap praise on those that are doing great work and contributing. Do everything you can to reward good behavior.
Anticipating and
preparing for
cer
tai
n behaviors
can keep your
meeting fr
om
derailing
.
CHAPTER 7 | MISTAKES TO AVOID
35
SUMMARY
CHAPTER 8
SUMMARY
If you want to improve performance in your organization, it all starts
with strategy. Strategic objectives are vital to the success of you
r orga-
nization’s future. But, unfortunately, many organizations (nine out of 10
by some estimates) set bold strategic goals and fail to execute
.
If you
want
to
increase
the
odds
of
success, then
you
need
to
have
eff
ec-
tive and regular strate
gy review meetings. You’ll need leadership buy-in,
and you’ll need to practice some specific ste
ps. There are five stages
of holding an eff
ective strategy review m
eeting: defining the process,
meeting preparation, the meeting itself, follow-up, and maintaining
momentum.
1. Defining The Process
To ensure successful strategy review meetings, you’ll need to make sure you clearly d efine the process. This means determining the right me eting attendees and creating a good informa- tion-gathering process. Make sure your meetings are timely based on your organization’s goals. Get the team to buy in to the agenda and the outcomes of the mee ting. Bec ause these meetings take time and eff ort , reduce the bur den of the leadership team as much as possible so they’re sustainable.2. Meeting Preparation
Schedule a me eting time and collect the necessary data. Make sure you re ceive all the data in enough time to analyze it and write a report. Then, create an agenda and send it (along wit h the data analysis report) to meeting attende es in advance so they can pr epare. It’s important to pave a path of success starting with the first meeting—teach meeting participants exactly what st rategy review meetings are, establish a tone of trust and collaboration, and adopt a decision-making process.3. The Meeting
Encourage candid dialogue and critique in the meeting itself—peop le tend to want to focus on the positives, but discussing the negatives is critical. Take notes about everything discusse d, including action items, so that the meeting is productive. It’s impor tant to use your participants’ time wisely, so don’t be afraid to keep everyone task-oriented. (Use that agenda you created!) In order to stay on track, do a “pulse check” every so oft en—if your conversation has gotten off -topic or more in-depth than you thought it would, consider saving it for anothe r meeting and moving on.
CHAPTER 8 | SUMMARY
37
4. Follow-Up
The meeting can’t be a success without following up aft erward to make sure action is take n on the decisions that were made. Distribute the notes you took during the meeting to both the meeting participants and anyone else in the organization who needs them. And set up a p rocess for tracking action items and due dates so things don’t slip through the cracks. Thr oughout the process, think critically about your measures.5. Maintaining Momentum
Sustainability is about culture change. You need to generate an understanding of the process and get buy-in—make sure everyone involved understands what the process is and why you’re doing it. (Especially leadership.) Work on continually improving and streamlining your processes in or- der to reduce the burden on ever yone involved; mak e the procedure for e ach meeting repeatable. To ensure the success of your str ategy review meetings, avoid having the wrong people in the room and unengaged leadership. Stay away from time-consuming p rep, but make sure that everyone is prepar ed enough for the meeting to be eff ective. It’s easy to get wrapped up in “the big picture,” so rem ember that you also need action items and measures you can manage as takeaways from your meetings. And, of course, always follow up. Follow-through on action items is critical to these strategy meetings making a diff erence in your organization. It is possible to have regularly-scheduled, productive strategy r eview meetings within you r orga- nization. Follow the steps outlined in this guide, and you’ll see what a huge impact it can have on the success of your company!
CHAPTER 8 | SUMMARY
38
HoW WE CAN HELP
YOU
ClearPoint Strategy reporting software can help you create
dynamic management reports, strategy reviews, and
Balanced Scorecard reports quickly and easily, to help
streamline your strategy review meeting process.
