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Two Hours On the Front
Lines
One Day On the Front Lines
Every Day On the Front
Lines
One Day on the Front Lines of Strategy
Our one-day workshops are
interactive sessions that teach the core skills of strategic analysis and
response. They illustrate in tangible ways how strategy works in a
dynamic environment.
Like our two-hour presentation on Sun Tzu’s
Art of War, our strategy workshops address your organization’s specific issues, but they
offer a longer format that allows attendees
to get real work done in addressing specific shared challenges and
responsibilities. Our strategy workshops are designed for a minimum of 25 attendees and a maximum of 500.
In these workshops, we not only teach the rules of strategy
but use them to clarify your organization’s strategic mission, compare competitive positions
in the market, evaluate
the current leadership and methods used, and develop potential moves to stronger
positions. These workshops start with a discussion of strategic
analysis and, through interaction
with the workshop participants, create an in-depth analysis of your organization,
your marketplace, and competing organizations.
In a workshop, most of the discussion comes from the attendees. We guide the
discussion to meet two specific goals:
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The first goal is to educate the attendees on how to develop a strategic position using the tools from Sun Tzu’s The Art of War.
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The second goal is to clarify your organization’s current
strategic position and prioritize the best ways to advance
your position over the coming year.
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The third goal is defined by the group itself and includes the following:
Group agreement on desired results
Achievement of those results
Group agreement to follow up on those results
A part of each day is spent on learning how to analyze strategic positions.
This requires going through the key elements that define your
organization’s position in your marketplace, especially relative to your
competition. We start with mission and then evaluate all other aspects of the
organization in terms of how well they unite the organization around its
mission.
A part of each day is also spent discussing desired results and how the rules of strategy are related to the group’s specific challenges. During
this part of the workshop, we try to identify the group’s priorities and the dangers and common mistakes
that organizations make in trying to advance a
position.
Finally, a part of each day is spent in work teams, achieving the desired
results and developing the “work product” desired from the event.
The style of these workshops is Socratic and the direction is flexible. We ask
questions of the workshop participants about their organization and its strategic
position, and
use everyone’s answers to explain which aspects of a strategic
position are critical and why. This questioning starts painlessly by offering
multiple-choice answers that attendees anonymously vote on. As the discussion
focuses on specific issues, individuals explain why they consider one
issue more important than another given the organization’s specific strategic
situation. The group then decides which topics require more discussion and
work.
During the workshop, the group decides on the results desired from the
workshop. At a specific point, larger groups might be broken down
into smaller work teams and assigned specific tasks related to that desired
result. The group then reassembles, with the various teams relating their
results. The group then agrees to follow up on those results within a specific
time frame.
Example
Consider the following example of how desired results are identified and
achieved during a workshop.
During the first day, we always cover the strategic role of philosophy and
how it relates to the other key elements of a strategy: climate, ground,
leadership, and methods. During this discussion, the group might realize that
one of its goals should be to develop a clearer idea of the organizing philosophy.
After deciding how much time to spend on the issue, given other priorities,
the larger group might then be divided into competing smaller teams charged with
developing competing descriptions of the organization’s unifying mission.
During this time,
the trainer visits the work teams to answer any
questions they might have. After the work teams finish, the resulting work
products are read, critiqued, and defended. The whole group then
assembles and usually combines to
create a formal statement of philosophy.
As the workshop advances, other goals are identified and addressed. For
example, teams might relate the now clearer organizing philosophy to the
organization’s changing climate, market, individual leadership, or
organizational methods. In the case of a clearer philosophy, specific methods
often must be changed to conform to that philosophy.
Goals
In the end, the the workshop should
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produce a useful strategic analysis and
direction for progress;
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provide a
powerful shared vocabulary for executives to discuss changing
strategic issues on an ongoing basis;
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educate attendees so they can analyze the specific strategic
positions of their own departments or divisions;
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instill in attendees the desire to continually improve their understanding
of strategy, using the written and on-line training material provided; and
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produce a commitment from attendees to
follow on the results from the workshop.
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