Vantage Blog
17 Dec 2019
Do You Need a Strategic Planning Facilitator?
Are you running a business or an organisation? When was the last time you undertook a strategic planning exercise? Would an experienced facilitator make it worthwhile for you and your team to get started?
In any business, there will come a time when senior managers, key decision-makers and board members need to get together to work on the company’s strategic planning and future direction. There are various means of going about it but, in general, strategic planning is crucial because it gets the team on the same page and makes sure that everyone is on board with the organisation’s vision, strategy, and key goals.
Why undertake Strategic Planning?
Conducting a strategic planning process is a good opportunity to reevaluate the organisation’s resources and check if they are sufficient to meet the goals, and leverage the opportunities into the future.
A well structured strategic planning exercise also enables the uncovering of insights into industry trends and potential scenarios that could affect the company in the future.
Most importantly, it is important to identify and evaluate the best way to accomplish the goals and aspirations of the leaders. At the end of every strategic planning process it is key that implementation plans are drawn up with the sole purpose of keeping everyone on track and accountable for delivery. You’ll be able to get a clear view of the opportunities and threats that your organisation might encounter, and come up with ways on how to welcome or avert them.
Can you do it yourself?
Of course, but only if you are up for it! Undertaking the facilitation role will mean that you won't be able to contribute in a meaningful way as the process of facilitating will take up most of your time and energy.
Facilitating a strategic planning workshop requires to be unbiased and balanced so as to ensure everyone contributes whilst staying on track. As facilitator, your role is to be neutral and provide unbiased guidance in terms of the organisation’s vision, strategy and goals. As facilitator you aren’t to engage in the debate or address specific issues because your answer might be sway the group (even more so if you are the boss!). This will undermine the potential outcomes. What do you do then?
Hire a facilitator for strategic planning exercises! The right strategy facilitator will make or break your strategic planning workshops. You need to get an expert who can drive you to the results you want. Here we list 6 reasons for hiring an external strategic planning facilitator for your next strategic planning workshop:
1. Saves Time and Money
Every minute you take your senior leaders away from their day job you risk losing time and money. Make sure that their absence is justified with a productive strategic planning workshop that produces the right outcomes. A professional strategic planning facilitator can step in to ensure that the objectives of the workshop are fully realised and it doesn't just end up as a talkfest with no decisions or worse actions
2. Strategic Preparation
An effective strategic planning workshop can take weeks, even months to prepare if you want it to be a success. With a facilitator for strategic planning, you will have someone who can carefully plan the event from start to finish instead of bogging you down with the nitty-gritty of the whole process. The preparation would usually include sitting down with the senior leaders to properly capture and define the workshop objectives, plan the format of the workshop, prepare materials, and handle the logistics of the event. Using best practice, strategic planning facilitators will make design the strategy workshop to meet the outcomes and objectives that you set.
3. Program Design
Expert strategic planning facilitators specialise in designing a robust process that is best suited for your organisation. They have the capability to design a process and an agenda that delivers effective session flow and ensures it builds on where you are now as an organisation. All the while maintaining the attendees’ focus and energy around the identified objectives
4. Professional Execution and Management
A facilitator for strategic planning that knows what he or she is doing. They have a wealth of knowledge and approaches when it comes to conducting a workshop in a professional manner. This refers to asking the right questions, guiding conversations and debates, and knowing when to interject to keep the workshop engaging and informative.
Conflicts will arise, and that's ok if handled well. In fact it's preferable if you want to truly develop and design a more successful business into the future. The right strategy facilitator will know how to manage these situations. Moreover, your strategic planning facilitator should know how to balance the group dynamics — preventing a few people from dominating the conversation and drawing out the opinions of the quieter ones.
Conflicts will arise, and that's ok if handled well. In fact it's preferable if you want to truly develop and design a more successful business into the future. The right strategy facilitator will know how to manage these situations. Moreover, your strategic planning facilitator should know how to balance the group dynamics — preventing a few people from dominating the conversation and drawing out the opinions of the quieter ones.
5. Maintains a Neutral Stand
One of the strengths of a good strategic planning facilitator lies in being able to maintain a high degree of impartiality as soon as the workshop commences. Remaining objective amidst a heated or skewed conversation is also something they excel at.
Having an external facilitator for strategic planning who is not too heavily invested in the key issues will definitely help instigate fresh ideas and helpful resolutions in moments of debate.
6. Goes the Extra Mile
The best strategic planning facilitator does not stop at the end of the strategy workshop. Once the day has finished, they will begin drawing up a report from the workshop capturing the key points, decisions made and the next steps. This summary report will importantly include who is accountable for the deliverables moving forward.
Contact us to discuss your strategic planning needs
Given the reasons outlined above having a professional strategic planning facilitator can definitely be beneficial to your business. They will assist in developing and refining your strategy so that you can achieve your goals. They do this with proven techniques to ensure your strategic plan is fit for purpose so you are best placed to build a successful future for all your stakeholders.
Call James Atkins from Vantage Strategy to see if we can help you run a successful strategic planning workshop on +61398360491 or email on jatkins@vantagestrategy.com.au