3 Powerful Activities You Need for Strategic Planning

We are beginning the traditional season for strategic planning (Sept-Nov) by sharing a weekly series that will help you prepare for and excel at this important activity. As you and your team set your sights on a successful 2025, dedicate early the time and resources to execute business-critical planning. 

Our first blog highlights three activities you can do with your leadership team. Each has a specific purpose and has multiple benefits that form a solid and exciting foundation on which to build next year’s plan. We recommend doing them in this sequence. 

We also suggest conducting them in three consecutive weeks building up to your planning retreat or other typical format. Perhaps add 60 minutes to existing leadership team meetings or replace part of your normal agenda with these three discussions. 

1. A Reflection Session

Our first activity is a look back. A Reflection Session is an opportunity to analyze your organization’s performance in 2024 and extract valuable insights that will inform future goals. What are key learnings to capture for upcoming strategic discussions? 

The session’s format can be like other postmortems or lessons learned you’ve participated in. Here are some key tips to consider: 

• Let your team know it’s coming. Construct 3 or 4 specific questions that will elicit the most insightful responses; send them to the team several days in advance with clear expectations. 

• Bring the data. This is the only session of the three that relies on historical information. Access and prepare ample data to inform accurate perspectives. Each leader can bring information pertinent to their respective area. 

• Start with successes. Colleagues will want to elaborate on the organization’s wins. This will get the team engaged, especially as they link activities with positive outcomes. And remember to immediately set a date for the whole organization to celebrate these successes! 

• Identify themes. Incorporate data-driven analysis with anecdotal experiences to craft main themes of the year. These will be a great place to start as you peer into next year. 

You will discover that an honest review in which all leaders are heard is an effective and systematic way to gain alignment and improve cohesion. Facilitate open dialogue and encourage transparency on both successes and misses. Stay focused and document everything; this undoubtedly will be a powerful first step to prime the team for upcoming strategic decisions. 

2. Revisit (refresh) Core Values.

Our second activity is a look at current state. This team discussion will focus on one of the most over-looked aspects of running a business – core values or guiding principles. While most organizations have some form of these operating guidelines, few consistently integrate them into everyday behaviors and decision-making.  

The purpose of the Core Values session is to re-validate the aspects of doing business that you hold dear. It is to remind the leadership team, and ultimately the entire organization, of the must-have ways of working that set the highest standards for all interactions. 

In our second blog in this Strategic Planning series, we explore much deeper the importance of putting Core Values into consistent practice. There are ways one can prioritize these principles to help shape mindsets and behaviors. Consider the following prompts for your team: 

• A heads-up is helpful. Again, this discussion will be much more robust if you precede the activity with asking your team to reflect on your current Core Values. Ask them to bring to the discussion examples of how they have seen this year each value lived out within the organization. 

• Agree on prompting questions. Many teams lack high degrees of accountability. By associating a question that anyone can ask about a particular value, it elevates that value in the normal work of your colleagues. A prompting question encourages responsibility for all to “live it” at work and beyond. 

• Determine if any values need refreshing. Guiding principles typically are stable, but sometimes factors influence them to be updated or new ones added. Whatever the decision, seek renewed public commitment from each leader. 

We have found that team discussions on values can be highly motivating, but at times can lead to extended dialogue when corporate values no longer overlap significantly with personal values. Don’t rush this session. Set a follow-up discussion to gain full adoption, if needed. It is vital to attain unified commitment before moving forward. 

3. Scenario Planning

Our third activity is an educated guess at future state. A proactive what-if conversation around several likely upcoming scenarios primes the team for more in-depth and strategic planning around goals and objectives. 

Scenario planning is a powerful tool, especially for organizations operating in volatile environments. It sets up your team to think creatively about a range of possible futures. 

The objective is to explore potential opportunities, challenges, or situations the firm could face. What are internal and external drivers of the business? What are current or likely trends to address? What are possible risks?  And what are plausible reactions? Caution: the objective is not to solve, however. You are not generating solutions, simply investigating possibilities. 

Consider these tips for effective scenario planning: 

• Select 3-4 plausible scenarios that are just this side of “crazy”. Anything too wild will not generate serious discussion; any scenario too tame will not invigorate the team. Stretch their thinking to prepare them for the real-life analysis of your strategic planning. 

• Be diligent assessing impact. Risk mitigation is grounded in a comparison of “probability of it happening” and “impact if it does”. We already have suggested the “somewhat likely” variable, so focus the team on studying the many effects of each scenario.  

• Guide with questions. One of the most dramatic ways to guide this exercise is through asking your team numerous questions, many of which will not have specific answers. Prompt them to ponder future states in ways they may not have before. We call it stretched foresight.  

Agile thinking from various perspectives is the desired outcome. This third activity will be a nice precursor to your subsequent formal planning. Agility and creativity to navigate an uncertain future is a great skill to build. 

These steps are not full agendas for executing the three activities. They are ideas to get you started on a fun and rewarding planning season to be better next year than you were this year. Spend time filling in the gaps and developing engaging discussions with your team. 

Some leaders prefer not to lead these sessions because that limits their participation. If you would like to ensure you can fully participate, consider contracting with a trusted facilitator who can lead the team and assist with documentation. 

If you would like to learn more about strategic planning and how we have helped dozens of firms of all sizes, learn more here or email gary.mcclure@thrivence.com.

Gary McClure is Senior Consultant with Thrivence. For nearly two decades he has led executive teams in strategic planning, communications, change management, and the implementation of those plans. As a certified professional facilitator, he excels with small groups to achieve their objectives. He can be reached at gary.mcclure@thrivence.com.