IMPACT!

The Move Towards Strategic Conversations

It's not taught at Harvard!

Most important skill you can learn.

Not a garden-variety meeting!

Meetings With Impact

• Creative, Collaborative

Meetings With Impact

• Creative, Collaborative
• Problem Solving

It's a strategic conversation!

Meetings With Impact

• Creative, Collaborative
• Problem Solving
• Tackles Messy ,Open Ended Challenges

Designing a strategic conversation is a craft!

Not a crapshoot!

It's A VUCA, VUCA WORLD

It's A VUCA, VUCA WORLD

VUCA World

• an environment of nonstop
• volatility
• uncertainty
• complexity
• ambiguity

VUCA World is like an amusement park -full or thrilling rides but not fun.

What VUCA environments is your organization facing?

Understanding technical & adaptable challenges critical to approaching strategic conversations.

Understanding technical & adaptable challenges critical to approaching strategic conversations.

What do you think are the differences between technical & adaptive challenges?

Technical challenges

• involve applying well-honed skills to well-defined problems

Technical challenges

• complex and can be resolved within well-understood boundaries

Technical challenges

• require traditional, hierarchical approaches

Adaptive Challenges

• messy, open-ended & ill-defined

Adaptive Challenges

• messy, open-ended & ill-defined

Adaptive Challenges

• difficult to identify the right question--let alone the right answer

Many of your organization's strategic challenges wrestle with adaptive challenges

Navigating & solving adaptive challenges requires a different type of meeting

What adaptive challenges is your organization facing?

What adaptive challenges is your organization facing?

Too often our traditional meetings lead to conversations that try to cut
wood with a paintbrush.

3 Meeting Options

• Standard Meeting
• Brainstorming Session
• Strategic Conversation

Which of these meetings work best for what?

3 Meeting Options

• Standard Meeting
• Brainstorming Session
• Strategic Conversation

5 Steps For Strategic Conversations: Meetings With Impact

1. Traditional Meeting - Declare The Objectives

1. Strategic Conversation -
Define The Purpose

Define The Purpose

• Develop a clear sense of the change the group needs to make together

Define The Purpose

• How this conversation will advance that process

2. Traditional Meeting
Identify Participants

2. Strategic Conversation
Identify Perspectives

Identify Perspectives

• Dig deeper to understand the values & concerns of each participant & stakeholder group

Identify Perspectives

• Discover which perspectives, not just people, must be represented such as customers and employees not in the room

Identify Perspectives

• Diversity trumps groupthink.

Identify Perspectives

• Adaptive challenges are too complex for any one person or department to solve.

Identify Perspectives

• Adaptive challenges are too open-ended to be solved by analysis alone.

Your Turn

• Where in public do you often find people generating new ideas with diverse perspectives?

Your Turn

• How can you capture the magic of the coffeehouse, the scientific lab or the after-hours bar where cooks, artists, musicians, entrepreneurs swap their latest ideas?

Untitled Slide

• Bring together right perspectives
• Create a common platform for collaboration
• Lean into the most important differences of opinion

Remember

• The most important differences of opinion set off a controlled burn of contained and productive conflict.

3. Traditional Meeting - Assemble The Content

3. Strategic Conversation - Framing Issues & Content That Illuminates

Framing Content

• Illuminating different aspects of the adaptive challenge

Framing Content

• How various parts relate to the whole
• Helps participants get their heads around complexity which accelerates insight and alignment

Framing Content

• A good frame helps make insights stick
• A good frame accelerates progress on tough issues

4. Traditional Meeting - Set The Agenda

Traditional Meeting

• Logical sequence of agenda items
• Starts with orientation
• Ends with next steps

Traditional Meeting

• Each agenda item addresses specific topic & how it contributes to objectives
• At end, everyone knows what they need to do next

4. Strategic Conversation -
Make It An Experience

Make It An Experience

• Attend to emotional & psychological experience of participants

Make It An Experience

• Logical, intuitive & energizing

Make It An Experience

• Tap into participants full capabilities & perspectives
• Logical & Emotional
• Analytic & Creative

A great strategic conversation is not just an intellectual exercise, it is an exhilarating & memorable experience

5. Traditional Meeting - Find A Venue

5. Strategic Conversation -
Set The Scene

Set The Scene

• Make thoughtful choices about all elements of the environment - physical space, artifacts, aesthetics

Set The Scene

• Room setup should send a message about how participants are to relate to one another.

Traditional well-organized meetings hit the bull's eye when goal is clear.

Well-designed strategic conversations find the way when the path isn't clear.

Customer
Employee
Leadership
Special

Brand Strategy

• A complex, systemic & open-ended puzzle that cannot be resolved by analysis alone.

Brand Strategy

• An adaptive challenge that calls for a well-designed strategic conversation.

When facing an adaptive challenge, call it out explicitly & start designing a strategic conversation.

Good ideas often come from bridging the gaps between people & groups with different areas of expertise.

Most people approach a strategic conversation as an air-traffic controller might

Air-Traffic Controller

• Arrange landing slots for slew of topics
• Pack an agenda
• Use every available time slot

If you want to design a great experience--not just crank out an agenda--you need to adopt a different mindset

Think like a deejay

Think Like A Deejay

• Choose & sequence your set of activities that will energize the crowd

Think Like A Deejay

• Tell a story
• Engage the emotions
• Make a memorable mark

Many people think of an experience as a nice to have extra layer--off site venue, pleasant dinner or materials look cool.

Great experiences involve more than one-off touches.

Great experiences take people on an intellectual & emotional journey.

Great Experiences

• Promote active learning

Great Experiences

• Promote active learning
• Engage participants' hearts & minds

Great Experiences

• Promote active learning
• Engage participants' hearts & minds
• Create a strong narrative arc.

Doblin Five-E Model For Experiences

Doblin Five-E Model For Experiences

• Entice: How participants learn about this experience in advance
• Enter: How they arrive at the venue & room

Doblin Five-E Model For Experiences

• Entice: How participants learn about this experience in advance
• Enter: How they arrive at the venue & room