Most businesses waste their yearly strategy sessions (if they even do one) by going through the same, limited routines. “How did we do this year? Good? Are we going to do better next year? Great.”
By not truly taking advantage of a yearly strategy session, you are limiting your organization's potential. Not asking the right questions can create missed market opportunities or even leave damaging practices inside of your business.
How will you know if your company is heading in the right direction?
What is your next big breakthrough?
What practices need to be put to rest?
What does longevity look like?
If you are tired of the same old yearly planning meetings, here are 5 of exercises you can do to get to the core of your company’s success.
1. The 4 Helpfuls
Created by Tom Paterson and used by numerous organizations, the 4 Helpfuls is a favorite exercise that helps teams uncover common threads throughout an organization or product. It starts by creating 4 categories -- Right, Wrong, Missing, Confused.
Going around the room, each person is asked to contribute to each category. At the end, the facilitator creates a summary of the common threads found throughout each category. By organizing all of the pieces into common threads, teams can now see what actions need to be taken in order to increase what is working, fix what doesn’t work, clarify what is confused, and add to what is missing.
2. Kill / Carry / Recover
Developed by Jon Shearer at Cadence Co., the Kill / Carry / Recover activity asks three simple questions that can have a meaningful impact on your operations, or even your personal life.
CARRY - What do you want to carry forward with you, repeat, continue, or amplify?
KILL - Moving forward, what do you want to leave behind, not repeat, not allow, or discontinue?
RECOVER - What have you laid down, let atrophy, given up, or sacrificed that you want to recover?
These kinds of audits require brutal honesty, but the end result is a cleansing and invigorating energy throughout your organization.
3. The StoryBrand Framework
When someone asks you what your company does, what is your answer? Can you communicate what you do in a few, short, memorable sentences? If not, you may not be communicating as clearly as you think. Worse yet, your team might not be communicating clearly at all.
Donald Miller's StoryBrand process is a proven solution to the struggle business leaders face when talking about their businesses. Utilizing a framework that storytellers have used for over 2,000 years, the StoryBrand helps you clarify your message by eliminating confusion.
How you talk about your business is just as important as how you run your business. You might have the greatest product in the world, but people don’t purchase the greatest product or service, they purchase the ones they can understand the fastest.
4. W.I.N. (What’s Important Now)
“If you have more than three priorities, you don't have any.” - Jim Collins
Getting your team united and moving in the same direction can be difficult, especially if every person has a different idea of what should happen next. This lack of clarity causes most business to slowly wander into mediocrity or obscurity.
The W.I.N. exercise boils down success into the top three priorities. All activity should be pointing towards achieving those top three priorities. Working with your team to determine the top three priorities in your organization can eliminate confusion and simplify the decision making process. “Does this action help us achieve any of the top three priorities, yes or no?”
It can be difficult for most people to take all that is important to them and simplify it down to just three. However, in our experience working with companies, by focusing on just the top three, you typically end up achieving all your other goals, or realizing that certain goals that seemed like a priority at the time were just getting in the way of success.
5. Product SWOT analysis
The SWOT analysis has been around for a while and most leadership teams have run the analysis on their business, but many have never run this same analysis on their product lines. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. While this assessment can be fundamental for an overall organization, it is vital to run the same exercise on your products. Breaking down the core components of your product, why it does and doesn’t work, as well as the market threats or opportunities associated with your product will help keep you ahead of the curve.
Understanding the dynamics of your products can give you insight into creating other products with similar characteristics or products that fill the gaps where others fall short.
These exercises can help you and your organization point out the market opportunities, shortcomings, longevity, and engagement inside of your business. Don’t waste your next yearly strategy session. Utilize any or all of these activities to help your team focus on what is important.
Riches Consulting helps companies discover the opportunities and actions needed to turn great companies into amazing companies. Let the Riches Consulting team help you discover your “Secret Sauce” -- those defining characteristics and actions that set you apart from your competition and let you serve your clients well.
Defining your Secret Sauce and uncovering market opportunities starts with a War Room Session - a time of focus and purpose dedicated to defining your next steps as an organization.
Don’t let lack of clarity keep you from the growth you deserve. Schedule a War Room Session with Riches Consulting today.