How not to run a two day strategy session [Boring your people to Death by PowerPoint]

Google

By Gary Peacock

An envelope arrives, a letter inviting you to a two-day strategy session for your department.  What’s your reaction? Based on our experience, you will probably groan. One reason you will groan is too many senior managers think a strategy session means locking you in a room for two days and bombarding you with PowerPoint slides.

“I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had the time to make it shorter.”

Blaise Pascal

When we ask senior managers why they do this? They explain it is vital to make sure the managers create strategy that fits the broader company strategy. And of course we cannot disagree with this objective. However, let’s pause for a moment and ask a question…what is one of the biggest challenges in strategy? The biggest problem is implementing strategy.

If you accept that implementing strategy is often a big problem, then let’s consider another question. To implement strategy better, does the audience need more information or does the audience need more motivation?

In our experience, it’s rare an audience needs more information and it’s common an audience needs more motivation. When we say the audience needs more motivation; they are usually interested in the strategy, but if we bombard them continuously with PowerPoint then the audience are not involved.

Let’s assume as a senior manager you bring along the strategy and all you want is to get the group involved in implementing strategy. How can you do that?

First, create a strategy on a page or on a single slide. When we say a strategy on a page, we don’t mean a page of tiny 8 point text that is unreadable, (at least unreadable without binoculars.) We mean a reasonable amount of text in a readable font, ideally no smaller than 14 point. It takes time to get a strategy on a page. But it will save your employees far more time and will increase the chances your strategy will be implemented successfully.

[ASIDE: Of course, some managers will argue they cannot fit their strategy on a page.  May we diplomatically suggest that perhaps this is not a strategy? It might be an action plan or a list of objectives or something else. But it is not a strategy.

A couple of quick elements that should be part of the strategy:

What will the company not do? What will the company do?

Unfortunately, too many strategies do not clearly define what you will not do. So, some company’s strategy is to satisfy as many kinds of customer in as many ways as possible. But this is not a strategy because it does not give direction to employees and it does not help employees set priorities. That’s enough of an aside, back to the process.]

Second, ask the participants: What are the biggest challenges to implementing your strategy? Get the brains in the room to think about the challenges. Give the participants 30 minutes to work as a table and produce a flip chart answering the question.

Third get them to work as a table and create action plans to overcome the challenges.

A good strategy session should be where the participants spend at least 75% of the time discussing and debating between themselves and at the most 25% listening to the senior manager present.

Do this and you will find you have a motivated and energised group who are ready and willing to implement your strategy. Don’t do this and you will finish with sleepy, goggle-eyed participants with no commitment to your strategy. In business and in strategy, you have choices and consequences.  May you make good choices and enjoy good consequences.

“Nobody ever did, or ever will, escape the consequences of his choices.”

Alfred A. Montapert

For help planning and delivering a motivating strategy session take a look at http://gordianbusiness.com.au/persuading-for-results/ or contact us on +61 (02) 9450 1040 or email gary@gordianbusiness.com.au. We welcome your contribution so please comment below and subscribe to our blog at the top right of the page.

Do you need to Persuade Faster?

Google

By Gary Peacock

During one session with a client, on a flip chart we summarized the pressures acting on their buyer:

1. More Results
2. Less Time
3. More Problems

This client’s buyer was under pressure to produce more results: higher sales and higher margins. The buyer was expected to deliver better results in less time; they wanted results faster. However, the buyer has less personal time to deliver more results because fewer buyers do more work. Finally, they are facing more problems: from outside their business, competitors and governments make their tasks harder and from inside their business, other departments are not cooperating or have different priorities.

Given these three pressures— more results, less time and more problems— our client must find ways to persuade faster. Presenting data in the traditional way would take too long. Without getting the buyer’s attention and action, our client would not get results and the buyer would not get results either. Many businesses face similar challenges. Do you need to persuade faster?

‘We must go fast, because the race is against time.’ Anna Held

Persuading With Data Faster

In some businesses, a critical part of persuasion is to give insights from data: tables and graphs. For many of us Excel, Word and PowerPoint are part of our business life. Anyone can produce a table or chart. Even my teenage daughter regularly produces tables and charts.

Yet, most people just accept what appears from Microsoft or from their data provider. Typically if it looks professional: that will do. However, in business presentations most tables and charts I see are unpersuasive. In many businesses, how to make data persuasive is a neglected competitive advantage.

‘Concentrating on the essentials. We will then be accomplishing the greatest possible results with the effort expended.’ Ted W. Engstrom

Once you see how fast you can persuade with data, you will understand why the companies who know keep it a secret. Also why the companies that know the secrets stand out from the competition?

Try this simple test: take 5 of your slides, show them to a colleague and ask:

1. What are the messages of the five slides
2. Rate the slides on a scale of -10 to +10, where -10 is boring, 0 is neutral and +10 is exciting. 

Then just listen.

•          How fast do they get the messages?
•          How often do they get a different message to the one you intended?
•          Which slides were rated as exciting?

If you want to see a more persuasive version of your data, send us your most boring data slide and we will send back a version that will help you persuade faster, send it to gary@gordianbusiness.com.au.

‘Footprints on the sands of time are not made by sitting down’.  Proverbs

With your best customers, should you Persuade or Negotiate?

When consulting, clients often ask when should I negotiate with my best customers? To answer this question we need to understand the difference between persuasion and negotiation.
By Gary Peacock

Click to read more ...

How do you influence your best customers - part 3

In Part 2 we recommended you should ask one simple question: What business results can we help them achieve? The next challenge for you is to understand who in your customer’s organisation you need to influence.
By Gary Peacock

Click to read more ...

Persuading customers you can’t afford to lose - part 2

By Gary Peacock

In part 1, we suggested identifying your customers you can’t afford to lose by looking at those with the largest sales. Once you have the list of sales by customers, just ensure these really are the customers you can’t afford to lose.

Specifically, check that big sales = big profits, watch out for number of transactions. Sometimes we have large sales but to generate these sales we have to process many purchase orders or many dispatch notes or many invoices. So, if we have two customers that generate $10 million where one customer needs 10 purchase orders and 10 invoices and the other needs 1 million purchase orders and 1 million invoices, these two accounts generate very different profits.

Without getting too complex, generally the customer with the most transactions will be the less profitable. The main point here is to check that big sales = big profits in your organization. This is very important to check, especially if your organization is growing fast. As sales grow, the complexity from large numbers of transactions can kill your profits from your customers.

Once you know who these critical customers are then ask one simple question. What business results can we help them achieve? This is the only thing that matters. Despite the protests of many in your organization it’s not about products and services. If you want to persuade the customers you can’t afford to lose, then you must help them deliver better business results.