Strategic Planning Retreat

There are many approaches to Strategic Planning out there. Many companies spend exorbitant amounts of time and resources in this area in order to create a thick, dense Strategic Plan so overwhelming it mostly collects dust on a back shelf in the CEO’s office. GLI believes Strategic Planning is both much deeper and much simpler. In truth, it is none other than aligning the company’s priorities, product mix and everyday actions with its mission, vision and core values. GLI has created an intensive process for a company or organization to create a high-quality Strategic Plan in a relatively short time.

With this process, the Strategic Plan becomes a living, breathing document that the company can amend quarterly (or more frequently) so it retains its relevance to the company or organization’s evolving challenges, budgetary constraints, goals and priorities. The Strategic Planning process includes a weekend retreat in which GLI helps the Board and/or Leadership Team to balance its efforts toward achieving two key goals:

1 Creating the vision and timeless values that guide and inspire the company or organization.
2 Creating time-sensitive goals and objectives that the company or organization can use to measure its success.

The process culminates in the design of a one-year Action Plan that includes SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Aligned with the company or organization’s mission and vision, Realistic, and Time-based). The Strategic Planning process that GLI facilitates can be customized by your company or organization.

There are 4 key steps in the sequence that GLI encourages most companies and organizations to follow to create a Strategic Plan:

1 In the two months preceding the Strategic Planning Board retreat, GLI provides the company or organization with a brief questionnaire on its internal strengths and challenges and external opportunities and threats. This questionnaire is completed by employees, customers or clients, key investors or donors, vendors and other partners. In some cases, GLI interviews the company or organization’s primary stakeholders in person or by phone with respect to the company or organization’s internal strengths and challenges and external opportunities and threats, and sends the CEO a summary of its findings to be distributed to all key stakeholders in the Strategic Planning process.
2 GLI facilitates a weekend (usually from Friday night through Sunday mid-day) Strategic Planning Retreat for the Board and/or Leadership Team. At the retreat, the Board/Leadership Team designs the main components of the 3-year Strategic Plan.
3 In the month following the retreat, the CEO and other leadership team members use the Board/Leadership Team input and decisions from the retreat to write up a draft of the Strategic Plan. GLI provides a framework for the CEO and leadership team members to create the Action Plan. The CEO sends GLI a draft of the Strategic Plan and GLI provides relevant feedback on format and content.
4 After discussion and any final amendments, the Board and/or Leadership Team approves the new Strategic Plan during an upcoming board or leadership team meeting or by email.

Contact GLI if you would like us to help you customize
a leadership conference for your company or organization.