Often, around May and June, our attention turns to the new financial year and maybe dusting off last year’s strategic plan, or gathering the team and building a new one for the years ahead.

The question is, do you DIY or hire an expert to facilitate?

Today, we excited to introduce one of our associates, James Cuming, who has 20 years experience in the facilitation and design of business strategies which increase the likelihood of being embraced (and more importantly, executed) by teams at the front line.

He shares his three reasons why DIY strategy facilitation may not be the best solution:

1. Professional facilitators are masters of process and bring little in the way of content.
   
   Senior executives on the other hand, know too much about the business and may not have all the tools they need to facilitate a group of leaders.
2. Your strategy needs an independent umpire to marshal the best ideas and help kick other ideas to the kerb.
   
   Unfortunately, senior people come with baggage and biases, often resulting in the best ideas being their own. This can lead to a ‘buy-in deficit’ at the end of the process.
3. While having detail to back them up, the best strategies should be reduced to a single page that can capture the hearts and minds of the team.
   
   Many DIY strategies end up being too bulky and cumbersome, thus making them hard to share, even harder to gain alignment, and really difficult to cascade to the front lines. A professional facilitator will help you cut through the noise and focus on what’s important.

So, before you think it might be cheaper to do it yourself, think what you might be putting at risk, and call a professional. James, and the team at Gram, will assist you to challenge the status quo, elicit fresh perspectives, provide a neutral approach, and deliver a clear and concise organisational strategy.

Until next week…