The Lauridsen Group Courses and Retreats The Vision Retreat Implementing Your Strategy: Alignment, Integration and Accountability Committed Communication: The Basic Tools to Succeed as a Manager Effective Leading and Managing The Vision Retreat "One person looks at a pile of coffee beans and sees a good cup of coffee. Another looks at the same sight and dreams of a national chain of coffee houses." Burt Nanus, Ph.D., in Visionary Leadership. Since human behavior in organizations is very much shaped by a shared vision of the future, developing and promulgating such a vision may well be the "highest calling and truest purpose of leadership." While many leaders have single-handedly developed their own visions and successfully used them to drive decision making in their organizations, experience suggests that involving others in the visioning process can realize greater gains. Advantages of the Group Process: Once an organization has been operating for some time or has reached a certain size, there are strong reasons for involving other people in the search for a new vision. Some of these reasons are listed below: A group approach ensures that the resulting vision incorporates a broad range of viewpoints and expertise. A participative process allows the ideas of individuals to be tested, argued, amplified, and refined by the arguments of others. Involving executives in the search for a shared vision makes it easier to gain commitment to the vision. There are team building benefits when managers share their values and dreams. The search for a shared vision often broadens everyone's understanding of the enterprise and the challenges and opportunities that are likely to face it in the future. Dealing with alternative future assumptions, an important aspect of such retreats is a creative, mind-stretching exercise that helps to break with prevailing pressures for "business-as-usual." Purpose and Goals Corporations have asked us to lead vision retreats for a number of reasons, including some of the following: Organizational Transformation: Significantly alter or transform the organization into a new thriving entity. To renew, energize or revitalize an organization that is already on the correct path. To examine, revise and update or gain support for an existing vision. Starting Strategic Planning: To reach consensus on a vision statement in order to initiate and drive a new cycle of the strategic planning process. Management Development: Use the process to sensitize managers to emerging issues, to enhance creativity and risk taking, or to improve the ability of leaders to set direction in their own areas. Leader Team Building: To enhance mutual understanding, cooperation, synergy and/or teamwork among top executives. New Leader Orientation: To help the new leader quickly transition by learning about the organization's key people, culture and values. The Program: The vision program is tailored to the particular intentions, budget, organizational culture and other circumstances of each client. The following is a general model that is logical, systematic, well tested and effective, which can be modified according to specific needs as noted above. The Vision Retreat comes with Dr. Nanus' book Visionary Leadership and a participant's guide with structured exercises and assignments Day 1 Context Setting: roles, process, and purpose Vision Audit #1: Current mission and purpose of organization Vision Audit #2: Values, institutional framework, and critical success factors. Vision Audit #3: Culture, strengths/weakness, current strategy and vision Vision Scope: Stakeholders, threats and opportunities. Assignments for next day Day 2 Vision Scope: Group discussion vision, purpose, and boundaries Vision Context #1: Future needs and wants Vision Context #2: Changes in stakeholders, economic and social environments Vision Contest #3: Future changes in political, technological and other environments. Probability Assessment of Future Developments Identification of Themes for Scenarios of Future Environments Candidate Vision Statements: Identification of "first impression" vision statements. Summary, results, next steps and conclusion. This program has been delivered to over fifty Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 corporations. Top Implementing Your Strategy: Alignment, Integration and Accountability Whether the concern is quality, customer focus, productivity, cycle time or cost, the underlying issue is performance. If you see a need for your company and top managers to get aligned or realigned, integrated, committed and accountable, consider this program. In this program we take you and your e-team step by step through each of the nine variables we claim the CEO must manage to ensure success of her or his company. When these variables are successfully addressed the CEO and the e-team will have: A strategy written in terms of organization wide goals and measures. An organization structure and design that will support accomplishment of these goals. Clear deliverables/commitments from each of your e-team members and the resources they need in order to produce. You are clear what the e-team as a whole is committing to accomplish. All major processes are defined, owned and managed. Goals for lower level managers and key contributors are clear, owned and managed to meet organization wide goals. Variable #1 Strategy to Organizational Goals This variable is fairly straight forward in that CEOs know that they must set organizational level goals. Surprisingly, however, as consultants we never assume the e-team is clear and aligned on the goals. Often we find that strategy has not been formulated in operational or measurable terms, leaving too much room for misinterpretation. Result: In this section we work to assure that the organizational goals you have committed to achieving for yourself and your board are fully understood by each of your e-team members. You have ascertained that your e-team members fully understand and agree upon the importance and priority of those goals. You have handled their concerns about whether they can in fact deliver and you have the resources required to support delivery. They have committed to the overall corporate goals, including the priority of each goal. You will have a strategy that is reduced to annual goals/measures that have been defined, articulated and communicated. . Variable #2: Organizational Design/Architecture In order to determine whether your organizational design or architecture will support the accomplishment of the corporate goals determined above, we will lead you and your team through a series of questions that reveal potential breakdowns or obstacles to productivity, as well as what is in place and working. Results: You will have a clear understanding of areas that need to be addressed to support your company fulfilling on its commitments to shareholders. Variable #3: Managing at the Organizational Levels Organization level goals have been clearly articulated, communicated to your managers and you have secured their requirements for delivering their sub goals. Variable #3 is securing their commitments and managing these at the organizational level. In this section we take you through a process for actively managing goals, performance, resources, and interfaces of your VPs. We will work with: Delegation and Commitment Creating functional sub goals with commitments from your VPs that support the achievement of the organization wide goals Performance: Commitments tracked/monitored, supporting your VPs, confronting urgent issues or concerns with your VPs, Operating Guidelines determined and buy-in accomplished, checking to see that functional leaders are obtaining regular customer feedback from process owners regarding the leaders commitments and delivery, and with the help of your board, resetting corporate level goals so that the organization is continually adapting to external and internal reality? Resource Management: Balancing the allocation of people, equipment and budget across the system. Interface Management (Integration): Ensuring that various functions are cooperating/collaborating when they are interdependent (customer supplier relationships)? Key Point: Clear Goals, Design and Management processes at the organizational level are the context or driver of human and system performance Following the above three sections, we will lead the team through a similar set of steps (variables 4-9) to address Processes and Individual/Job level of management. The promise we make regarding this program, which includes ongoing follow-up with each leader, is that you will have an aligned, integrated, committed e-team that is ready to deliver on its commitments. We encourage you to read our Article, CEO/Board Member Briefing: Implementing Your Strategy for background to this course. Top Committed Communication: The Basic Tools to Succeed as a Manager A successful career for many professionals follows a definite, though sometimes twisting, upward path. more info >>> Top Effective Leading and Managing To Come For more information or support growing your company we can be reached at roblaur@lauridsengroup.com or www.lauridsengroup.com or call us at 408 395-9541. Return To Top
The Effective Leading and Managing sessions were customized (versus canned) so that we had some control of topics, when they would be delivered, and that they fit our need in a timely manner. The small group sessions with the managers in which we addressed a particular problem, were especially helpful. Several people mentioned the Moods and Emotions sessions and Performance Recognition as extremely helpful. "I've used concepts from these classes daily"
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