Advice

Strategy today can no longer be made in the board room or by top management alone. It requires the active engagement of those who will be responsible for executing it as well. In a Strategy Jam session, these people create executable strategy together.

Strategy today cannot take months or wait on extensive analysis. The speed of change makes it essential that the cycle time between strategy generation and execution is short. Therefore, during a Strategy Jam session, we co-create strategy instantly, on the spot.

Strategy today cannot remain abstract and mainly inspirational. This too often leads to strategies that sound nice but are hard to implement. A Strategy Jam session is therefore focused on generating concrete and actionable outcomes.

A typical Strategy Jam session lasts half a day, involves 10-15 of your key people and takes place at your organization. Together, these people are assumed to have all relevant knowledge and experience so that everyone and everything needed for strategy making is present.

During a session we work on your strategy in a piece-by-piece manner. Along the line of the Strategy Sketch and the Organizational Map, we start with an interactive dialogue to create a shared understanding of the status quo—including its problems and opportunities.

From thereon and once everyone is on the same page, we gradually move from the status quo to a new or improved strategy. Also this is done through an interactive dialogue involving everyone present.

The number of sessions obviously depends on the complexity of the issues at stake. But in all cases, the focus is on generating actionable and committed outcomes. I moderate, you play and together we perform.

No matter how strong and confident a leader you are, sometimes you face challenges for which you want guidance by an expert you can trust. You need to set out a new direction, you like to get confirmation that you are on the right track, or you just want an extra pair of eyes to have a look. For those challenges I offer strategic guidance to leaders and teams.

I don’t pretend I have all answers. After all, you and your team are the experts in your line of business. But with my expertise in strategy and management and with the support of a variety of insightful tools, I help creating and finding the answers together.

A key requirement for effective strategic guidance is that there is mutual trust and transparency. Therefore, the first thing we do is getting to know each other a bit. Thereafter, we decide together whether and how we will proceed.

I offer two varieties of strategic guidance: temporary and continuous engagements. With a temporary engagement I help you find an answer to a particular issue or question that you have. Such engagements typically range from a few weeks to a few months.

Ongoing engagements are usually less focused and more driven by questions and general strategic support throughout the year. In such engagement I typically play a role as an informal, parttime board member, advisor or sparring partner, supporting you with any issues that come up.

I start my engagements with one or two meetings to get to know each other and discuss your questions, issues and ambitions. After that I prepare a draft engagement plan so that we both know what we intend to do together. Once working together, this plan is likely to change based on new insights, but it serves as a good point of reference so that we all know what we deviate from and why.

While the details of our engagement will depend on your particular situation, I often talk to a variety of people throughout your organization to hear their view on problems and solutions. Based on this information I then prepare a brief and to-the-point “Mirror Report”, containing my observations and reflections. From thereon we decide together on next steps.

While working together, I will be as direct and straightforward as circumstances allow. This means our meetings can sometimes be a bit discomforting. I do this with the best of all intentions, because my primary intention is to help your organization, whatever it takes. This means that, if I see problems, I will address them explicitly. And then help solving them.