5 Tips for better strategic planning meetings

Episode Description

Strategic planning is traditionally a dreaded affair. Days of meaningless corporate speak and internal competition usually fail to result in something inspiring or exciting that a team can get behind.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. In this episode of Finding Gravitas, Jan shares her top five tips on how to break the bygone corporate mold so you’re prepared to authentically lead your next strategic planning meeting.

Episode Summary 

When we think of strategic planning, our mind likely conjures images of dull conference rooms and PowerPoint presentations loaded with meaningless corporate phrases. And then there’s all the politics and the gamesmanship — the atmosphere of competition in the room speaks volumes. 

At the end of the day, you may come away with strategic goals to “improve revenue and profitability” or “diversify your customer portfolio.” But what does that even mean?

“This is supposed to be a strategy meeting, where you're outside of the day-to-day, you're not in the weeds, you're thinking onward and upward. And you're thinking about where to take this company next. That's what strategy meetings are for,” says host and founder of Gravitas Detroit Jan Griffiths.

The truth is, we’re still trying to fit this mold of a bygone corporate age that just doesn’t work. When the people in the room are too afraid to be judged for proposing a potentially great idea, the creativity and innovation we hope will come from strategic planning are subdued.

The automotive industry is never going to meet the lofty goals of moving toward more electric and autonomous vehicles if we keep running strategy meetings like this. “It's time to step up and change this process to imagine what it could look like in an authentic leadership culture,” Jan says. Yes, strategic planning meetings can be rewarding, exciting, and inspiring for you and your team. And they should be.

In this solo episode of Finding Gravitas, Jan shares her five biggest pieces of wisdom for how to improve your approach to strategic planning and rally a team around your goals. 

Themes discussed in this episode: 

• How traditional strategic planning slows innovation
• Choosing an inspiring meeting venue
• Why corporate language doesn’t make you work smarter
• How to rally support around new strategic objectives
• The virtues of “positive accountability” 
• Why you should make time to dream big about future

Featured Expert: Jan Griffiths (Host)

📽️ What she does: Jan is the co-founder and president of Gravitas Detroit, an organization dedicated to cultivating authentic leadership by providing courses, workshops, speaking events, and more. She is also the host of The Automotive Leaders Podcast (formerly, Finding Gravitas Podcast).

Episode Highlights

Timestamped inflection points from the show

[4:32] The grace of Steve Kiefer: The mission of this podcast is to drive a more authentic version of leadership in the automotive industry. Jan’s prior guest, Steve Kiefer of General Motors, embodied that mission by offering his time to come on the show.

[7:52] The dread of strategic planning: None of us look forward to the politics and competition that mark strategic planning. What are the consequences of this competitive environment on yourself and your company?

[11:33] Strategic planning — what is it good for?: Let’s be real: the outcomes of these meetings are often broad strategic projects rife with corporate speak, not the exciting, forward-looking planning we all hope for. It’s time to break that mold and create a process that will actually help us progress. 

[14:17] Go off-site: If you want your team members to feel excited about strategic planning, your everyday conference room is not the place to do it. Find a venue that inspires energy, where you can feel the innovation in the room — not a hotel conference room.

[16:46] Imagine a bright future: YouTube didn’t reach a million views per day until well into its life cycle. Now, it’s our go-to platform for videos. Don’t be afraid to spend the time — yes, unstructured time — imagining what the future could be like.

[18:37] Develop a solid ‘why’: You can’t develop a strong mission and set of objectives — and a rallying cry around those objectives — without a strong ‘why.’

[20:22] Put yourself on the top of the mountain: If you’re going to succeed with your strategic plans, you have to picture what it looks or feels like when you’re there.

[22:22] Get clear: You can’t mobilize your team around your mission with corporate speak because not everybody speaks corporate. Stop trying to fit the mold and keep it simple.

[24:00] Hold yourself accountable: It’s one thing to establish your strategic objectives; now you have to communicate them, rally people around them, and follow through on your promises. Tune into the next episode to learn about how “positive accountability” can help you accomplish that.

Top quotes

[13:44] “In automotive, we talk about EVs and autonomous driving and the fact that we need to change. And we love that California culture, the tech culture. But if we keep running strategy meetings like this, we're never going to get there, we're never going to get the process that we want. It's time to step up and change this process to imagine what it could look like in authentic leadership culture. ” 

[17:16] “We need breakthrough, groundbreaking, moonshot-type ideas in this meeting. We cannot stay in this mold of incremental steps of improvement, 5% improvement on this, 10% improvement on that. No — be bold, think big. Get rid of the constraints in your thinking. Banish the fear in the room, the fear of judgment, and the fear of failure. ”

[21:19] “Wayne Gretzky doesn't play to where the puck is; he plays to where the puck is going to be. But you have to be able to visualize that emotionally, physically, you have to think about it.”

[22:55] “Your mission as a leader is to develop the strategic plans for the company and then mobilize an army around them. And you can't do that with corporate speak, because corporate speak is too vague and not everybody speaks it — they all have different interpretations.”