You built the plan. The team was aligned. The goals made sense. And then the world changed. Revenue dropped. A key leader left. A new regulation reshaped the landscape. The... read more →
Most team brainstorming sessions generate ideas. Very few generate ideas that anyone acts on. The whiteboard fills up. People get energized. The session ends. And then the ideas sit in... read more →
A board retreat is not a leadership offsite with a different name. The dynamics are fundamentally different. And board retreat facilitation that doesn't account for those differences produces a day... read more →
In a recent post, I wrote about why membership growth is a strategy problem — not a marketing problem. The real challenges associations face — generational shifts, industry consolidation, competition... read more →
The gap between knowing how to facilitate and actually doing it is wider than most people expect. You can read every book on facilitation. You can watch videos, study frameworks,... read more →
When to use focus groups, surveys, or town halls — and why most organizations get the sequence wrong. Most organizations start with a survey. It's fast, it's easy, and it... read more →
When we scope a strategic planning engagement with a business, one of the first things we want to understand is where the organization stands on social and environmental issues. Not... read more →
Why the most expensive mistake in strategic planning isn't hiring a facilitator. It's not hiring one. Here's a scenario we hear all the time. An organization decides it's time for... read more →
Last year, we facilitated customer focus groups for a distributor trying to understand why priority customers weren't giving them more business. The company had strong relationships, solid product availability, and... read more →
Over the past 20 years, I've facilitated board retreats, leadership offsites, strategic planning retreats, post-crisis regrouping sessions — across every sector. Some of them transformed how organizations operated. Others felt... read more →