Keep calm and carry on learning together
After writing about ways to come up with a company vision and strategy, giving 5 simple steps to execute your company strategy and sharing a model that enables your successful strategy execution called Obeya, next stop is reiterating on the principle of Continuous Improvement as a mindset.
If you are lucky, there will be some structures and practices in your organisation and you will have a great strategy, you will be writing your Objectives and Key Results every three to six months, maybe you will even have an Obeya. In that sense, the Continuous Improvement cycle will be integrated in your way of working as well. At the same time if you are not in a position to have those, to the very minimum make sure that you stop and reflect at the end of each quarter. You can do that on any level: gather your team members, the leadership team in your department or the Exco for a Review, Strategy Day, Strategy half day. What's in the name? I have facilitated many of those and those are the steps I would recommend for you to consider:
Review your past quarter:
What is the data showing you? How could you interpret it?
If you have set goals or OKRs, review how far you were able to achieve them.
What projects have you been able to work on and complete?
What is the atmosphere and engagement in your team/ department?
What was easy/ difficult?
What would you like to celebrate?
What have you learned
What would you like to do differently?
Consider the present context:
What is the present reality? Is your strategy still supporting your vision and serves you having in mind the current situation, internal and external challenges that you may be facing: e.g. competition, economic reality, transformation etc.?
Is there anything that needs to be adapted?
Plan your future:
Considering your learnings from the past and considering your present situation, what goals would you like to set yourself up: think big, be bold and ambitious and yet realistic. Think about what will make you go out of your comfort zone and stretch you instead of what will exhaust you.
Once you have clarity on your goals, make sure you plan around your quarter based on your goals. What are the actions and projects that you need to put in place in order to achieve your goals that will contribute to the successful execution of your strategy?
Have fun:
These kinds of events can be a great way to build trust and to bond with your team. Organise a couple of quick exercises/ energisers to get to know each other better which will contribute longer term toward better team collaboration and will help you get through the day
Have lunch together and/or a drink after the event, a walk in the park maybe…
Still having doubts about it?! This is what Bernardo, a Senior Data Analyst, has shared after experiencing one of those strategy days: “Vanya has put in place and ran insightful team strategy days to help define the year roadmap, conducted effective retrospectives to evaluate the success of each sprint, and facilitated engaging focus and brainstorming groups, keeping the team together and making us all feel part of the same thing with the same goal.”
Keep calm and carry on learning together! 🙂
