• Facilitation of the board retreat for the Associated General Contractor’s which included the integration of a value proposition workshop. The board members emerged from the retreat with an updated strategic plan and an updated value proposition to use with prospects and members - AGC is committed to building your business and image through education, collective advocacy and relationships.

• Facilitation of the Texas Society of Association Executives membership committee strategy meeting. Utilizing Cima’s strategic and tactical membership development model, the committee designed and added more science to the art of membership development . The model helped the committee develop a prospect filter to help prioritize prospects and levels of membership development activities to better allocate time, talent and resources. Now the committee is in “lock-step” and can better answer three fundamental questions – What are we doing? How are we doing it exactly? Why are we doing it this way? This helps increase predictability and lower the labor intensity of membership development.

• Facilitation and delivery of two, three-hour professional development workshops  for the Texas Society of Certified Public Accountants management team retreat, where the team chose the content and participated. The workshops equipped them with the ability to increase their effectiveness with people and sell their ideas with lasting results. 

References Related to the Experiences Listed Above  

Associated General Contractors San Antonio Chapter

Mr. Doug McMurry

Executive Vice President

210-349-4921

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Texas Society of Association Executives

Membership Committee Co-Chair

Mr. Tom Chapman (American Orthodontics Association)

Executive Director

800-448-1601

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Texas Society of Certified Public Accountants

Mr. John Sharbaugh

CEO

972-687-8500

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If you are reading this page, you might be interested in the article I wrote below on the value a Facilitator & Coach brings to your strategic planning meetings. 

 

 

 

 

Are You Aware That 80% of Strategic Plans Are Written and Never Implemented? (Part 1 of 2) Written by Darren Smith

 

How do you shake the staleness out of your strategic planning meeting and improve implementation? This is one of the great "unanswerable questions" in business similar to when a child spills their milk and the parent asks "why did you spill your milk?" Below, in part one, we will begin to shake the staleness out by increasing the efficacy or energy of your strategic planning meeting (SPM) and improving implementation.

Many SPM's are similar in format. For example, participants perform an internal/external scan, GAP or SWOT analysis and set goals and accountabilities. Also, an in-house resource is often used to facilitate and lead the SPM. Unfortunately, this can inject bias through the personal views of the in-house facilitator, their relationship with participants and the omission of their participation as a member of the SPM team. 

What value could a professional facilitator bring to your strategic planning meetings? 

Besides eliminating the chance of the bias mentioned above, the best professional facilitators bring a calculated energy level (generated by a different group dynamic), skilled listening and the ability to direct the focus on the meeting participants.

What value could group coaching skills add to professional facilitation?

The rise of professional group coaching in corporate planning began about five years ago after a McKinsey study discovered that 80% of strategic plans were written and never implemented.  

Even with the best professional facilitation there can be occasions when results-altering information does not come-out during the SPM. Also, there is usually the challenge with follow-through after the SPM is over. This is where a professional facilitator who is also a group coach (facilitator & coach) can help further activate the intent of the SPM by drawing-out additional needed information and improving implementation by applying coaching skills therefore increasing the ROI of the SPM.

In other words a facilitator & coach helps improve implementation:

1. through acute questioning tools which create a more sophisticated and effective meeting process. For example, a group coach knows when, how and why to use an acute question.
2. after actions and accountabilities are determined by the group, the facilitator & coach can support individual participants or the group with follow-through using professional coaching skills. 

In part two, we will look at an example of a strategic planning meeting and show how various acute questioning tools such as sympathetic, conciliatory and leading questions are used to add value to the SPM.