Strategy and Management Workshops: Effective into the Future
- How do we set the course for our future orientation and start the new year with a clear focus?
- How do we design and communicate change projects?
- How do we continue to develop as a management team?
Retreats and workshops are effective formats for delving deeper into certain topics, realigning the management team, developing strategies, and reflecting on larger issues. The way they contribute to the further development of cooperation in management, exchanging feedback, dealing with conflict and improving mutual understanding is at least equally important.
Topics that would go beyond the scope and logics of efficiency of classic meetings and workshops on site and also benefit from the deliberate change of venue and setting.
Many management teams go on retreats at least once a year and combine the content-related work there with the further development of their cooperation culture - which has a positive impact on day-to-day business above and beyond content-related results.
For managers who take on the role of facilitator in addition to their content-related topic, it can be a great challenge to integrate all the participants in this situation, to manage the group dynamics and to continue to work on the actual content in a goal-oriented manner. External facilitation and process design makes it possible to focus one's full attention and energy on the goals and content and to concentrate on the dialog. For us, facilitation means focusing on the goals defined in the assignment and providing optimal support through the way the process is designed. 5P facilitators use effective and creative formats, maintain the spotlight on the topics and keep an eye on the energy and dynamics in the group. They act as precise observers as well as feedback providers and provide inspiration to leave entrenched ways of thinking behind or to open up new perspectives.
Our range of services
Strategy retreats
- Reflection and further development of purpose and mission
- Forming of opinions on future business areas
- Discussion of strategic analyses, development of strategic options and decisions
- Developing, evaluating and optimising strategic goals and measures
- Improving mutual understanding of functional sub-strategies - and leveraging synergies
- Encouraging active participation in decision-making and opinion-forming processes
Personnel strategy workshop
- Shared understanding of the current situation, strategic personnel requirements and challenges of the labor market based on pre-prepared analyses
- Reflection, adaptation of an employer value proposition (“What kind of employer do we want to be?”)
- Development of personnel strategy principles, goals and priorities
- Formation of opinions on strategic priorities and measures, e.g. in the areas of employer branding, recruiting, succession, talent and career management, leadership development, re-skilling & upskilling, performance management, nearshoring.
Leadership convention
- Reflection on leadership culture and quality
- Development or adaptation of leadership principles, leadership competencies, standards
- Development of pre-identified priorities, e.g. in the areas of improving agility, organising new work, increasing commitment, promoting resilience and health, change management.
Large group workshop
- Establishing a common understanding - about shared leadership standards, new performance, competence or talent management tools, dealing with flexibility in terms of time and space, etc.
- Achieving commitment and increasing competence to implement this understanding, working on concrete application cases and training relevant sequences.
Annual planning retreats
- Reflection on the past year
- Review of long-term focus
- Agreement on annual priorities
- Development of annual roadmap
Workshop on management team development
- Reflection on and improvement of cooperation
- Gaining a deeper understanding of differences and common ground, ideally on the basis of reflection tools applied beforehand
- Mutual feedback
- Optimisation of cooperation in everyday life, in meetings, in personal and virtual dialog, in providing information, forming opinions and making decisions
Retreat to resolve conflicts in the management team
- Collection of topics and perspectives in advance through interviews, supplemented and discussed in the retreat
- Review of past conflicts with the goal of mutual understanding of different perspectives
- Future-oriented exchange of expectations and joint development of ideas for solutions
- Agreement on the topics and future dialog as a basis for dealing constructively with conflicts
Approach: From the topic to the effective workshop architecture
1. Preparation and clarification of goals and mission
We start with your goals and concerns and define what you as the client want to achieve, which topics and messages you want to communicate, or what social and emotional impact you want to make.
2. Interviews and preparatory analyses
We look at the background and the general framework and try to clarify the topics in advance with the participants in order to dock onto your specific topic. In addition, it is useful to summarize or supplement existing analyses and facts in order to provide as good a basis as possible for forming opinions and making decisions. On the personal level, supplementary reflection tools such as a team role analysis can be helpful.
3. Detailed concept
Using this as a basis, we develop a detailed concept for you or together with you. This describes the supportive setting we recommend, the specific procedure, the dramaturgy, the roles/tasks and the logistics of the event. We agree on the procedure, target results and logistics with you. Upon request, we coach you on your own inputs or facilitative contributions and prepare you for your role.
4. Invitation and preparation of the participants
When inviting the participants, it may be useful to define preparatory tasks that support engagement and effective work in the workshop. If required, we also can create tasks for the time leading up to the event including online impulses, nuggets, or instructions for preparatory tasks.
5. Offsite retreat / Workshop
During implementation, 5P facilitators use a wide repertoire, which they apply flexibly depending on the situation and topic: Methods from classic strategy facilitation, agile methods, large group methods, interview and feedback techniques, reflection methods, analog and experiential methods, visualization techniques, integration of training elements, voting tools or content inputs. In the workshop, we ensure targeted documentation of the results, possibly supplemented by visual facilitation or videos, and plan sufficient time for coordination and preparation of the implementation.
6. Follow-up process
The follow-up process is designed based on the agreements arrived at during the workshop. Depending on the topic, group and internal resources, 5P provides support as needed, e.g., through facilitation of follow-up meetings, transfer workshops, individual coaching, focused facilitation or mediation in small groups, online surveys for evaluation and transfer support.