Collaboration Above the Fray: Designing Strategic Conversations that Matter

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s t r at e g y

Lisa Kay Solomon, Adjunct Professor, California College of The Arts

Chris Ertel, Partner, Monitor Group (Doblin innovation practice), San Francisco

Most strategic conversations fall under one of three catego-ries: building understanding, shaping choices, and gaining alignment/making decisions. Better design tools can help managers make these conver-sations more successful.

39© 2012 The Design Management Institute

compromise. This process worked, in a way, but allowed little space for the big strategic issues, resulted in in-cremental changes, and left everyone dissatisfied.

In this situation, the CMO faced several challenges at once: a competi-tive challenge, an analytic challenge, a foresight challenge, a political chal-lenge, a leadership challenge, a learn-ing challenge—and more—all rolled into one.

Meanwhile, social networking campaigns—after being hyped for years—were now seriously competing with traditional advertising channels for resources. The CMO needed to make some big decisions at a time of budget constraints and moving targets.

In prior years, the CMO had collected individual budgets from each division—which were inevitably too high—and then tried to strike a

The chief marketing officer (CMO) of a large, diversified consumer electronics company knew he had to change the process for allocating marketing spend across four differ-ent product divisions, but he wasn’t sure how.

The market landscape was shifting dramatically along several dimensions. People were moving their online and media lives to tablets and mobile phones faster than expected.

Collaboration Above the Fray: Designing Strategic Conversations that Matter by Chris Ertel and Lisa Kay Solomon

Design Collaboration

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conversations are “okay”—in other words, not very effective, but not a total disaster either. Most of the time they are grateful to be done with the all-day meeting and glad to get back to their “real” work.

The cost of okay strategic con-versations, though hard to calculate, must be high. In some settings, direct costs can run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Okay strategic conversations can also undermine

confidence in leadership, creating confusion and frustration among partici-pants. Over time, they can result in bad decisions that cost the organization money, jobs, or even its future. You

have to wonder what kind of strategic conversations they had at Blockbuster as their customers ran away in droves.

Strategic conversations are becoming more important and more difficult. The days of steady-as-you-go strategic planning are over for most organizations, replaced by the realities of VUCA world—a nonstop environment of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. Under such conditions, it is nearly impos-sible for any one senior executive (or small executive team) to come up with all the right answers alone. And, even if they could, they still need to convince others who weren’t involved

people over a day or more. We are focused on these events because they represent significant investments of time and resources and because they can be powerful accelerators for change in the life of any organization, when done well.

The art of crafting effective stra-tegic conversations is a little-known, yet high-impact, subfield of learning experience design. Few organizational leaders or professional designers are

well versed in this discipline, though many designers would no doubt excel at it, given the opportunity to apply their skills to this context.

Over the past 15 years, we have designed well over 100 high-stakes strategic conversations for leaders and teams in a wide range of situations. During this time, we have built a set of core design principles and tools that can dramatically increase the ef-fectiveness of strategic conversations.

Most strategic conversations are “okay”—and that’s not okay

From our experience and research, participants report that most strategic

But is it a design challenge? We believe it is—strongly—and

here’s why. Addressing a systemic challenge like this one requires truly collaborative strategic conversations among colleagues with different per-spectives. They require conversations that can get above the fray of daily concerns and narrow self-interest (and group interest) to focus on longer-term priorities and collective purpose.

Yet getting the most out of strategic conversa-tions is not just a matter of good facilitation in the room—important as that is. To a large degree, it depends on creating the right context and experience for col-laboration before the session begins. It depends on creating a total experi-ence that addresses the psychological and emotional journey of the partici-pants, and not just the substance of the issues.

What is a strategic conversation?

We define a strategic conversation as any conversation between two or more people that has the potential to shape the future direction of an organization. Our work focuses on an important subset of these discus-sions—strategic conversations in a workshop setting with 10 or more

We define a strategic conversation as any conversation between two or more people that has the potential to shape

the future direction of an organization.

Collaboration above the Fray : Designing strategic Conversat ions that M atter

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it in its next larger context,” goes the famous quote by Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen, “a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an en-vironment, an environment in a city plan.” In this spirit, a well-designed strategic conversation takes a much broader approach to the content and the experience than does your garden-variety meeting.

In Figure 1, we call out some of the key elements involved in a well-designed strategic conversation—in contrast with a well-organized meet-ing. Although these elements may appear common-sensical, it’s not easy to cover them all well in designing and executing one workshop. Doing so requires deep prep work, which

of successful cases, we find there are five high-level design principles that drive all great strategic conversations:

1. A clear purpose, seen as a from/to journey (not just bullet point objectives)

2. Deep empathy for the par-ticipants and stakeholders as individuals (not just roles) and as users of the process

3. Skillful framing of content around future choices

4. Follow-through to action built into the program

5 A total experience that inte-grates all the above

“Always design a thing by considering

in the process to support the plan with energy.

Leaders today thus face a tough dilemma. They need to develop effec-tive strategies under uncertain condi-tions while engaging more people with different perspectives more effectively in the process—and do it all faster, too.

Critical elements of a well-designed strategic conversation

Designing a strategic conversation is not to be confused with organizing a meeting. Most competent profession-als know how to convene a well-orga-nized meeting; far fewer can pull off an effective strategic conversation.

After reviewing a large number

Clear objective(s) established, in bullet-point form Clear purpose established, as a “from/to journey”

The “right people” are in the room

Participants well briefed in advance to manage expectations

Participants beyond “the usual suspects” are included to ensure diverse perspectives

Participants interviewed in advance to understand their perspectives

Purpose

Setting

Agenda

Content

Participants

Well DesignedWell Organized

Key topics well covered in detailed presentations Presentations tell a story—don’t just present facts

Key topics well framed around future choices

Logical sequence of topics and activities Integrated, high-engagement experience designed around a “from/to journey”

Offsite venue enables people to get away from their day jobs

All elements of the physical and psychological experience support the purpose—including room setup, visual artifacts, and aesthetics

Figure 1: Key Elements for a Well-Designed Strategic Conversation


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takes time and effort. Setting the objectives is a critical

first step. In reality, there are just three high-level objectives around which you can design a strategic conversa-tion: (1) building understanding, (2) shaping options, and (3) making deci-sions. Underneath these three broad buckets sit a total of 11 “journey spaces,” which are shown in Figure 2. Together, these spaces make up a clas-sic funnel of progress, from divergent exploration through final decisions (and any specific strategic conversa-tion can only cover a few of these).

Designing an effective strategic conversation starts with choosing a clear subset of these spaces and con-structing a customized journey this specific group of people needs to take together at this time.

What “good” looks like: three brief examples

Below, we share three brief examples of well-designed strategic conversa-tions—one from each high-level objective bucket—along with the key choices that made them successful.

Building Understanding: The De LaSalle Christian Brothers

The De LaSalle Christian Broth-ers are the second-largest teaching order in the Catholic Church, with educational works in more than 80 countries. In the early 2000s, the Dis-trict of Australia, New Zealand, and Papua New Guinea (as in many other locations) experienced a decline in the Brotherhood, driven by retirements of aging Brothers and a shortage of new vocations. Their challenge was to embrace a shift to lay leadership—or face inevitable decline in the scope of their good works.

The critical design choices in this case were to (1) show a tough documentary film, near the beginning of the program, about the closing of an order of nuns that had failed to address similar issues in a timely way (empathy), (2) run a simula-tion game in which participants were required to play out the next 10 years of expected leadership retirements in half a day, making decisions about which institutions to close or merge

(framing and experience), and (3) engage in a candid dialogue with a select group of lay leaders about the personal and professional dimensions of the changes that would be required (follow-through).

The result of this powerful ses-sion was that it laid the foundation for the District to begin restructuring its operations sooner rather than later, and to accelerate development efforts for a gradual transition to lay leader-ship.

Shaping Options: The Library of Congress

The Library of Congress is entrusted with preserving and making accessible the vast cultural and knowledge base of the nation for its citizens. Increas-ingly, this content is created in digital form, requiring new approaches to curation and preservation. (How, for example, do you preserve today’s World Wide Web for the future?) Moreover, it was clear that the Library could not solve this problem alone. It needed to create a national plan for digital preservation that would engage a wide range of stake-holders in distributed yet coordinated action over time.

A number of design choices were made for a series of workshops with key stakeholders from major technol-ogy, media, and cultural institutions,

Building Understanding

1. Diagnose Problems 2. Get Unstuck 3. Explore issues 4. Prioritize Issues 5. Establish purpose

Shaping Choices

6. Generate options 7. Prioritize options 8. Develop options

Making Decisions

9. Evaluate options 10. Make decisions 11. Plan for action

Figure 2: The Eleven “Journey Spaces” of a Strategic Conversation


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including, (1) create three distinct scenarios, or visions, of the poten-tial endgame of a new preservation regime to clarify and frame future choices (framing), (2) provide a prototype of the high-level archi-tecture for the emerging system for participants to critique and improve together (framing and experience), and (3) end each workshop by pro-totyping collaborative projects among participants (follow-through).

The resulting master plan (National Plan for Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program) was approved by Congress in 2003 and has supported steady progress on this complex challenge ever since.

Making Decisions: Large consumer electronics company

Finally, we return to our opening sto-ry, in which the consumer electronics company faced difficult choices about marketing investments across differ-ent product categories. The CMO’s goal was to craft a budget responsive to shifting market dynamics exter-nally while also politically acceptable internally.

The CMO decided to convene the leadership teams from the four divisions and—in just one day—have them wrestle with the total budget

together. The goal was to require division leaders to confront the real trade-offs involved—and the CMO and his team to be more transparent about their decisions.

Sounds like a great idea—but a risky one, too. Unless well handled, a collaborative approach to budget-ing could spark a political mess. Well aware of the risks, the CMO de-

cided to take the gamble because the company needed the best thinking of their top players focused on their collective self-interest. They needed to get above the fray, if just for a day. But how?

The critical design choices in this case were to (1) immerse the participants in data (quantitative and qualitative) on the current state of flux in the technology platforms and marketing channels in order to high-light the very real uncertainties in play (framing and experience), (2) estab-lish clear, neutral criteria for allocating marketing spend across the platforms and channels (framing), and (3) mix the teams up in a budgeting exercise so that a combination of players from

all four divisions created the plan and business case for each division, working from the established criteria (empathy and experience).

The result was that this work-shop group was able—in just one day—to bring the four combined investment requests closer to the total budget, making the CMO’s job easier—and more effective.

In each of the above cases, success turned on a few critical design choices to accelerate progress on the journey that group of participants needed to take at that time. Great experi-ence design enabled the par-

ticipants to get above the fray of their daily challenges and focus more on their collective, longer-term interests.

What “bad” looks like: six common mistakes

In our research, we’ve also collected a host of stories about failed strategic conversations. Along the way, we’ve heard about the myriad ways conve-ners get strategic conversation wrong, wasting time and resources.

Here are six common mistakes that annoy participants most—all of which come from failing to ap-proach a strategic conversation from the user’s perspective. Designers will likely recognize these from work in more traditional design practices.

In our research, we’ve also collected a host of stories about failed strategic conversations.


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deepen their understanding of important issues, and have little use for garbage-in, garbage-out brainstorms, voting exercises, and the like.

Mistake #5: Failing to be explicit about decision rights. Hosts of strategic conversations are

often reluctant to declare how the ultimate deci-sions will be made and by whom. Failure to be explicit on this important point invites distrust. Most participants know if they have decision rights

or not, and just want leaders to be upfront with them.

Mistake #6: Using group time for work that should be done offline. Nothing makes busy pro-fessionals crack open their lap-tops faster than tying up costly group time on issues that should be handled by individuals—or a small subset of the group—of-fline. Participants want to have their time used well.

All of these mistakes (and more) are painfully common and explain why participants are so often disappointed in strategic conversations. Managers who fall victim to these pitfalls aren’t trying to annoy their colleagues; they

building understanding, shaping choices, or making decisions. A common mistake—especially in our time-pressed era—is to design a workshop around two or more high-level objectives at the same time. While our context is accelerating, however, our ability as humans to build alignment

is not. Participants need time to internalize the progress they’ve made on one big objective before moving on to the next one.

Mistake #4: Pushing a group to do work it is not prepared for. As with Mistake #3, impatient managers often convene a ses-sion by assuming that a group is farther along than it really is on a given topic. For example, they ask participants to start brainstorm-ing options before they under-stand the issues and content at hand. Or they ask participants to start evaluating options before thinking through their full implications. Participants expect a strategic conversation to

Mistake #1: Setting vague objec-tives. Here’s one way to convene a strategic conversation: “We just want to get people together and hear what they think about (issue x).” Most of the time, this is not a great reason to bring people together, and it leads to cynicism around group work. Participants expect to hear what, specifically, they are being asked to accom-plish at a session.

Mistake #2: Engaging in “fake participa-tion.” Here’s another phrase that we often hear: “We want people to feel as if they’ve been heard.” This is even worse than Mistake #1 because, too often, the host’s intent is give the impression that leadership is listening rather than to actually listen (a subtle but crucial dis-tinction). In most organizations, participants would rather spend the day getting real work done than attend a feel-good session like this.

Mistake #3: Trying to do too much at one session. As a rule of thumb, most strategic con-versations can only tackle one high-level objective at a time—that is, they can either focus on

All of these mistakes (and more) are painfully common and explain why

participants are so often disappointed in strategic conversations.


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conversations alone cannot solve everything; strong follow-through and execution are also critical. And better tools alone are no substitute for years of experience. Still, there are far too many important strategic conversa-tions happening every day that are just okay, or worse—at a tremendous cost.

Well-designed strategic conversa-tions can be powerful leverage points in accelerating the transformations most needed to shape the future. We are confident that, armed with better design principles and tools, any manager can create and lead bet-ter strategic conversations now—to the benefit of our organizations and society at large. n Reprint #12231SOL38

designers to go around. The growing interest in design

today presents both an opportu-nity and a challenge. For the design profession to channel the current buzz into real-world impact requires enabling nondesigners to develop design capabilities. Indeed, there have been a number of recent efforts to create user-friendly design toolkits to address important challenges—espe-cially in areas where trained design talent is scarce, such as in less-devel-oped economies.

We are on a similar mission in designing for scale—to deliver the single, most useful resource that will enable managers and leaders anywhere to design great strategic conversations.

We know that great strategic

simply lack the awareness, skills, or confidence needed to design effective strategic conversations.

empowering managers to design better strategic conversations

The number of people with deep experience and skills in designing great strategic conversations is small. Yet high-stakes strategic conversa-tions happen somewhere every day. What’s needed is a way for managers with good intent and aptitude—but limited skills in experience design—to raise their game quickly and to get better with practice.

If this situation sounds familiar to designers, it should. There are so many areas where design thinking more generally can make a difference in peoples’ lives, yet too few skilled

by Will Ayres & Scott Lerman

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Collaboration Above the Fray: Designing Strategic Conversations that Matter