Strategy
6 min read
Why most strategy offsites produce nothing
Two days in a hotel, forty slides and a photo of the team. Six weeks later nothing has changed. The problem is almost never the thinking.
The offsite itself is usually fine. Smart people, decent facilitation, a genuine attempt to think past next quarter. The slides that come out of it are often rather good.
What is missing is everything that was supposed to happen in the three weeks afterwards.
Agreement is not the same as commitment
A room can agree on a direction without a single person accepting responsibility for a decision. Agreement is comfortable — it costs nothing and it survives contact with no one. Commitment means a named individual has accepted a dated outcome and understands what they are giving up in order to deliver it.
If the output of your offsite does not contain the words “we will stop”, it was a brainstorm.
Sequence beats ambition
Most plans fail on capacity rather than intent. Eleven priorities is functionally the same as none. Choose three, sequence the rest explicitly behind them, and be honest that the fourth item will not start until March.
The measure of a good strategy session is not what the team decided to do. It is what they agreed to stop.
Build the rhythm before you leave the room
Before anyone packs up, fix the review cadence: who meets, how often, and what evidence they are expected to bring. A monthly hour with real numbers will outperform a brilliant strategy document every time.
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If any of this sounds like your business, a short conversation is usually the fastest way to find out what is really going on.