The Executive Guide to Facilitating Strategy

by Michael Wilkinson

STOP WASTING TIME DEVELOPING STRATEGIC PLANS THAT DON’T GET IMPLEMENTED!Far too often, people experience strategic planning as a wasted activity—painful, unproductive, and irrelevant to the issues at hand. And once planning is done, the product usually gets put on a shelf, never to be looked at again. The Executive Guide to Facilitating Strategy delivers the Drivers Model, a powerful tool to help you facilitate your organization through the development of a strategic plan from start to finish, whether you lead a corporation, government agency, non-profit organization, business unit, department, or team. The Drivers Model is a simple but dynamic process that covers the seven key principles for masterful planning, from thoroughly identifying critical issues to establishing a rigorous process for driving successful implementation. You’ll also discover –• The 10 common planning pitfalls and how to avoid them;• How to facilitate your team through mission and vision creation;• Strategies for setting measurable targets and deciding priorities;• How to use critical success factors and barriers to focus your plan;• Techniques for moving your values from a plaque on the wall to serving as a guide for decision-making every day; and• A process for monitoring progress and promoting positive accountability.The book is chock-full of tools and techniques and includes over 400 examples of mission statements, goals, guiding principles, strategies, agendas, and process checklists. Experienced practitioners will especially like the quality checks included for each component of the plan so that you can be sure that what you create is effective and thorough. In summary, The Executive Guide to Facilitating Strategy guides you in your role as an effective facilitator of change by providing you a proven framework that you can use immediately in just about any kind of planning you may need to do.Early Praise for The Effective Guide to Facilitating Strategy“Great facilitation produces real commitment to solving problems and to advancing your organization. That’s why we put special emphasis on the Drivers Model as we train our next generation of leaders. This book is like having an executive MBA program in facilitating strategy at your disposal. Michael Wilkinson is a master facilitator and a world-class teacher.”—Mark O’Connell, Director, Advanced Leadership Program, United Way Movement “As the leading CEO membership organization in the world, we know firsthand that when it comes to meeting tough challenges or realizing high aspirations for your business, a solid strategic framework is an invaluable asset. The Drivers Model will get you where you want to go!”—Ruby L. Randall, President and Chief Operating Officer, Vistage International, Inc. “Michael Wilkinson provides a refreshing and systematic way of approaching the critical and painful task of defining our strategies. His latest book zeroes in on an oft-overlooked aspect of strategy development—the leader’s role. It is mandatory reading for my strategy team.”—Steve Bushkuhl, Downstream Chief of Staff, Saudi Aramco “I’ve used the Drivers Model in my role as the chief human resources officer for two organizations. Whether you’re in an established Fortune 500 company, an entrepreneurial startup, an organization experiencing a major turn-around or a high growth business, this executive guide provides a road map for developing an effective strategic plan while building the alignment and commitment needed for successful execution.

Genres: Leadership

366 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 3, 2011

Reviews

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's difficult for me to write a review of this book.

First, the author's style was direct, and he exercised an intense focus on the practitioner implementing a strategic planning process. For that, I was appreciative. This book appeared on the syllabus of a graduate course I was assigned to teach. My students appreciated the how-to nature of the writing. Yet, in the Kindle version at least, there were numerous typos, and the formulaic presentation of each chapter was like reading 360 pages of nothing but iambic pentameter.

Second, I've used information from this book in my consulting planning pursuits. Wilkinson's recognition of infinite verbs to start goals was excellent and useful, as was the related note of using quantifiable verbs for objectives. Still, despite the author emphasizing the simplicity of the Driver's Model, it's a system that leans toward needing a professionally-trained facilitator. Once deconstructed, the model is relatable, but on its surface, it's anything but.

In summary, it's not a book that leaves me with a sense of pleasure or accomplishment upon completion, but it's a book I find myself regularly referencing - a three-star, useful read.