SME Strategy is a strategy consulting firm that specializes in helping organizations align their teams and operations around a shared vision, mission, values, goals, and action plans. Our strategic planning services offer guidance on how a strategic planning facilitator can provide support in constructing an effective strategic plan that ensures your strategy is communicated and implemented across your entire organization.
If you are organizing a team planning session, a workshop, or an important management meeting, a strategic planning facilitator can offer many benefits that will increase the value of the meeting for everyone.
The job of the strategy facilitator is to ensure people stay on time and speak about topics that are relevant and on task. If you stray from the purpose of the meeting and waste valuable time, the facilitator will interject and get the conversation back on track. This is slightly harder to do when there are power dynamics at play and management is leading the session.
Having a facilitator creates a safe space for people to ask questions that get to the root of issues without having concerns come out as personal attacks. This way, the important topics get covered to a level of satisfaction for the whole group.
If you're the leader of a team, you can't lead your team and facilitate a conversation at the same time. People won't speak freely, and you won't get the information you desire from the meeting. If you're the facilitator, you will also find it difficult to be fully present in the conversation. Having an external facilitator will allow better conversations and better participation from everyone, including leaders.
Since a strategic planning facilitator (or strategy consultant) works with so many different groups, they bring tools and best practices from a variety of industries, as well as learnings from working with many different groups. These perspectives in conflict resolution, change management, or business strategy can be extremely valuable during key points of your organizational planning.
Their job is to manage people and make sure communication lines are open for everyone. If you have to deal with different stakeholders, different teams, or a larger group of people than normal, a facilitator can help make the process easier and more effective.
Just like you would hire specialists like developers, lawyers, accountants or others during crucial moments in your business or your organization, a meeting facilitator brings in specialized expertise to assist your team in working through strategy.
Contact us to learn more about our strategic planning facilitation services: