Conducting Your Very First Strategy Meeting

A strategy meeting doesn’t begin at the meeting. It begins many days earlier and incorporates many avenues and aspects. The meeting is just the culmination of everything you will work on before it. For those starting in a role that involves strategic planning, strategy can be a daunting idea. There are many components and many areas to explore and understand before drawing up a strategy for your company.

In the words of Michael Porter, “The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do”.

Whether this is a new job where you are hoping to make a good first impression, or it is a new role, if you have been chosen to head the next strategy meeting, here is how you can do it the right way.

Understand strategy

Strategy involves choosing your investments carefully, and where the company’s resources are best spent. Strategy also means choosing a path to win against the competition. Strategy involves the budgets allotted for different outputs for the company. It also involves finding clarity with regards to the target audience and the modes in which to address or reach them. Before embarking on this journey to conduct a strategy meeting you need to understand, in depth, the goals of the company, may they be short term or long term. Keeping these things in mind, you need to understand its implications for your company in particular.

Know the components of strategic planning

Be ready for research and discussion that respond to the company’s current situation. An important part of strategic planning is the position of the target audiences, customers, partners, competitors, and vendors. It also involves monitoring the company’s weaknesses and its strengths in order to know how to move forward. All of this information needs to be processed and put together to create a plan to move forward and achieve the company’s goals.

Do away with templates

Using templates might not work in your favor. Every company needs a strategy customized to its own traits. While templates will be able to give you an outline of what is required, it will not apply entirely. Part of strategy is to understand and imbibe the personality of the company and to then work with that unique requirement. Templates tend to be generic and will possibly miss out on a lot of key factors and unique points specific to your company.

Send an agenda

Well before the meeting occurs, be sure to send the entire team an agenda for what will be discussed during your strategy meeting and what the objectives for the exercise are. The agenda can include a timed list of topics being covered for better time-management. According to this agenda, break down the list so that can ensure you have enough time to cover all the topics set for that meeting. Make sure to also send out a pre-session prep-work email with everything you would want the team to be aware of and review before the actual meeting takes place.

Prep for the meeting

To begin, this will involve speaking with your CEO or direct boss to determine the way forward. Collect all the prep-work you sent out to your team and incorporate that in your presentation or plan. Ensure that you include a review of the previous and existing plans and the reasoning behind your plan. Also include the steps needed to execute your plan. Also, make sure the logistics for the meeting is being taken care of. It’s important to be sure of what you are covering during your meeting. And specific reasons as to why you may not be covering other things (in case you are asked).

Prepping for your first strategy meeting is not a simple task. It requires a lot of understanding, learning, research, and execution. These above points will help you navigate your first strategy meeting.