On the first day of the “Strategy Session on Your Own” program, we started with a survey about the main mistakes of conducting sessions. The variant “the wrong task was addressed” won. Therefore, we dealt with the formulation of tasks that each participant would like to discuss with the team at a strategy session:

• What are these problems really about? Are they really about the core issues on the solution of which the future of the company depends?
• Where is the conflict “sewn”, who is interested in solving the problem: customers, company, owners or team?
• We asked ourselves the question: “What for?” Which problem do we really want to “remove”? What do we want to change and achieve? Respectively: What do we meet for, and what are we going to talk about? Is this really a strategic-level question?

“What for?” is about honest answers to yourself, about expectations from yourself and the company.

The next step is to wait for homework with scenarios of the strategy session and plan time for individual feedback from teachers.

REVIEWS OF PARTICIPANTS

“For me, these two days were absolutely invaluable because the question is very relevant. As early as next week, we will plan to hold an internal strategy session, for now, without consultants. But since I have experience conducting strategy sessions with the help of external moderators, I now understand that I was not ready to negotiate with them then because I did not understand, in fact, what should be the results of their work. Now I understand what shortcomings and what I can require from the moderators in the future. It is an invaluable experience! Thanks a lot for that! The second point is a particular toolkit which can be applied in different fields, literally even in dermatological management.” — Liliia Matvieieva

“There were two wonderful days; I am very grateful to you, Oksana, and to everyone who participated in the process. I understood that it is not necessary to have to an external consultant. Most of the questions that I have worked through in my head, I can decompose and carry out according to the methodology at the local level on my own. And then, when we have a big problem, or if there is a crisis, a real crisis, we should address an external moderator.” — Yurii

“Probably the most valuable thing is that there is a definition and a clear structure of the strategy session. I have heard a lot, but I didn’t have a clear systemic understanding. Now I have it; there is a roadmap and an understanding of where to go. As Tymur said, a contractor who conducts a strategy session, you often trust them, but you do not understand how you can check something and how you can communicate with them. This is very valuable.” — Elena

“Yesterday and today, I absorbed knowledge like a sponge. There are some ideas, not many, but at least three, of what needs to be done. Now I can see that we will build the discussion of the next steps of our team a little bit differently.” — Vlada Bandurka

“The most valuable thing for me was understanding this emotional resistance, which, in principle, was always present with me, and I even somehow worked with it, but without a clear understanding. Plus, having imposed on this all the structure of holding the session itself, annual planning – this understanding became the most valuable for me. I arranged many things back to order.” — Vitaly

“For me, this course is, in most cases, an insight about consistency, strategy, conducting sessions, bringing it all to life, analyzing behavior, typology of a leader and company. That there are the owner’s goals and the company’s goals, that they sometimes coincide, and sometimes do not. This consistency, it inspired me a lot. I am very grateful to you for this, I can feel profound expertise. I will definitely use your slides for my work.” — Olga Shapran

“I basically got everything I needed. I updated my vision of where to go and how to work with these tools.” — Oleksii Badyka

“These two days were exciting and useful. It was interesting to remember and check how this happened in previous times, taking into account the systematization of this knowledge. The thesis about the interests of the owners and the interests of the company was exciting; there are nuances that should be taken into account.” — Oleksii

“I also saw the value of these two working days for myself. Thank you very much for your exciting and dynamic work. All the participants were quite interesting; it was nice to meet everyone. Speaking about the program itself, I saw the structure, understood my weaknesses and what needs to be improved. It was valuable to understand the structure of the session, and what types of sessions can be.” — Alla Raskosova

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