A large tech company’s goal was to develop a new company strategy and identify key business directions prior to an important deal. These session results would be the basis for materials provided to the Investor’s Business Committee at McKinsey. 15 top managers in different states could only gather for one day.
We faced two challenges: First, synchronizing the management team quickly to unlock their creativity and generate new ideas. Second, to transform these ideas into concrete business indicators and KPIs. Preparations began with conversations with top management prior to the meeting to gather key ideas.
On the day of the session, participants of an icebreaker exercise enabled their creative moods by playing a modified children’s game where each player continued a sentence using only its last phrase. Aside from alleviating the tension, participants warmed up their minds with nonconventional thought, stepping outside typical business context.
As a result, management generated about 80 new directions. Using precision facilitation tools, 20 of the most promising moved to the next stage. After culling the field in the first part of the session, participants assumed tasks to calculate economic indicators of those chosen directions in the second part.
The intensive 10-hour day yielded unanimous opinion from exploring these new directions, selection of priority projects and furthering existing ones, as well as preliminary calculations for key indicators. Having all necessary team specialists present, including the financial director, facilitated quick work with the required figures.
At the end of the day, the team went outdoors in a calming, natural area and assembled a complex engineering mechanism to reinforce the team spirit they found during the event and relieve themselves from the intense mental taxation of the day.
Approach and technique is everything, and simply cramming as much content into a limited period is ultimately self-defeating. Managing the stress limitations upon the body and mind and how to access the potential to excel is how The Morgan Impact team makes more happen with less. 20 top managers developed 80 new directions, 20 were selected and calculated, and only 10 hours of intense work where brain function and organizational psychology kept spirits high were all that was needed.
We faced two challenges: First, synchronizing the management team quickly to unlock their creativity and generate new ideas. Second, to transform these ideas into concrete business indicators and KPIs. Preparations began with conversations with top management prior to the meeting to gather key ideas.
On the day of the session, participants of an icebreaker exercise enabled their creative moods by playing a modified children’s game where each player continued a sentence using only its last phrase. Aside from alleviating the tension, participants warmed up their minds with nonconventional thought, stepping outside typical business context.
As a result, management generated about 80 new directions. Using precision facilitation tools, 20 of the most promising moved to the next stage. After culling the field in the first part of the session, participants assumed tasks to calculate economic indicators of those chosen directions in the second part.
The intensive 10-hour day yielded unanimous opinion from exploring these new directions, selection of priority projects and furthering existing ones, as well as preliminary calculations for key indicators. Having all necessary team specialists present, including the financial director, facilitated quick work with the required figures.
At the end of the day, the team went outdoors in a calming, natural area and assembled a complex engineering mechanism to reinforce the team spirit they found during the event and relieve themselves from the intense mental taxation of the day.
Approach and technique is everything, and simply cramming as much content into a limited period is ultimately self-defeating. Managing the stress limitations upon the body and mind and how to access the potential to excel is how The Morgan Impact team makes more happen with less. 20 top managers developed 80 new directions, 20 were selected and calculated, and only 10 hours of intense work where brain function and organizational psychology kept spirits high were all that was needed.