Having facilitated strategic conversations for more than 10 years I have discovered that the closer people are to the generation of an idea, the greater the chances that they will implement the solution. In most instances people are much more likely to act on an idea which they perceive to be their own, than they are to implement another person’s thinking. With this in mind I set about researching a set of questions that would assist people to not only find suitable solutions to problems, but one that could also be applied in teams – assisting them to identify collaborative solutions that provoked a common understanding, and motivation, towards a goal. What started out as a fairly complex process has, over the years, evolved into a simple and practical approach to strategic dialogue.

Each strategic conversation follows a particular sequence of questions backed up by a philosophy about how to approach the conversation. These are what we call ‘critical success factors’ and include:

1. Purpose – defining and understanding the outcome for a session
2. Participation – ensuring everyone in the room has an opportunity to participate
3. Process – following a pre-defined process
4. Innovation – providing an opportunity to think differently and to generate ideas
5. Results – refining outputs into actions so that the team ultimately achieves a result

1. Purpose
If you are planning a strategic conversation with your team be sure to clearly define the purpose and outcome of the session.

2. Participation
Offered as a useful alternative to adversarial thinking, parallel thinking ensures the participation and involvement of those present, ensuring a robust conversation, but also permitting time and space for creative thinking.

3. Process
Here is a simple illustration of the 7 questions in a framework demonstrating that as we ask the questions we are defining the future, understanding the past, outlining what does and does not work, and then moving forward to identify what we can do to achieve the future state.

4. Innovation
Questions 6 & 7 provide a natural place for innovation to take place. That said, there are times when further creativity is required as the current solutions may mirror previous solutions that either haven’t been implemented or haven’t worked in the past. Lateral thinking provides an excellent toolkit for breakthrough thinking and can be applied during this session.

5. Results
At this stage the output of the dialogue is put into a plan of action. This is where focus becomes a key aspect to ensure priorities will get done. Momentum is important for results to be achieved and quick wins will generally ensure that the team ‘moves in the right direction’ to begin with.

Whatever your application (problem solving, innovation, decision making or strategic conversations) this simple sequence of thinking, supported with the underlying principles of parallel thinking, have been a successful formula over and over again. I hope this short blog has given you some insight into how to conduct a strategic conversation, and that you get an opportunity to apply the method to produce some of the amazing results I have seen produced over the years.

My next blog post will cover the Strategic Landscape, and how organisations come to realise that, although leadership, strategy and innovation are crucially important to talent attraction and retention, productivity and business differentiation, traditional methods of creation and implementation can actually adversely affect the very thing they were designed to correct.

Nicola Tyler | Thinker