Strategic Decision-Making Workshops

I’ve run close to 1,000 strategy workshops in the last 4 years. Here are 10 things I’ve learned... My journey with workshops started long before consulting. During my 22 years at Disney, I sat through thousands of them worldwide, most of the time as a participant. Back then, I thought I knew what made a workshop effective. I’d seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. But stepping into the role of facilitator changed everything, because my biggest lessons aren’t really about facilitation at all. They’re about how people behave when you put them in a room and ask them to think, decide, and commit together. Here are 10 of my main takeaways: 1) Frameworks help, but they’re not the point. They guide the process and spark ideas, but the real value isn’t in filling boxes or following steps. It’s in the conversations and decisions they nurture. 2) Silence is uncomfortable, but sacred. Psychologists say “group pause” is crucial for deeper thinking. Silence often brings honesty and insight if you know how to interpret it. 3) People are more scared of being seen than of being wrong. Fear of judgment makes people hide. You must create a safe environment, so they can contribute without performing a character. 4) Leaders who speak last enable better conversations. Teams thrive when leaders listen first and synthesize later. It prevents bias, widens input, and shows that every voice matters. 5) The best breakthroughs come after tension, not consensus. Consensus often dilutes outcomes. I prefer to shake things up with constructive friction that stimulates creativity and innovation. 6) Getting the problem right matters more than solving it on time. Framing the problem is more important than solving it fast. It's better to take time than arrive on time at the wrong solution. 7) Participants only see 10% of the facilitator’s work. Most of a workshop’s prework is invisible: structure, research, context. What matters is the energy in the room and the outcomes it creates. 8) You can’t plan for 100%. Something can go wrong. There are always surprises. Facilitation is less about the agenda, more about reading the room to adjust if needed. 9) The workshop’s quality depends on the quality of relationships. Even the best facilitation can’t fix a dysfunctional team. I invest a lot of time in team dynamics because it's the foundation for insightful conversations and alignment. 10) The workshop doesn’t end when the session ends. You must harvest the unspoken thoughts, reflections, and realizations that surface hours or days later. Follow-ups are key because breakthrough happens in the moments that follow. What all of this has taught me is simple: Workshops aren’t really about strategy, they’re about people. If you create the right conditions, the strategy will follow. If you don’t, no framework in the world will save your business. - - - PS: DM me 📩 if you’d like a peek inside the 25+ workshops included in the Brand Strategy Program✷.

Perfecting strategy meetings - the best tools and takeaways ⬇️ We scaled fast in the four years of Sastrify. To keep the rocketship aligned, you must have a tight grip on your strategy offsite meetings. Here are our five core takeaways and the blend of the best tools: 1. On-site fosters deep, creative discussions. In-person interactions bring fast-paced ideas and social connections to life. This is equally true for our remote-first organization. 2. Miro keeps everything structured and visible. The sole focus of our strategy workshop is one single board. Async preparation is done on this board and shared beforehand. In the meeting, you can dive directly into the discussion. 3. No dependency on meeting room tech. A laptop and Miro do it all. You don't have to prepare meeting rooms and focus on the discussion and its outcomes. 4. Workshops become self-documenting with digital whiteboards. Decisions are instantly captured for alignment. Action Items are transferred to Asana with a reference to the whiteboard. Nothing is lost, and the action items become actionable. 5. Engage in backward-planning. The most common sentence Sven and I use: How does winning look like? Start with a one-year horizon and go backward to the next quarter. This keeps your organization aligned and aiming at the right ambitious goals. This mix drives innovation while staying organized. How does your team combine on-site and digital tools, and how do you drive strategy meetings? 👇

#TGIF - Today, I'm sharing some learning from conducting workshops . These were value-driven product strategy workshops with impactful results as shared by my participants. Most of these are actual reasons for the packed workshops which you can use. Plan and Set an #Agenda: Start with a well-defined agenda to keep the session focused and on track. Never ever skip this. Keep phones on silent mode or away during the session. Consider All #Biases: Keep personal biases and feelings out of the room to ensure decision-making within/between and among participants is not compromised. Use #Factual #Data: Prepare in advance, get those real world use cases, collect, share and support strategic choices with facts to ensure credibility and effectiveness. #Prioritize #Ideas: After generating ideas, evaluate and prioritize them based on their potential impact, feasibility, and alignment with your product's goals and what the participants can prototype. Organize them by importance, size, or other relevant factors. Be Open to #Feedback: Actively seek input from participants and stakeholders such as co-facilitators, customers, and team members. Listen to their concerns and suggestions, and be willing to incorporate new ideas into your strategy. Don’t drive it alone. #Encourage Diverse #Thinking: Create a fun and inclusive environment where diverse perspectives are encouraged to drive innovative solutions. Give people room to speak without fear. Add joy. Build Participant #Consensus: From the beginning aim to build consensus among participants to ensure everyone is aligned with the strategy and is going along as a team. Look out for isolated members, get them involved. Set Clear #Objectives: Define clear, measurable objectives to provide a direction for your strategy workshop. Don't lose sight of the collective goals. Write them out, big and bold. Create a #Roadmap: Finally develop a strategic roadmap to outline the steps needed to achieve your objectives for every participant. #FollowUp: Ensure there are follow-up actions to implement the agreed-upon strategy and monitor progress, make sure everyone has a role to play, every gear has a rotary action, one stops, everyone stops.   Don’t forget to tell me how this works out for you and drag a comment, if you have any tips and recommendations. #workshop #facilitation #training #Strategy #innovation #india #USA

Most companies invest heavily in technical skills training. But they overlook something critical 👇 Decision-making capability. Think about it: Your team makes hundreds of micro-decisions every day that impact project timelines, resource allocation, customer relationships, and business outcomes. Yet most have never been taught HOW to make good decisions. They rely on ⚠️ → Gut instinct → Past experiences → Whatever worked last time → Crisis-mode thinking This creates 🚨 → Analysis paralysis → Inconsistent results → Missed opportunities → Expensive mistakes Here's what I've learned after 15+ years as a Decision Engineer: Decision-making is a skill that can be systematically taught and improved. It's not about natural talent or years of experience. It's about having the right frameworks, tools, and mental models. That's why I’m passionate about decision engineering workshops that deliver → Structured frameworks for complex decisions → Methods to evaluate options objectively → Tools to manage uncertainty → Techniques to avoid common biases The outcome? Teams that make better decisions, faster - without constant supervision. Want your team to level up their decision-making capability? Let's talk about bringing decision engineering to your organization.