Keep This In Mind While Organizing Strategy Planning Meetings For 2019

With the holiday season fast approaching, it’s time to organize annual strategy planning meetings with your team to gear up for a busy 2019. While this can be a hectic time of year for most employers, it’s important to take a step back, look at the big picture and set new objectives for the year ahead. With that in mind, here are a few tips to get you started as you plan for your planning session.

Get The Entire Team Together In A Room

With virtual colleagues, it can be difficult to get agreement or buy-in by having separate calls with different people. Instead, rely on the old-fashioned way of getting people together in a room — flying out people for the day or week — so there can be a sense of community and a common purpose and shared goals that everyone will be expected to work toward.

Consider Taking Your Strategy Planning Meeting Or Workshop Off-Site

If your team is mostly based in the same city, consider renting out a meeting room for creative brainstorming. Getting the entire team together off-site can be a breath of fresh air — not to mention the change of atmosphere can inspire the more creative ideas to flow. Especially in larger cities, workshare or meeting rental spots are aplenty and shouldn’t cost a fortune. Keep the group together longer by offering catered meals, snacks and possibly even planning a happy hour to celebrate after.

Incorporate Elements Of Team Building And Bonding

This is especially true if your employees are scattered around the country or work virtually — but it can be just as impactful with colleagues who work out of the same office but may not otherwise get the opportunity to bond — but the point is to make everyone feel like part of the team and a valued contributor. This will serve to enhance the teamwork that’s needed to meet your 2019 goals.

Encourage Creative Brainstorming

Start out with the premise that there are no bad ideas and that the sky’s the limit when it comes to brainstorming creative ideas. This will encourage team members to think outside the box and well beyond the scope of what they would normally consider feasible, given budget and other resource constraints. The point is to try to get all the very best ideas down on paper and then work through the list to determine which ones you can move forward with.

Evaluate What Worked And What Didn’t

You don’t always have to reinvent the wheel — there are likely plenty of success stories that you can replicate in the coming year. But it’s equally as important to look at ideas you’ve tried where you didn’t see the rate of success you had originally anticipated. Failing itself isn’t a bad thing, but it’s important to understand why as a group so you don’t repeat it.

Recognize And Reward People So They Give You Their Best Work

One of the simplest things you can do is to recognize the people on your team who have contributed to your shared successes, and give them the motivation they need to take it a step further in the year to come. Making sure employees are engaged, valued and understand how they contribute to the overall success of the business can be a powerful thing.

Deanna Hartley is a writer and editor, and has spent 10+ years publishing articles on job search advice, career development, recruitment, HR and human capital management. Deanna has a master’s degree from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, was formerly a senior editor at award-winning publisher Human Capital Media and a senior copywriter at CareerBuilder. She currently works as a content manager at Aon, a global professional services firm.