Free Tools You Might Find Useful
Your Strategic Number™
Every business organization has a Strategic Number – a measure of the effectiveness of its strategy and strategic planning process.
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Spend less than 5 minutes answering a few straightforward questions to discover how well your strategic planning process is working and where it might be letting you down.
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You'll get a score out of 100 – Your Strategic Number™ – plus insights to help focus your planning efforts and improve your results.
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To begin, simply click For-profit Business, Professional or Trade Association, or Professional Services.
We offer Your Strategic Number™ without charge or obligation. It's simply our way of introducing Strategic Directions and affirming our commitment to strategic excellence.
Best Meeting™ Rules of Engagement
(for Strategic Meetings and Retreats)
As facilitators, we use some “rules of engagement” that help us guide the focus, pace, and group dynamics of strategic client meetings.
There are 12 rules that we find particularly useful that can be grouped by what they contribute to the session:
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building shared understanding across the group,
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optimizing the energy flow in the room,
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supporting openness in the dialogue, and
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generating powerful and practical results.
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Typically we will use no more than six of these rules in any one session, selecting the ones that will best match the nature of the assembled group and the expected outcomes of the session or sessions.
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You can download a comprehensive description of and rationale for the 12 rules here.
Facilitator Interview Guide
7 questions to help you qualify potential facilitators
Knowing what questions to ask in the process of vetting a facilitator, or creating a shortlist of two or three qualified facilitators, can be a challenge.
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We’ve designed this guide to help you identify a facilitator capable of doing a first class job on your specific project.
Best Meeting™ Audit
According to a 2014 Harris Poll, almost 7% of on-the-job time is spent in wasteful meetings. That’s over 3 solid weeks of wasted time per year – just in bad meetings!
Productive meetings don't just happen. Each requires a lot of thought, planning, and, quite frankly, hard work. Many decisions have to be made, including:
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The outcomes that you want to achieve.
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How to maintain participant interest.
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What venue to select.
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Whom to invite.
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What to communicate before and after the event.
From our experience facilitating more than 500 meetings, workshops, and retreats, we've developed our Best Meeting™ Audit. It will help you think through areas that require attention and provide us with information on which to base suggestions for increasing the effectiveness of future meetings.
Instructions for Best Meeting™ Audit:
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Download the fillable PDF Audit document using the form on the right.
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Check all the areas that you feel could benefit from some attention.
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Highlight the '5' that, in your opinion, will make the greatest difference.
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Provide any other relevant information in the space provided.
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Contact us by phone (+1 (800) 465-6500) or email (info@StrategicDirections.ca) to arrange a time to review your results.
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Email us a copy of your completed Best Meeting™ Audit prior to the meeting.
And that's it. There is no charge or obligation whatsoever. Completing the Best Meeting™ Audit will require only a few minutes of your time, ...and the positive impact on future meetings could be significant.
Best Meeting™ Evaluator
Spend just 10 minutes answering 25 questions to uncover ways of making your next strategic meeting, workshop, or retreat an unqualified success.
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The Best Meeting Evaluator™covers the following areas:
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Preparation: Session Expectations, Participant Selection, Facilitator Selection, Facilities Selection, Agenda Design, Participant Readiness,
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Meeting Management: Meeting Tone, Participant Engagement, Group Dynamics, Agenda Management
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Results: Outcome Achievement, Follow-on Action, Documentation
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Within two business days, we'll send you a personalized report highlighting the items in each of these areas that are critically important to the success of your Strategic Meetings.