Strategy Meetings that Work (HBR Article Collection)

Through strategy meetings, you and your executive team define how your firm will trump the competition. Yet, most teams spend less than one week per year discussing strategy. And they fritter away those precious hours on unfocused, inconclusive talk rather than rapid, well-informed decision making. Result? Wasted resources, missed opportunities, and strategies that never get off the ground. How to make your strategy meetings pay off? First, prepare adequately--including clarifying your purpose: Do you need an expansive conversation about broad strategic options or concrete decisions about a specific priority, such as expanding market share? Second, use your meetings to make strategic decisions--not to discuss endlessly day-to-day operational problems. Third, identify and address potential obstacles to executing your strategic choices--such as a change-resistant culture or a shortage of the right leaders. Overhaul your approach to strategy meetings, and you turn meaningless gatherings into genuine turning points. One Hewlett-Packard division discovered this firsthand when its newly revised meetings spurred a ninefold increase in profitability over a seven-year period. The three Harvard Business Review articles in this collection: "Offsites that Work" (HBR reprint R0606H) by Bob Frisch and Logan Chandler; "Stop Wasting Valuable Time" (HBR reprint R0409C) by Michael C. Mankins; and "How to Have an Honest Conversation About Your Business Strategy" (HBR reprint R0402F) by Michael Beer and Russell A. Eisenstat.