Most organizations are internally focused, the pace at which they innovate and deliver new products are slow, and their employees have a hard time finding a good balance between serving existing customers well, finding new customers and maintaining profitable and healthy growth.
As a result, many organizations today suffer from stagnation and require a strategy retreat to discuss new options and pathways to ignite growth. That’s a good time to engage an external facilitator who can help your leadership team navigate hard questions and oftentimes tough discussions.
Murat Bicak is a very experienced facilitator who delivers insight-driven, engaging, and effective strategic retreats. As a Chief Strategy and Growth Officer, he has worked with boards and top leadership teams many times, and knows the challenges of developing a winning strategy and gaining alignment.
Whether your team is trying to solve specific strategic challenges, conduct annual strategic planning, or in the midst of a complete strategy refresh Murat’s expertise in facilitation delivers results that will align your board and the organization to deliver common goals, outcomes and business results.
Murat follows a five-phase approach: Retreat Preparation, Facilitation, Leadership Reporting, Stakeholder Engagement Planning, Communication Strategy
RETREAT PREPARATION
A successful retreat requires a thorough preparation and planning that occurs prior to the meeting. Murat first interviews each participant to understand their expectations, beliefs and “success factors. In parallel, Murat reviews critical data, financial and strategic information, the industry landscape, and collaborates with your leadership team to develop an agenda that will encompass most critical items and questions that need to be discussed and answered.
FACILITATION
Facilitating an effective meeting requires a good discussion, ensuring that all voices are heard and considered and driving your team to building consensus around how to future-proof your organization to ensure it stays relevant in the future.
Murat uses storytelling toos, well-established frameworks, and break-out sessions to guide your team to create a winning strategy.
LEADERSHIP REPORTING
Throughout the sessions, Murat will use cameras and technology to record the notes and discussions captured. After the meeting, he gathers his notes and information captured to formulate the new strategy and plan. Murat summarizes all of these in a beautifully crafted deliverable and shares it with the leadership to ensure alignment.
STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT PLANNING
“Culture eats strategy” is a well-established fact. Once the leadership has aligned on a strategy, it is absolutely critical to ensure that key stakeholders are engaged. Murat will make himself available to help your teams to identify key stakeholders and how they should be engaged so that the plan developed will be successfully executed and guides the organization throughout the years.
COMMUNICATION STRATEGY
When you communicate a new strategy, everyone of your employees will want to know how it affects them and what’s in it for them. Therefore, the communication of a new strategy needs to establish relevance with employees in a way that makes them care more about the company and about the job they do. It needs to answer the question of how it connects to the organization’s purpose and what’s in it for your employees.
Over his career, Murat has prepared many strategy launches and has developed and executed communication strategies and plans. He will support your teams in this very important step to ensure that your organization embraces the strategy you developed.
Retreats are an immense opportunity to build engagement, alignment and momentum while creating the new direction of your organization. They need to be planned, organized, and leveraged well so you can engage and excite your organization. We invite you to contact Murat so you can discuss how he can help you deliver a successful retreat.