Strategy development is both a science and an art: both from a facilitator’s and the facilitated team’s standpoint. An effective strategy development facilitator needs to have this at the top of their mind throughout the process. While wearing the science hat, the facilitator, by being reasonably rigid, helps the team that they are guiding to see and apply the principles of good strategy development; because these are principles. For example, while crafting the vision and mission statements, it helps to guide the team in making the statements terse, easy to remember but also to convey the fundamentals that must be complied with. Wearing the art hat helps the facilitator to be flexible, adaptive and open to the team’s thoughts, preferences and contextual realities as an objective advisor.

Over the years, my C-sense approach to facilitating strategy development entails

• A balance between guiding and “benevolent dictatorship”.
• Leaving nobody behind but conscious that there are those that will deliberately choose not to board the facilitator’s train of thought.
• Remembering that while I might have my strong position and opinion on an issue, the organization and the team being facilitated needs to make the final decision on the way forward.
• Knowing that a less “smart” strategy that elicits the ownership from those being facilitated trumps an “intelligent” one that does command the organization’s ownership.
• Being responsible enough to offer objective and constructive advice including the pros and cons of each option, but being dispassionate enough to allow the facilitated organization to make the final decision. This is closely related to (iii) above.

At the end of the day, the success of a strategy largely depends on the organization being facilitated to come up with, the excellence of the facilitator notwithstanding.