Strategic Planning

High performing companies win by design. PlayBook partners with your management team to design and facilitate comprehensive 3-12 month engagements that are deeply reflective, inclusive, and productive experiences. This work is vital to an organization’s overall health and progress, and includes:

• Strategic direction, vision, and mission

• 3-5 year goal-setting

• Realistic, results-based action plans

• Collaborative problem-solving

• Teambuilding

• Tools that enrich on-going plan tracking & adjustment

We will deliver an adaptive Strategic Plan that outlines your vision, mission, values, core competencies, strategic priorities, and a detailed roadmap to guide you towards fulfilling your goals. The Tactical Plan is built on easy-to-follow steps that assign accountability and provide motivation to which everyone in the organization can commit.

Leadership Development

Most leaders need training to be effective stewards who keep employees engaged and productive. We will partner with you to design a leadership development curriculum for a 6- or 12-month training and coaching engagement that focuses on cultivating your top talent and the next generation of leaders. The 3-part program gives new and emerging leaders guidance, tools, and training in:

• Self-awareness, self-management, and self-regulation (what holds you back from being a great leader?)

• Team management (how to consistently get the best out of your teams)

• Network and partner influencing/management (how to leverage relationships to achieve more)

High Performing, High Impact Teams

Achieving your goals always comes down to the team entrusted to running the plays. But teams lacking cohesion, strategic clarity, and culture alignment can’t deliver. Teams plagued by mismatched expectations, lack of clarity and alignment on purpose and goals, and accountability gaps are constantly distracted. Turf battles and squabbling arise - or worse, team meetings go quiet - and energy aimed at business goals dwindles. We work with you to right the ship and gain traction. We assess your management team’s challenges and then design (and facilitate) an action plan that helps you:

• Address friction and unproductive dynamics

• Gain clarity and alignment on vision, mission, and strategic goals

• Build collaborative, cohesive teams

• Eliminate ambiguity about roles, ownership, and responsibility

• Strengthen the processes and structures to thrive

• Build capacity to engage in productive debate and crucial conversations

• Establish team norms that foster unity, action, and continuous improvement

Facilitation

Sometimes your organization may not need (or may not have the budget) to hire a consultant for the entire strategic planning process.

• Leverage one of our strongest skills: Bridging concepts, people, and projects through guided communication and strategy.

• Once we understand your meeting goals, we’ll prepare our Facilitator’s Guide to moderate your brainstorming and strategy sessions.

Succession Planning

Succession planning requires deep strategy and talent management. We help boards and executive teams analyze their leadership resource needs 2-5 years into the future, designing a development pipeline of candidates that builds bench strength. In our work together we will follow PlayBook’s our Succession Planning Checklist to:

• Identify critical roles aligned with enterprise strategic priorities

• Build success profiles defining the talent composition for each role

• Identify and select candidates

• Assess candidate development needs

• Plan for ongoing support & tracking at the individual candidate level

Change Management

In today’s economy, if you’re not changing and improving, you’re being left behind in the market. At PlayBook, we are experts at planning for and implementing change across organizations. We will team up with you to design a change management plan that inspires your leaders and gives everyone a clear roadmap for the change to come, the benefits and pain points to expect, and the support you’ll provide to ensure success.  Our change management plans improve:

• Collaboration and buy-in

• Engagement and enthusiasm

• Employee satisfaction, performance, and retention

• Stability through change

• Focus on the work and the outcomes

• Rate of success

• Speed of transformation or change

• Ability to keep other business results up to par during the disruptive change

Executive Transition

Change in leadership is inevitable. Although it is stressful, it infuses the organization with new perspectives and energy. We help you step through this often awkward, disruptive process, allaying the fears that can block progress while we assess the organization’s health and readiness for change.

• Set up new executives and teams for success

• Opportunity to reflect on strengths, weaknesses, successes, and lessons

• Comprehensive Transition Plans

• Make informed decisions for CEO, Executive Director, or other C-Suite role transition

• Design a Blueprint for Change for board & staff recruitment strategies and communication

Executive Performance Coaching

PlayBook coaches are thinking partners for CEO’s and senior executives, providing the support and mentoring that creates clarity, confidence, and results. Using a blend of coaching and consulting that works best for you, our coaches become trusted advisors who help you evolve as you grapple with complexity that keeps you up at night - the challenges that are difficult to share with your senior leadership team. We’re both a sounding board and a skill-building resource that supports your growth. Our coaches help you:

• Gain fresh perspective on complex issues

• Drive implementation & manage change effectively

• Adopt/adapt game changing growth strategies

• Strengthen your team and enterprise to thrive

Process Improvement

There is always room for improvement, no matter what the process. “The way we’ve always done it” may not be working in today’s business world or with your current customers or employees. 

• Sharpen your workflow to reduce errors and cycle time

• Troubleshoot and review the processes that support key parts of your business

• Streamline processes and reduce time and money required to run the business

• Redistribute work and get staff’s “Aces in their Places”