Group Strategy Alignment Exercises

No PowerPoints. No monologues. Just paper, pens, post-its, and unfiltered conversations. Apparently, team alignment matters to achieve the business targets. And alignment needs space. So, in April me along with my core team, we decided to step out of routine and take an off-site ‘strategy detour’, literally. Away from the noise, we sat together as a team… and tried to understand: What are the challenges we face? What are we doing well, but not acknowledging? What part of the work feels like “work,” and what part energizes us? What do we want to become in the coming period? Here are 4 things we did, and why they made all the difference: 🔹 SWOT, not just on paper. We asked tough questions. Which services are creating more impact? Which ones need a new lens? Then mapped out our strengths and blind spots honestly. 🔹 Role ≠ Responsibility. Everyone wrote down what they do, not just what their job title says. The gap between role and real work sparked some solid clarity. 🔹 Uncovered the challenges. We didn’t just talk about what’s working. We spoke about what’s not. No filters. Just facts. 🔹 Yearly targets. We mapped out our goals, aligned roles & definitions of “ownership,” and how success looks and feels to each one. Strategy is a serious word. But it starts with something simple: Listening. Then planning. Not the other way around. If you haven't yet (or ever) taken a 'strategy detour' with your team, then this is your sign to do so. #Entrepreneurship #BusinessStrategy #Ownership #SWOT #Targets #Goals

Most leadership teams look aligned. But looks can be deceiving 😳 Most teams will tell you that they are dialed in: ✅ Same vision. ✅ Same goals. ✅ Same strategy. But scratch beneath the surface and you’ll find a different reality: ⛔️ Agreement, but without shared understanding. I call this the "Tower of Babel Problem" — a nod to Genesis, where shared language made great building possible. Once it was scrambled, everything fell apart. In modern teams, this happens when smart, well-intentioned leaders use the same words — strategy, goals, KPIs — but attach slightly different definitions to each. The result? 🚫 Communication drifts 🚫 Coordination stalls 🚫 Execution slows Alignment isn't about the words on a slide. It's about the meaning behind them. Fix this, and you remove one of the quietest, costliest barriers to growth. High-performing teams don't gamble on shared understanding. They engineer it. Here's how: ✅ Define key terms precisely. ↳ Use plain language. No jargon. ✅ Teach and test. ↳ Train people on what words mean in practice. ↳ Verify, don’t assume. ✅ Revisit regularly. ↳ Language is a tool. Keep it sharp. Make sense? If so, here are the first 6 terms to start with: 🧭 "Strategy" The set of assumptions about how you'll move from where you are to where you want to be. 🔭 "Vision" A vivid, motivating picture of the impact you aim to create in three years. Three years sharpens focus and urgency. 💎 "Values" Your core principles — the non-negotiables that shape decisions and actions. They guardrail your strategy. 📊 "KPIs" A small set of metrics that best define team health and performance. How do we measure what matters? 🎯 "Goals" Concrete milestones, attached to KPIs, that chart your path to the vision. What must happen by when? 🎲 "Strategic Bets" Focused, high-impact efforts to accelerate results in the near term. Where do we want to double down? 👉 Pro tip: At your next offsite, have each leader define these 6 terms out loud. → Compare notes. You’ll be amazed at what aligns — and what doesn’t. 🔥 Shared language is a force multiplier. When people know exactly what words like "goal" or "priority" mean in practice, they stop second-guessing and get sh*t done. 💬 How aligned is your team’s vocabulary? Drop a comment 👇 — or DM me if you’d like help designing this as an offsite session. It’s one of my favorite ways to unlock real alignment. __ ♻️ Repost to help reduce frustration and misunderstanding. 📍 Follow me (Ben Sands) for more like this.

From disconnected to aligned in 30 days. Our global security team was technically brilliant — But culturally… we weren’t speaking the same language. Different regions. Different risk perceptions. Different urgencies. So I ran an experiment. Something simple, but intentional. Step 1: I sent a 2-minute video to each regional lead explaining our security north star — in plain business terms. No acronyms. Just “why it matters to the company.” Step 2: I gave each lead a prompt: 📌 “If your region had one major risk, what would it be — and what’s your plan to fix it?” Step 3: We used those answers to co-create a shared roadmap — region by region — that laddered up to one global vision. One month later: ✅ Team-wide clarity ✅ Faster response alignment ✅ 3 previously missed risks — surfaced and solved No big budget. No complex tool. Just clarity, communication, and trust. Sometimes culture shifts don’t need a quarter. Just a question — and a leader willing to ask it. What’s the ONE question that helped align your team this year? 👇 Drop it in the comments — we’ll all learn something. #Leadership #Cybersecurity #Culture #Communication #SecurityStrategy

The unseen dark arts of working on strategy with leaders would have to involve the key idea of alignment! Just wrapped a high-impact strategy workshop with senior leaders from across a global client’s business. We came together to evaluate three potential positioning strategy territories - each direction was designed to capture what makes their brand truly unique in the market. And these weren’t guesses. Each idea was shaped by weeks of insight work: executive interviews, survey data, stakeholder input, and deep market analysis. They were rooted in truth. To pressure-test them, we used one of my favorite workshop tools, Edward Debono’s famous “six thinking hat method” where the group collectively went through six modes of thinking to review each idea. It was collaborative, and designed to surface both enthusiasm and challenge. As we moved through the exercise, a clear front-runner emerged. It had the strongest backing, the fewest black hat (negative/cautionary) comments, and generated real energy in the room. What stood out most wasn’t just the winning idea - it was the power of alignment. In a short space of time, leaders from across functions found common ground, built conviction, sparked new ideas and rallied around a single strategic direction. Next step: refine and take it to the wider leadership team for final endorsement. Strategic alignment doesn’t happen by chance. It’s built - with clarity, energy, collaboration, and a structured approach. This is the dark arts of strategy consulting! #strategy #vision #positioning #alignment #leadership

How to Prioritize When Everything Feels Important Does this sound familiar? ❌ Your team has too many priorities. ❌ Everyone has their own “wishlist” of what must get done. ❌ Alignment? Nonexistent. Result? A lot of activity but not much progress. When everything is a priority, nothing is. And when teams aren’t aligned, resources get wasted: ❌ Pet projects steal time and energy. ❌ Core initiatives stall. ❌ Momentum disappears. Here’s the good news: There’s a simple framework to help your team break free from this chaos. It’s called the 4 Types of Strategic Moves, and it’s designed to help you: ✅ Cut through the noise. ✅ Align your team around what really matters. ✅ Prioritize with confidence—without the drama. Imagine this: ✅ Your team working together, fully aligned. ✅ Clear priorities driving measurable progress. ✅ No more wishlist wars. Here’s how it works: 1️⃣ Write It Down Have every team member write down one specific strategic statement. Examples: “We need to grow in Europe by opening local offices.” “We need to partner with three major distributors in our market.” 2️⃣ Discuss and Understand Gather your team to discuss these statements: What’s the opportunity or challenge here? What’s the strategic move we could make? What actions are needed to move forward? 3️⃣ Sort Into 4 Strategic Moves Execute: Clear challenge + clear solution → Take action immediately. Experiment: Clear challenge, unclear solution → Test small bets. Explore: Unclear challenge + unclear solution → Research and learn. Eliminate: No clear challenge → Cut it. Bonus Tip: Apply the 70-20-10 Rule for resource allocation: 70% to Execution 20% to Experimentation 10% to Exploration Stop letting “too many priorities” hold your team back. Start aligning, focusing, and making progress today. 👉 What’s your #1 strategy challenge right now? Drop it in the comments below! Share to help someone in your network. Follow me Marc Sniukas for like this.

A simple alignment exercise One challenge I see slowing down innovation in audit and accounting firms is a lack of alignment across the decision makers. This is sometimes, but not always, a product of the Partnership model and the desire for the views and votes of all Partners to count equally. While one long-term, permanent solution to this problem is moving to a corporate structure (as BDO US recently accounted), progress can be made to better align the Partner group on innovation decisions through a simple and quick stakeholders exercise. I have run this multiple times with Partner groups and always found it a valuable exercise. Consider running it at your next partner meeting! What you will need: 1. Cubes, marbles, or something comparable. You need 4 of these per person involved in the exercise. 2. Shoe boxes, bags (not transparent), or something comparable. You need 4 in total. Write on the 4 boxes “Clients”, “Our team”, “Partners”, and “Regulators”. How to run the exercise: 1. Explain to the group there are 4 defined stakeholders who you feel should be considered in your innovation decision making process (the 4 listed above and now written on the boxes). The exercise is to collectively prioritize those stakeholders to help innovation decision making. 2. Allocate 4 cubes to each person participating in the exercise. 3. Place the 4 boxes next to each other on a table at the side of the room. 4. Each participant must then allocate their cubes to the boxes, based on how important they feel that stakeholder is to the firm’s innovation efforts. 5. Once everyone has done this (I suggest over a coffee break) open the boxes at the front of the room and tally the cubes. 6. Discuss the results as a group and how they should impact your future decision making. 7. When decision making time comes around, reference back to this exercise when making innovation decisions. Instead of having to hear every Partner’s opinion, all Partners can now adopt this collective mindset and make decisions according. Notes for the exercise: 1. Participants can either allocate all 4 of their cubes to 1 box if they feel only 1 stakeholder should be considered, or can allocate 1 cube to each box if they feel all 4 are equally important. Or any other combination in between. 2. The exercise is designed so it can be anonymous until the debrief phase. During the debrief, participants often share how they allocated the cubes and their rationale. This is not an essential part of the exercise, but it can be very insightful hearing how everyone approached the process of allocating their cubes. 3. Consider the stakeholders before the exercise - the 4 discussed here are based on regulated services innovation such as audit. If you run this exercise let me know how it goes!

Yesterday I shared a perspective on the importance of clarity in strategy… being able to answer three simple questions: What is it? Why are we doing it? What’s the next step? Today I want to focus on what to do with that idea. How do you take those questions and build alignment that lasts? Here are 4 practical steps you can use tomorrow: 1 // Pressure-test clarity. Write your strategy in one sentence. Then ask three people on your team to share it back in their own words. If you get different answers, simplify. 2 // Make it visible. Put the strategy where people see it daily — dashboards, team huddles, even email signatures. Repetition builds alignment. 3 // Tie it to action. End every meeting with “What’s the next step?” Strategy without action is just a plan on paper. 4 // Refresh often. Alignment drifts over time. Revisit the “what, why, and next step” at least once a week to make sure people are still pointed in the same direction. Clarity is not a one-time exercise. It’s an ongoing discipline that keeps strategy alive and actionable in the day-to-day. When everyone can articulate it and act on it, alignment becomes second nature and momentum follows. #leadership #SaaS #Dental #Healthcare #HealthTech #Strategy #Alignment