How Much Strategy Can Your Company Take?

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Facilitator guide

Run this session: How Much Strategy Can Your Company Take?

What the session teaches

Every new initiative adds weight to the same small group of core people. When the weight passes what they can safely bear, the gap is paid in evenings, weekends and skipped leave, and the results still look good for a while. I built the session from my book Stitch In Time: Core Load and the Margin Engine, the Meaning Ledger's five anchors, and my advice on sequencing. People feel the strain on the scale first, and then learn the ideas I set out in the book.

Who it suits

Chief executives, executive teams, boards, strategy teams and HR leads. Six to forty people, seated at tables of four to six.

Time and running order (about thirty-five minutes)

Minutes	Part	What happens
0–3	1 Open	Board question on screen. First discussion pause.
3–11	2 Round one	The group plays AB Hailogix together and votes at each decision.
11–14	Pause	Who paid for the plan?
14–22	3 Tables	Each table plans the same portfolio. You enter the plans and show the results.
22–27	4 Round two	Replay with the Load Line and cross-training in place from the start. Compare side by side.
27–34	5 Your portfolio	Worksheet on the group's own initiatives.
34–36	6 Close	Board question again. One action for next week.

For a twenty-five-minute session, leave out part 3.

Materials and set-up

• A projector or large screen, and this page open with Workshop chosen (or with ?mode=workshop at the end of the address).
• One printed participant worksheet per person, a flipchart sheet and marker for each table, and sticky notes.
• Open the page the day before and check it on the screen. Under Settings you can change the weights, the limit and the hours to suit your sector.
• Use the bar at the top of the screen to move between the six parts.

Screen by screen: what to say

1. Open. "AB Hailogix is a logistics group. Its core people can safely bear 20 kg of work. Today's business already weighs 17.8 kg. The board has four good proposals." Read the board question. Press Start the discussion.
2. Pack the case. "What should go in the case now?" Ask for a show of hands on each option, enter the counts with the plus and minus buttons, press Show the split, then Go with the choice. Point at the safe-limit line and the overdraft counter.
3. The news. "Tendai, head of operations, has resigned. The safe limit falls to 18 kg, and the board's four proposals are still the same." Let the group look at the scale for a moment.
4. Four moves. Vote on the first move. Then work through the moves with the group: drag folders to later quarters, test each stream before you retire it, decide on cross-training, decide on a Load Line. Ask: "Which stream would you stop? Test it first."
5. Board vote. Record the vote, then play the eight quarters. Use Pause to stop on any quarter and ask what people see.
6. Result. Read the reasons on screen. Then open the discussion pause.
7. Tables. Give each table five minutes to agree a plan: when each folder starts, which streams it retires, and whether it funds cross-training or draws a Load Line. Enter each plan and press Show the results. The leader has the highest value with no broken role. Play the leading plan on the scale.
8. Round two. "Same company, same news. This time the Load Line and cross-training are in place from the start." Play it and compare the two rounds side by side.
9. Your portfolio. Hand out the worksheet. Each person lists their own current initiatives, gives each a rough weight, and the group agrees one to pause or end. Type the group's list on screen if you wish.
10. Close. Read the board question again, then the follow-up action below.

Questions to ask, and what good answers sound like

• "Who in our organisation pays when we add work?" Good answers identify actual roles and people, and the hours they give up.
• "Which of our streams could stop, and which anchor does it serve?" Good answers give evidence: a client, a cost, a risk, a lesson or a trained backup.
• "What would let us pause a project without a fight?" Good answers describe a threshold agreed in advance. In Stitch In Time, I call this a Load Line.
• "How much of our current performance is being financed by an invisible overdraft on our core?" Good answers include an estimate in hours or in people.

When a group says little, or one person takes over

If the group is slow to speak, ask people to talk in pairs for one minute, then take one answer from each table. If one person takes over, thank them, ask "Who sees this differently?" and go to a table that has not spoken yet. The vote counters give every person a say.

Background from Stitch In Time

Here is how I put the key ideas in the book. Margin Engine: "the set of rules, thresholds, and routines that determine how much load the core can carry, what happens when that load is exceeded, and how recovery is funded and protected." Load Lines: "agreed thresholds beyond which the character of risk changes." The portfolio stop rule: no new major initiative enters without an identified exit from the existing portfolio. The eight quarters on screen make up the 24-Month Stitch Horizon I describe in the book. When I set an order for repair, Core Load and Signals and Risk come first, then Talent Flow, then Everyday Work, then Power and Mandate.

How to close

Read: "Recovery is not a reward for surviving pressure. It is a requirement for sustained performance." Ask each person to share the one initiative they would pause or end.

Follow-up for the week after

Each leader takes the worksheet to their next team meeting, agrees a rough weight for each live initiative with the people who do the work, and brings one stream to stop and one proposed Load Line to the next executive meeting.