Facilitation That Delivers
A Perspective
I’m a good listener and can succinctly summarize key ideas, but I’m not only reflecting back what I hear. I offer my own perspectives and I’m not afraid to call out hard truths. With years of experience in management consulting, I’ve been in the trenches solving the very problems with which you’re struggling. I bring my intuition, insights and pattern recognition to bear in designing interactions that work and guiding conversations towards superior outcomes.
Debiased Outcomes
The (Nobel-recognized!) field of behavioral economics proves our decision making is often irrational, not because we’re dumb, but because we’re human. We are particularly prone to these irrational biases when the decisions we’re making are infrequent with results well into the future — exactly the strategic business decisions you are trying to make. I’ve worked closely with leading thinkers in this field, notably Professors Olivier Sibony and Dan Lovallo, to develop, test and implement de-biasing techniques that yield high-quality strategic decisions. If your team consists of humans, you can’t afford to overlook the adverse impact of our commonly-held biases.
A Path to Impact
Aligning with your team on a strategic decision is a critical step, but it’s only the first one. Translating strategic decisions into action is the real source of value, but all too often, businesses fail to reallocate their most important resources — capital, talent, executive attention — in line with the new direction. I lean on my work as author and recognized contributor to novel thinking on the difficulty organizations face in translating strategy to action and the techniques that can bust through the inertia. From me, you won’t just get a decision, but a team that is ready to move.
FAQs
Getting Started
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Strategic business facilitation helps executive teams make complex, high-stakes decisions together by managing both the conversation dynamics and the thinking process - not just running meetings with agendas and timekeepers.
Unlike traditional consultants who analyze your business and tell you what to do, a strategic facilitator helps your executive team uncover insights you already possess but can't access due to group dynamics, cognitive biases, and competing perspectives. Think of it like the difference between someone handing you a blueprint versus helping you design one that your team actually believes in and will execute.
I've facilitated 100+ executive team discussions, and the transformative ones all share this pattern: executives stop defending positions and start exploring possibilities together. The decisions stick because the team built them, not because an outsider prescribed them.
Consider whether your last strategy consultant left you with recommendations that gathered dust, or decisions your team actually implemented with conviction.
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CEOs should bring in a strategic facilitator when the stakes are high, the team has been stuck on the same decisions for months, or when you need genuine buy-in rather than performative agreement.
You can't simultaneously participate in strategic thinking and manage the group dynamics that derail it. When you're facilitating your own strategy sessions, you're trying to be both player and referee - and usually failing at both. Your team members withhold their real concerns because you're their boss. They perform agreement rather than wrestle with difficult truths. Meanwhile, you can't fully contribute your strategic insights because you're managing the conversation.
The moment you realize your team keeps having the same strategic discussions without resolution, or when heads nod in the meeting but nothing changes afterward - that's when you need external facilitation.
ROI & Business Impact
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Misaligned executive teams waste millions annually in large companies through delayed decisions, duplicated efforts, and abandoned initiatives - and the relative impact on SMEs is often even greater.
But the real cost isn't just financial. When your executive team can't achieve genuine alignment, you get surface agreement that falls apart during execution. One client CEO called it "the most expensive circular conversation in company history" - eight months debating the same strategic decision, while competitors moved ahead. After proper facilitation, they made the decision in one day, and more importantly, it stuck.
Strategic facilitation creates conditions where executives can voice real concerns, challenge assumptions safely, and build authentic alignment - not just compliance. The ROI comes from decisions that actually get implemented rather than relitigated.
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Most transformative strategy development or strategic planning requires 2-3 days of intensive facilitated sessions, plus preparation and follow-up, with investments typically ranging from $25,000-75,000 depending on complexity and team size.
However, comparing this to the opportunity cost of delayed decisions tells the real story. That eight-month circular discussion I mentioned? Conservative estimate of $2M in opportunity cost. The facilitated session that broke through? Under $50,000. The math is clear when you consider what strategic paralysis actually costs your organization.
SMEs often need different approaches than large corporations - more focused, more practical, less theatrical. The investment should reflect your organization's size while recognizing that your strategic challenges are just as complex as those facing Fortune 500 companies.
Process & Methodology
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Effective strategic facilitation alternates between expanding possibilities and narrowing focus, using structured activities that prevent groupthink while building genuine consensus.
We start by excavating unspoken doubts and assumptions - the things everyone thinks but no one says. Then we explore widely, considering options beyond the obvious choices on the table. Only after thorough exploration do we move to decision-making, using techniques that combat cognitive biases and ensure all perspectives are heard.
This isn't about sticky notes and icebreakers. It's about managing the intellectual journey from uncertainty to clarity to conviction. The best sessions feel challenging - even uncomfortable - because real strategic thinking requires rewiring how you think, not just choosing from a menu.
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Virtual strategic facilitation rarely matches in-person effectiveness for the actual working sessions - the loss in energy management, non-verbal communication, and spontaneous breakthrough moments significantly diminishes decision quality.
While virtual works well for preparation meetings and follow-up debriefs, the core strategic work demands physical presence. You lose the sidebar revelations, the ability to read the room's energy, and most importantly, the full engagement that comes from being away from the digital distractions of everyday work. One executive recently told me: "We tried virtual strategy sessions for two years. We were just performing productivity, not actually thinking together."
I recommend in-person for all core strategic work, with virtual touchpoints for planning and implementation follow-up. The only exceptions are true emergencies where waiting for in-person would be more costly than the quality loss of virtual.
Working with Executive Teams
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Intelligent executives often make poor group decisions because intelligence doesn't protect against cognitive biases, groupthink, or the social dynamics that derail collective thinking.
Your CFO defers to the CMO on marketing questions, who defers to the COO on operations, who defers to the CEO on vision - creating a circle of phantom expertise where everyone assumes someone else has thought things through. Add in confirmation bias, sunk cost fallacy, and the pressure to appear aligned, and you get smart people making collectively dumb choices.
This isn't a capability problem - it's a process problem. Without skilled facilitation, executive teams default to the same dysfunctional patterns regardless of their individual brilliance.
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Managing dominant personalities and drawing out quiet voices requires structured techniques that change the conversation dynamics without calling anyone out directly.
I use breakout configurations that separate dominant voices, written exercises that give everyone equal input before discussion begins, and specific protocols that prevent any single person from controlling the narrative. For the quietly disengaged, I create safer spaces for dissent and use targeted questions that leverage their specific expertise.
The art is making these interventions feel natural rather than punitive. Nobody wants to be managed like a difficult child, especially successful executives. The best facilitation makes everyone feel heard without anyone realizing they're being managed.
Investment and Engagement Models
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Single session facilitation solves immediate decision deadlocks, while ongoing strategic support builds your team's capability to navigate complex decisions independently over time.
One-off sessions work when you have a specific strategic question to resolve - market entry, major pivot, merger decisions. But if your team consistently struggles with strategic conversations, you need ongoing support to change the underlying dynamics. This might include quarterly facilitated sessions, team coaching between sessions, and gradual capability transfer.
Most SMEs benefit from a hybrid approach: intensive facilitation for major strategic decisions, with lighter-touch support to maintain momentum and build internal capability.
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Choose strategic facilitation when you want to co-create strategy using your team's deep expertise, versus having consultants analyze your business and hand you recommendations.
Traditional strategy consultants excel at external analysis and best-practice recommendations - perfect if you lack industry knowledge or analytical capacity. Strategic facilitation excels at extracting the insights already within your organization, supplemented by targeted analysis where needed. Your executives know your business, customers, and capabilities better than any outsider. Facilitation helps them transform that knowledge into strategy.
The telling difference: Do you want strategy done FOR you or WITH you? If your team will resist external recommendations or you know the answer lies within your organization, facilitation wins. If you need extensive market analysis or lack strategic experience entirely, traditional consulting might fit better.
Most SMEs need facilitation because they have the expertise but can't access it effectively through normal dynamics.
Practical Next Steps
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Immediate results include clarity and genuine alignment, but tangible business impact typically emerges within 90 days if you've achieved real buy-in versus compliance.
The first sign of success isn't the strategy document - it's what happens in the first meeting after facilitation. Are people referencing the decisions naturally? Are resources actually shifting? Are the usual resistors becoming champions? If yes, you'll see meaningful progress within a quarter.
If three months pass without visible change, you achieved surface agreement, not alignment. This is why skilled facilitation focuses on building conviction during the session, not just reaching conclusions.
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SMEs with 50-500 employees and executive teams of 5-12 people benefit most from strategic facilitation, especially those in transition, facing complex decisions, or stuck in strategic paralysis.
You're the perfect fit if you're successful enough to have complex strategic choices, but not large enough to have infinite resources for analysis. Professional services, manufacturing, healthcare, and technology companies particularly benefit because their strategic decisions require both technical expertise and business acumen - exactly the combination that creates decision deadlock.
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Strategic facilitation techniques apply to any high-stakes executive decision requiring genuine alignment: merger integration, crisis response, cultural transformation, or major operational pivots.
The same dynamics that derail strategic planning - cognitive biases, groupthink, phantom expertise, performative agreement - infect all complex executive decisions. Whether you're deciding how to respond to competitive disruption, integrate an acquisition, or transform company culture, the need for skilled facilitation remains.
Many clients start with strategic planning then realize they need the same disciplined thinking process for other critical decisions. The skills transfer, but the stakes remain high.
