Strategy as a form of Art

My first workshop this week started out very peculiarly with a customs/baggage handling/customer check-in incident which had my Barcelona outbound Easy Jet flight take off 90 minutes behind schedule this past Sunday evening! 1h & 50m later, landing at Gatwick, (London. UK) I proceed to catch the last train into Victoria station.

Along the way into London, I can’t figure out whether it’s a dream or a nightmare!?! I’m in East Croydon, yet it says Brighton is the new Barcelona & Portsmouth the Malta!?! What’s happened to the universe whilst I dosed off for only a second? Have I been transported through some mysterious time warp into another dimension?

Finally into my friend Julia’s flat, make-up the sofa-bed, send out some final e-mails & it’s dream land by 3am!

The next morning I rock up to my first workshop for this week! Alison Jacques(pronounced “Jakes”) Gallery. A beautiful & pristine white space in the middle of the London West End. The facilitation went as planned, which means that I had an intended framework, but went ad-hoc & off the beaten track as necessary to serve the clients needs.

Half way through the workshop, as every one is getting crystal clear on the BIG Picture, we’ve got our core values/core ideology & now we’re drilling down into the detail; creating our focus areas for development over the next 30, 60 & 90 days, leading to the 12 & 18 month plan to hit our 2-3 year vision. It’s actually all pretty straight forward.

Then comes my déjà Vu moment!! Only two weeks ago I was on a week long +3.000km driving holiday with my lovely wife through the north of Spain. Along our travels Maria we visited the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. I had been fascinated by the prestigious, impressive, imposing, yet inspiring SPACE. The white walls, the high ceilings, the lighting, the energy & the artwork. I was sold & completely blown away!, especially by the Cai Guo-Qiang exhibition on the 2nd level!

Fast-forward two weeks and the results of my strategic planning & alignment methodology are hanging on similar walls, next to prestigious and exclusive pieces of work! WOW! I rub my eyes & think “can this really be happening”?!?! Come to think of it, when the recent results have developed into more than 50% of my clients being nominated for Entrepreneur of the Year awards, I guess I could humbly see where it could be considered an art form. (he says with modesty) After all, in one short day, the team’s developed the high level skeleton of the framework required to achieve success!

Now it’s back to business & developing the collective & individual One-Page Strategic Plans, along with all of the necessary hands-on work that’s going to drive the necessary results!

As Alison & I step away from the Gallery for a decompression cappuccino & hot chocolate, she reflects “with 3 hours sleep and an 8 hour workshop, on your feet all day you must be exhausted”. I smile, and with the empowering freshness of a spring breeze, I share with her “when you’re working with passionate people, doing empowering work and doing what you love, then it’s NEVER WORK”!

Alison Jacques Gallery

P.S. Usage of post-its inspired by Jonathan MacDonald during a super facilitation a couple of weeks back at M.Love