Strategy Planning – Clarifying Mission, Values, Roles, and Key Areas of Focus
Professional Health Services
Situation
A professional health services firm had expanded rapidly over a period of three years, with 30 staff in multiple locations across Australia. This had created some challenges for the leadership team including no common understanding of the vision and direction for the business and a lack of clarity around the expectations of people and roles within the leadership team.
In addition, individual Partners were experiencing challenges transitioning from a ‘practitioner’ to a ‘leader’ in the business, balancing both roles and doing this in a way that was consistent with individual personality and style; as well as highlighting areas for development (e.g. undertaking ‘difficult’ conversations and managing relationships).
Intervention
The leadership team engaged da Vinci Consulting to assist them in developing a business strategy which would:
- Identify and articulate the company’s core values
- Clarify their vision and mission
- Identify the key areas of focus for the company and their objectives for the next 5 years.
Two planning sessions were held, a few months apart. The first session opened dialogue on the roles of the Partners to increase role clarity and to clarify individual areas for development. The second session allowed a review of progress as well as a facilitated discussion addressing variance in views between the Partners on a critical issue associated with their strategy – “what does ‘growth’ look like?”.
Outcomes
The process engaged enabled ongoing discussion and clarification of strategy within the leadership team, engagement with staff on their input to the company mission, and additional individual and team work by the Partners to clarify their roles. It also allowed the Partners to commence on the objectives with a progress review undertaken at the second meeting.
A facilitated discussion, which allowed frank and open exchange of information, resulted in a plan to trial one identified growth strategy over a three-month time frame. This is currently in place.
The staff are aligned with the Mission and Values of the company and it continues to work on its identified objectives within the plan.
