Leading for Impact : Session 7

Leading for Impact™: Session 7

Date updated: January 2018

Updated by: Libbie Landles-Cobb

Session overview: 7 hours total time for the module:

Sections / Time / Cumulative time
Welcome, overview (9:00 – 9:10) / 10 min / 0 hr 10 min
Project presentations (9:10 – 10:40) / 90 min / 1 hr 40 min
Break (10:40-10:50) / 10 min / 1 hr 50 min
Milestone setting (10:50-11:50) / 60 min / 2 hr 50 min
Feedback survey (11:50 – 12:00) / 10 min / 3 hrs 0 min
Lunch (12:00-12:45) / 45 min / 3 hrs 45 min
Curriculum Review (12:45-1:30) / 45 min / 6 hrs 0 min
Improving Executive Team Effectiveness (1:30-3:00 / 90 min / 5 hrs 15 min
Break (3:00 –3:15) / 15 min / 6 hrs 15 min
Project 2 Discussion (3:15-3:45) / 30 min / 6 hrs 45 min
Closing & celebration (3:45-4:15) / 30 min / 7 hrs 15 min

Prework

See separate pre-work document for language:
Prepare 5 minute project presentation
Retake the Executive Team diagnostic
Review the Curriculum Review document and reflect on the highest impact next steps for your team

Learning Objectives

Participants appreciate their learning and progress as individuals/teams/organizations
Participants lay the groundwork for future learning and progress as a team/organization
Participants feel a sense of closure on their first project and the classroom portion of LFI

Materials

Presentation materials do not need to be printed. Instead, include the following:
LFI Curriculum Summary
6-month survey
Project milestone-setting handout
Do next handout
Cupcakes & champagne

Welcome, overview – 10 min

Welcome everyone! When we first met together…Now, we’ve…
As a reminder, today isn’t an end, but a commencement – the end of one phase, and the beginning of the next [Slide: Today marks the end of the first phase of our two years together]
Reminder of the two-year arc of the program, and the next 18 months
Gatherings / convenings will continue, with the next gathering in [insert date and topic]
Meanwhile, we’ll continue to work with each of you to round out your projects and set specific project goals
Our goals for today are two-fold:
Look back: Appreciate our learning and progress as individuals/teams/organizations
Look forward: Lay the groundwork for future learning and progress as a team/organization
Roman god Janus will be our guide: God of transitions, looking to the future and the past [Slide: Our agenda]
Six actions for today [have this agenda pre-written on a flip chart:]
Present projects - (look back) hear from each other where your project has led you
Set milestones – (look forward) think as a team about how to ensure your project takes root
Curriculum review – (look back) remember the material we’ve learned together
Reflect on your team—(look forward) set a team effectiveness agenda in which you identify 3-4 priority areas where you would like to work on how your team works together
Second projects – (look forward) Your second project starts in 6 months! While you don’t need to finalize what you will do in that project, we want to give you some time to capture your current thinking so when we begin those discussions you at least can remember what you thought now….
Celebrate!

Project presentations – 90 min

For our first activity today, each team is going to tell us about the project their organization has been working on, with particular emphasis on what changes this implies for your organization [Slide: Project Presentations].
As you listen to the presentations, think about what questions you have. (Write questions on board in each room)
What questions do you have for the team? What questions might a key stakeholder (i.e., Board, staff, funder) have?
About the work they did
About what they concluded
About their path forward
What experience do you have that you might share with this team as they move forward?
[Slide: Project room assignments] We have broken you into two groups, splitting your teams in half so someone on your team will have seen every project overview—please go to your assigned room now

Pre-assign people into 2 groups, splitting each organization in half. In each group, have 4 organizations present their project. Each group should get about 15 minutes of airtime: ~5-10 minutes presenting and 5-10 minutes of questions. Make sure one facilitator is a timekeeper. Reserve separate rooms to minimize distraction.

Break – 10 min

Regroup in the main training room

Milestone setting – 60 min

[Slide: “Milestones title page”] Now that we’ve looked back, let’s take some time to look forward. As you all know, the work of your project is just beginning and we’d like to take some time to think hard about what you’d like to achieve over the longer-term with the work we’ve started together and what that will take.
What we’re going to do is develop some milestones for your project work over the next 3-18 months. We’ve developed a template to help you do that. [Slide: Establish the key goals…] Orient people to the milestones template
Why are milestones important?
They clarify what you need to get done and when: Your project may still feel like visions for the future—setting milestones can help translate that into concrete steps and actions.
They help you stay on track: you can return to these milestones to track progress toward goals, and understand where to focus on problem-solving to accelerate action
They help us follow along: We’ll be checking in regularly over the coming months, and we will use these milestones as a guide for what to check in on and figure out how we can best support you
So what do we mean by milestone? They are representations of the most critical activities or events that need to happen to ensure your project is progressing and being implemented. This is a little different from an implementation plan, which often is a very detailed list of all of critical steps you need to take to put a plan in motion—milestones are the markers along the way, that indicate whether progress is being made.

[Slide: When coming up with milestones…] Good milestones share three characteristics:
Concrete: Should be tangible and well-defined
Measurable: Should be able to track your milestone and know if you achieved it or not
Realistic: Should be achievable within the specific timeframe.

Let’s go through an example to highlight what this could look like [Slide: A strong milestone plan…] (insert an example you like or use the one in the standard deck)
Categorized into the major elements of their project
Major implementation steps (but not a detailed implementation plan)
Metrics for what success looks like
Points for evaluation and reflection

[Slide: Set specific milestones..] You’re now going to have 40 minutes to fill out this milestones template for your project. Each team should have copies of the milestones template on your table—one person should take the role of scribe to capture your discussion. Your Bridgespan coaches will collect these drafts (or at least take pictures of them) at the end of this exercise so we can continue the conversations with you in our next project check-ins.
Facilitator’s note: Coaches might spend some time before this session thinking through the key milestones for their clients using the elements of the change checklist to identify areas of risk they should focus on (i.e., stakeholder engagement, talent needs, etc)

[After 30 minutes] What is one thing that you and the team will start doing, or do differently, next week to make these milestones happen? Give people a minute to stew, silence OK; if you know there are solid examples, cold call folks; if it doesn’t really work just move on.

We’ve captured what you have today for your project milestones, and will be following up to get any modifications after this session. Remember that as we check in with each team over the next 6 months (and beyond), we’ll use these milestones to see if you’re on track, and to help talk through any obstacles that you might encounter that are preventing you from making the kind of progress that you would like.

Feedback survey – 10 min

Distribute paper surveys to participants. Ask each participant to fill out the survey on LFI program and projects. Remind participants of how much we value their candid feedback.
Stand at the door and collect surveys as people leave for lunch. Please make note of any absent participants so we may follow up.

Lunch – 45 min

Curriculum review – 45 min

[Slide: Curriculum review title page] Over the next few months, after these classroom sessions end, our interactions with you will shift. While we won’t be meeting with you weekly to work on your project, we won’t be going away either. We will likely be checking in with you at least once a month, and then—before you know it—we will be launching your second project (no really, that’s in six months)!
So this afternoon, we’re going to spend a lot of time looking forward. We’re going to ask you to get together as a team think about what else you want to get out of the Leading for Impact experience.
First we’re going to ask you to develop a team effectiveness agenda, setting priorities for how you want to improve the way you work as a team and how Bridgespan can help you with your priorities over the next 18 months.
Then we’ll ask you to specifically think about potential candidates for your second project, which—if you can believe it—will start 6 months from now.

[Slide: Curriculum review: We’ve covered…] To help you get in the mood, let’s look back first. We want to remind you of the ground we’ve covered together over the past six months and give you some examples of how you might use the content we’ve covered going forward
In your materials for today, we’ve provided a “best-of” deck covering the main topics for each of our sessions together. What we’re going to do is remind you of the key learning points from each of these modules in a rapid-fire teaching session. I think you’ll be surprised to see how much we’ve covered in our short time together
LFI coaches (facilitators, if possible) take turns sharing the main highlights of each module. Key teaching points are summarized in the curriculum review deck. Facilitator should also share 1-2 examples of how teams have used the material either in their second project or in other ways. (Examples included in the document entitled “Curriculum Summary Do Next Examples” Be sure to highlight if a team in the room has used the content in their project already.

Sustaining Executive Team Effectiveness – 90 min

 [Cover: Improving Executive Team Effectiveness] By design LFI sessions and projects have caused you to spend a considerable amount of time together over the past six months

Participants have told us from prior sessions that this has helped teams align and improve their effectiveness
But as we just reviewed a few minutes ago, you’ve been exposed through the LFI sessions to a number of tools and approaches that if applied, can continue you to help drive team effectiveness and organization performance
This afternoon, you will have 90 minutes as a team to put together an agenda to continue to improve your team’s effectiveness over the next 6-12 months, and to start work on some of these items if you have time
Your CEO is prepared to lead you through this discussion

[Slide: Successful executive teams demonstrate three attributes] As we just saw in the curriculum review, in our module on effective executive teams we shared some research Bridgespan has done on what makes executive teams successful; three attributes:
Clarity on role, responsibilities, and composition
Agreement on how the team works together, and
Capable CEO leadership

Your improvement agenda can be in one or all of these areas

[Slide: LFI sessions provide content for improvement on these attributes] In putting together your agenda, you will want to determine what LFI content to use, and what other actions to take
We suggest you think about a 6-12 month timeframe for your agenda
We should point out that you’ll have another 30 minutes as a team this afternoon to talk about your likely second project
That project could center on executive team effectiveness, coming out of your agenda setting, or might address a different organizational priority

Finally, we provided CEOs with some suggested tools that you might use
The executive team diagnostic that you took back in session 2
A diagnostic that links LFI modules to the executive team attributes, and an
Executive Team charter
[Slide: Exercise: Setting a Team Effectiveness Agenda] Here is the summary of the assignment for this session
While you might identify a long list of actions, we suggest you narrow the list to 3-4 actions to take to ensure that they are achievable
We will circulate during your discussions
Once completed, please capture your output, and we will follow-up with each CEO to discuss your improvement agenda, and ways we can be of assistance

Break -15 min

“Do Next” – 30 min

[Slide: Do next title page] Now we’re going to give you some time to explicitly think about what you might do for your second project.
Your second project will operate much like the first one, but without these classroom sessions – just our team working with your team. The next project could drive further into an area of exploration from your first project, e.g. fleshing out a new programmatic approach in more detail; or you might tackle a very different topic such as delving more deeply into leadership development.
You may have already started this conversation in the last module, and if you did—great! You can use this extra time to even further explore what that could look like.

[Slide: Do Next: Instructions]
What we’d like you to do for the next few minutes is review the curriculum, and identify the places where you would like to continue the work, either as your second project or in other ways.
Start by taking 5 minutes to do some thinking individually—look at the curriculum and identify two things:
What options should your team consider for Project #2?
What other topics would you like your team to continue to work on? How?
Then, spend 20 minutes sharing your thinking and coming up with a shared list of 2-3 items and project ideas.
Capture your thinking on the template we’ve provided—your Bridgespan coach will be collecting them (or taking their picture) at the end.

Coaches should sit with their teams to help each determine the most critical areas of focus for next six months

[LL1]

Remember this is the end of this part of our journey together, but it continues for the next 1.5 years [Slide: Looking forward…]
We will be in touch with each CEO to solidify your next steps and make a plan for the flow of our support over the next few months
Of course, don’t forget to complete your project milestones and share that with us

Now let’s do with some individual reflection. You’ve identified as a team your organizational priorities to do next; now I’d like you to think about what you want to do next as an individual. And while you do this, we will pass out some bubbly beverages to you. Take out your journals and take 5 minutes to reflect back over the past six months on two questions [Slide: Learning journal…]:
How will you change your personal practices?
How will you further the connections you’ve made with others outside of your organization?

Closing and Celebration – 30 min

[Slide: Let’s celebrate! Cover page] Okay, now it’s time to have a little celebration! I love this day because it shows us how far we’ve come together—let’s take some time to celebrate that journey! (insert some thoughtful reflections about the achievements and accomplishments of this group—perhaps do a toast?)
To show our appreciation, we want to bring you inside the Bridgespan fold by sharing with you a few of our traditions.
The first is our six-month award: Every employee, after their first six months at Bridgespan, receives a Lucite block to commemorate the hard work and learning they have accomplished on a very steep learning curve. All of you have put in that hard work with us over the past six months, and we are honored to share that tradition with you (read what the block says).
The other tradition we want to share with you is the six-word story. Are folks familiar with the six-word story? It’s an age-old tradition of using just a few words to describe a situation in a way that says a lot more. It’s a very popular literary contest. Here are a few to bring it to life [Slide: Six word stories].
We use the six-word story a lot a Bridgespan, often at milestone moments, partially to keep a bunch of motor mouths succinct, but also because it can be a powerful way to share how we feel about each other. We’ve written a six word story for each of you and would like to share them with you.
[Coaches hand out 6-month blocks one team at a time and tells 6-word stories + brief kind words for each team]
At this point, consider doing one last group activity, a couple of options:
Give people two minutes to think of their own six-word story and invite 2-3 people to share theirs
Go around the room and ask people to share one word about how they are feeling (1) about the past six months and (2) about the next six months (could break up the room between 1 and 2)
Something else creative?
[Slide: Thank you!] On that note, thank you to each of you! To celebrate the end of this phase, we’ve got more champagne / sparkling cider and also some delicious cupcakes – please stay and enjoy a toast with each other
We will stay in touch over the next few weeks, and see you together all again in XX