For many, the decision to employ consultants is a big one – they’re usually brought in when things are going wrong, and you don’t always have that need to do a big strategy or plan reset.
But at the same time, you might be feeling you’re not getting the results you expected, or have some questions as to whether you’re doing the right things. Or you might just want a partner to test the thinking you’ve been doing on your business. A bit of a rattle of your plans, some external validation and challenge would help you be more comfortable that you’re on the right track. Or if there are things you need to look at, help you uncover what they are and get clear on what you need to focus on.
You don’t want a big engagement at this stage, but you could do with something to help you pause for a minute, to review and reflect on your plans.
That’s where the Hedgehog Strategy Check-In comes in. Our free 1 day Strategy Check-In helps give you a chance to take a step back from day to day delivery to review your intent and how you’re set up to execute against it – the only thing you’re committing is your time.
To be clear, what we can’t do is give you a crisp new strategy in a day. What we can do is understand your business, context, intent and plans, and appraise them against our framework (Purpose, Ambition, Goals, Actions, Plans) to identify gaps, questions, inconsistencies and potential misalignments.
For some clients that go through the Check-In, there may be specific areas in reshaping or resetting your strategy and plans and support to you and the team where you do want Hedgehog support following the Check-In. But that’s not always the case. For others, the process tests and challenges what you’re doing and raises some things to think about, but you can deal with them internally with your team. Rod’s article last week after our Check-In with Kevin at bikeZaar was a great example of this.
For us, even if you don’t need follow-on help from us, we’re clear that spending a day with you and the team is a worthwhile investment on our part. We get to know you and help you clarify your thinking on the day. You get to know us and, even if you don’t need us there and then, you know you can call us or recommend us in the future.
As the new kids on the block, continuing to build our network of relationships and businesses who know us is hugely important. We believe we can provide value to you in this short interaction – our free 1 day Strategy Check-In is a way for you to be able to test us out.
Our Strategy Check-In is designed to be run with you over a half to full day depending on your business and your needs.
Before the sesion, it helps if you can share with us any relevant docs you have ahead of time to help get us up to speed and more clearly frame our questions on the day.
On the day we’ll start by understanding your current situation, intent and plans through open questioning and challenge, and map against the Hedgehog strategy and planning framework (Purpose, Ambition, Goals, Actions, Plans). We’ll cover questions such as….
We’ll then give you our initial perspective on your current situation and any gaps, questions, inconsistencies and misalignments, discussing and iterating these with you and your team to test our understanding and assertions.
After the session, we’ll provide a short written report on our conclusions for you and the team to take forward
You can test and challenge yourself internally and run your own strategy check-in. The value of having Hedgehog run the check-in for you is our external perspective and challenge to push your thinking and plans harder. And its free – the only thing your committing is your time.
If you want to take us up on an offer of a free 1 day Strategy Check-In with your business then do please get in touch at alyson@hedgehogstrategy.com