Strategic Planning Retreats

How To Plan A Strategic Planning Retreat?
Having a strategic planning retreat is an excellent vehicle for a law firm to address issues such as the development of a long-range business plan. Is your firm among those which have made unsuccessful attempts at having planning retreats? Or are you overwhelmed simply by the thought of the time and effort which would be involved in planning and organizing the program?  Then why not consider retaining an outside person to act as the facilitator for your retreat?

Hire A Facilitator To Organize Strategic Planning Retreat
Having a planning retreat using an experienced facilitator can be of great assistance to your law firm. A facilitator can help in the process of arriving at a consensus as to the directions and goals of a firm.

First, someone experienced in the planning process can help keep the discussions on a positive, constructive basis. It can also help prevent the discussions from degenerating into a negative, destructive confrontation between the partners. This so often happens when firms try to do it themselves.

Secondly, using an outside facilitator will relieve you of the burden of putting the program together. An experienced facilitator should also be able to do a better job by drawing on his or her experience in working with other law firms.

Third, the use of an outside facilitator should help secure the full participation by all partners on an equal basis. It should also help to avoid having one or more partners dominate the discussions.

One of the reasons many law firm retreats are unsuc­cessful is the failure to adopt specific and measurable goals. The facilitator’s skill and experience are extremely important in helping a firm to decide upon specific, measurable goals.

If the facilitator has done a good job, the partners should be able to look back in six months or a year and say yes, they did accomplish a goal, or no, they did not.

RJH Consulting can help you in organizing a strategic planning retreat. Contact us today.