In the next month I have the role of facilitating strategic planning days for two farm boards. Success will be reliant on my ability to keep the board members focused on developing the best possible strategy.
It is inevitable at these meetings the discussion will drift to the tactical and operational level but that is not the purpose of the meeting.
If these meetings are to be truly effective, I must ensure the goals set for each key area of the business are well defined and understood and a sound plan is developed for their achievement.
Strategy was first used in the times of war and it was those who had the better strategy that won out.
The old saying is "you don't go into battle until you have won the war" - the best strategy should be in place before taking the first step. It was then important to have a range of tactics to be used as options during the strategy's implementation.
One of the key elements of setting good strategy is to always be "sceptical of your own beliefs". Having a "fixed gun position" may be good for one set of circumstances but flexibility in decision making usually wins out.
A good operator is always questioning what they are doing because questions force thinking. It will be my role to come up the best possible questions to challenge the board members.
In some ways I bring a fresh set of eyes to the board meeting and I am mindful the best possible answer is dependant on the best question. Lazy questions, or ones with little thought, usually achieve lazy answers - a benefit to very few.
That said, some of the very simple questions can give fantastic answers. The 5WH model of questioning still has a very strong place in strategic planning. The what, when, where, who, why and how questions remain an integral part of my facilitation toolbox.
Television only came into my life in my teens and one of my earliest recollections was of watching Professor Julius Sumner- Miller. His program was called "Why is it so", all based on basic science experiments.
Prof Miller had a brilliant knack of answering a question with a reply question. He would never spoon feed an answer, making the learner arrive at his or her own destination, thinking wise. The Professor would not cease the discussion until he was satisfied the learner had solved their own problem.
That is what I will be trying to achieve with these farm board members. If we are finding it difficult to resolve an issue, it will be my responsibility to find a way to ask the same question in a different way and - in a few cases - finding yet another way to ask the same question. In the end the question can become the answer.
By thinking harder about how to ask the question in a different way to solve a problem, the person comes to their own answer. Even after rigorous discussion, a problem may remain unsolved but everyone is better for the journey, getting closer to the answer with all that is required, a bit more research and persistence.
