When Rome was the power to reckon with, a Roman soldier could legally require anyone else to carry his pack for a mile. (In Matthew 5:41 Jesus suggests carrying it a second mile in part to have a greater understanding of another person’s lot.) Native Americans have been credited with the proverb that you can’t really understand someone else unless you walk a mile in their moccasins.
Back in 1976, I walked into my first strategic planning meeting with a bias — no, let’s call it by its correct name, prejudice — against salesmen. As an engineer and confirmed nerd, I viewed salesmen as obstreperous, obnoxious, and oleaginous. As far as I was concerned, they were evil and only concerned with themselves.
The stereotypes I carried in my mind about other non-technical professionals were similarly negative. The folks in the accounting department were bean counters who knew the cost of everything and the value of nothing. The CEO may have been a nice man, but he didn’t appear to be adding any real value to the company.
One of the most valuable take-aways from that first strategic planning meeting was the realization that each member of the team was in fact passionate about the company’s success. Their actions were informed by their worldviews, which were shaped, as were mine, by their narrow day-to-day activities taken on behalf of the company.
Each department’s worldview was shaped much in the way the old story explains how the six blind men formed differing opinions of an elephant’s appearance by feeling different parts of the animal’s body.
I left that strategic planning meeting understanding that salesmen weren’t intrinsically evil, they were just focused on revenue and the customer’s satisfaction. The operations people weren’t sitting on their hands to slow things down — they were just focused on how to reliably deliver a new product that met the company’s quality and on-time delivery standards. Accounting wanted to make sure we generated enough cash monthly to make payroll.
Over the past twenty years, I’ve had the opportunity to work not only with companies but also with various non-profits dedicated to improving society’s view of specific minority groups. One of the most effective ways to break down stereotypes is a process called “social engagement” – essentially, spending time with actual living, breathing members of the stereotyped group.
A team-driven strategic planning process is an excellent way to build trust and respect among your executive team members. For companies, it is the easiest way to utilize social engagement to dispel the harmful stereotypes that get in the way of successful strategic planning, execution, and achievement.
If you’re interested in having a facilitated strategic planning meeting that helps you navigate from concept to tangible implementation, while building trust and respect, check out our services. Contact us by email, or better yet, give us a call at (800) 207-8192 to arrange for a complementary consultation to determine if our program is right for you and your organization is ready for the program.
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