Unstick Your Strategy: Free Up Your Emotions

April 18, 2025
Phil Krone

Research, analysis, number-crunching, decision trees —these are a few of the traditional components of strategic planning. But we’re just now learning about how powerful a little understood, new-kid-on-the-block component can be.

Why do some strategic issues stick around too long and how can this new kid on the block help to cut them loose? Usually, key executives and managers know what they are, and they know they need to be freed up—to quietly go away or to be directed down a more productive path. But they don’t know just how to “unstick” them using strategy.

That’s a question we are getting more and more from our clients and even prospects. It’s not that they want “strategic plans” as such. They don’t want to change the direction of the ship, just make the ship faster or, at least, more efficient. They are looking for practical help in making important decisions about business issues that are strategic in nature, some of which have been nagging them for some time.

But first: Who is the new kid, exactly? Actually, a component of decision-making that’s always been there but that’s now seen in a new, more productive light:  emotions. How often have you heard, “Let’s take emotion out of it”? Well, not necessarily a bad idea, except that emotions will always be part of making decisions, especially significant ones that can impact companies strategically. Taking them out is practically impossible.

Key Point #1 : The various traditional factors of strategy are often said to “drive” decision-making, including the especially obvious emotion of “enthusiasm.” But a new way of looking at emotion may well be more productive. Instead of letting emotion  drive  decision-making,  embrace  emotion to increase your understanding of all factors affecting your decisions, especially significant ones. That’s what research by Lisa Feldman Barrett, a distinguished professor of psychology at Northeastern University, has shown. Barrett’s work reveals that emotions act as “shortcuts” to making decisions and are, in effect, “forecasts” of how actions might unfold.*

McKinsey & Company bolsters that point of view.

The firm identified some bold strategic moves**  that correlate with success for larger companies. The point, probably for any company, is that a CEO who plays it too safe too often because they’re not emotionally ready to “be bold” won’t be as successful—and neither will their company. “Making one or two bold moves more than doubles the likelihood of rising from the middle quintiles of economic profit to the top quintile,” the firm’s report notes. “Making three or more bold moves makes such a rise six times more likely.”

So, does this mean having “the guts” to make a bold decision also mean throwing caution to the winds? Of course not. It does mean knowing when to move and when not to move, and embracing emotion can help executives know when those times are.

For example, a law firm asked us to facilitate a discussion of partners around the questions of both geographic expansion and practice-area extension. The topics had been on the table for several years without decisions being made. The firm was “stuck” on critical strategic issues. Frustrations, concerns, and emotions were on the verge of going in the wrong direction. By bringing some structure to the decision-making process we were able to facilitate a discussion that led the partners to consensus decisions. Key was helping the group see where they were stuck and why, which did involve emotions.

Key Point #2:  Our role was not to provide analysis, technical expertise, due diligence, or to make a recommendation. Our role was to  facilitate the decision-making process. And, part of that facilitation was to get emotions out on the table—not as psychologists but as facilitators who guide discussion toward decision by asking the right questions and interpreting the answers. Unsticking some strongly held emotions turned out to be critical to the process.

Key Point #3:  Outside facilitation gives top management the opportunity to  participate fully  in the discussions and allows senior executives to focus exclusively on the matters at hand. Such meetings are too often facilitated by the CEO or other top manager. That’s not nearly so effective because running the meeting and participating in a meaningful way are nearly impossible. In line with the new knowledge of how to embrace emotion in business, outside facilitation allows every participant to identify and use those emotions as part of the decision-making process.

Comment:  Business managers often strive to “take the emotion” out of their decision-making. That’s not what we’re talking about here. Instead, we’re talking about accepting that emotion will almost always be involved in any significant decision-making process. The key is to acknowledge that fact as an  opportunity  to embrace. Understanding how emotion fits in transforms it into another tool in your strategic planning tool bag instead of dangerous pitfall to avoid.

What to do?  More and more we are seeing our clients call for a “strategy issues” meeting or retreat where they isolate themselves to address a few, selected issues. One of our clients does it quarterly, another annually. Some do it only as needed.

Each such session is different because the issues, industries, and businesses are different. Each employs a customized plan based on conversations with a company or a firm’s leadership. But, in general, some concepts can help other companies facing similar challenges.

First, unless the session is designed to target a specific issue, it’s critical to gather all of the water-cooler issues floating around the office. One reason companies have a surprising number of unresolved issues is that nobody knows where to start. A good discovery meeting with management and a questionnaire to the appropriate employees shakes out open issues and priorities.

Second comes a facilitation plan for the session. Sometimes, despite such planning, operational issues raise their hands during strategic discussions. There are two ways of addressing operational issues in a strategic context: Decide that no strategic issues will be settled until the operational issues get cleaned up or decide to take up operations problems at a different meeting and return to solving strategic problems.

Finally, it’s critical to assign responsibility   during the meeting  for implementing the decisions and making them work. Follow-up milestones support accountability and are also important.

We’ve facilitated strategic discussions about a number of issues. Executive team communication, for instance, and assessing and prioritizing “good” ideas.

In one case, competent, well-intentioned managers couldn’t grow the company at the rate the founder had targeted. A book suggested by the CEO,  The Five Dysfunctions of a Team  (Patrick Lencioni), provided a model—and a mirror—of how high-level teams both fail and succeed.

The key was ferreting out issues, facilitating group self-evaluation, and raising the bar for the future. We were gratified when the founder wrote us: “Thanks to your leadership we had the best and most robust discussion that I have ever seen by this group . . . [and] we accomplished a lot, surpassing my expectations.”

In another case, a company’s 12 senior managers worked effectively together and spent time talking about many good ideas for improving the company. But talk was all they did with these ideas. We were called in to help assess and prioritize the ideas in a two-day strategy session.

Our pre-meeting interviews and surveys revealed some  200  ideas–nearly all worth considering. But which were worth pursuing at that time? The session laid a solid foundation the team used afterward to tackle just  three  major ideas. The time and energy they used to spend talking now went into doing.

Here are some other strategic issues we’ve facilitated:

  • Brainstorming a New Product Line
  • Expanding Professional Practice Areas
  • Evaluating Domestic vs. Offshore Opportunities
  • Developing a Sustainable Competitive Advantage
  • Climbing the Ladder in an Existing Vertical Market
  • Creating a Process to Sell a Company
  • Balancing Work among Separate Offices of a Law Firm.

Do you have an unresolved issue  that has been kicked around for a while or a new one you want to build out? Call us at 847-446-0008. We would love to talk with you, regardless of whether you use us to facilitate the process.

_______________________________________________________________________
*As reported by Hamza Mudassier in  Entrepreneur  magazine.
** In “The Mindsets and Practices of Excellent CEOs,” October 25, 2019, McKinsey defines “bold” as shifting “at least 30 percent more than the industry median.”

 

By Phil Krone, President April 28, 2025
Asking the questions that give you the confidence you need to win in sales. 
By Phil Krone, President March 22, 2025
This faith-based not-for-profit achieves 40 percent year-over-year growth for 17 years by applying well-known business principles, one in particular. Why can so few businesses even dream of such growth?
By Phil Krone, President February 17, 2025
Are you selling business to business or business to government or both? There are similarities but also differences that need to be recognized to optimize your results.
By By Phil Krone, President January 17, 2025
Last year after a talk I gave at the Small Business Expo on Business to Business Selling (B2B) , a woman asked for my card because she wanted to meet to tell me about her business and learn more about mine. When we eventually got together she shared that her start-up company’s goal was to console consumers who had suffered the loss of a loved one directly, as she had. But my talk had inspired a new idea: assist funeral homes to improve their services by showing more empathy to their customers who were struggling as she was. I sensed that my talk gave her confidence that, despite the challenges, her business could succeed. What I didn’t realize was that this small assignment for a start-up would eventually have such a big impact on her business as well as an industry. 
By Phillip Krone December 18, 2024
To date we have covered the Sales, Information, Tactical, and Marketing Plan Levels. Although the fifth level is the last to be discussed, it is often what sets a business in motion when it is founded. Today we will illustrate marketing to support a vision by discussing two very successful businesses.
By By Phil Krone, President December 5, 2024
As a reminder, the Five Levels of Marketing are (1) Sales, (2) Information/Data/Analytics, (3) Tactical or Campaign, (4) Marketing or Program, and (5) Vision/Strategic. We’ve explored each of the first three levels in separate columns in August, September, and October. They are available on our website's Productive Insights collection.
By By Phil Krone, President October 16, 2024
Using intelligence from prior levels leads to revenue-building sales campaigns on the ground in real time.
By Phil Krone, President September 16, 2024
Tracking key types of data each month provides insights that can build a highly productive marketing plan.
By Phil Krone, President August 14, 2024
The Five Levels - Sales: Prospecting, qualifying, discovery, presentation, demonstration, proposal writing and closing; Information/Data/Analytics; Tactical or Campaign; Marketing or Program; Vision/Strategic
By Phil Krone, President July 18, 2024
If you believe you have ADHD, you can be more successful by scheduling fewer first meetings and spending that time on more second and third meetings with qualified prospects. For our client, that meant cancelling half the medical CFO conventions his sales rep was planning to attend and investing more time following up with the CFO prospects he had already met. When your discovery is not productive, step back and restart at the point the discussion began to be about whose system is better. That’s an argument you are not going to win. Don’t waste years in prospect meetings in which you ask the same questions every time and get the same answers. Either decide that your product or service isn’t right for this prospect and move on—or broaden your discovery to find a need behind the need. In this hospital case, the hidden need was a fear that because no outside vendors had audited their system they might be in violation of regulations that an outsider would spot right away.
More Posts