Fulfilling Intentions at the Upper End of What's Possible

By Erin Jones, Principal

Last fall our team worked on the design and delivery of a leadership meeting for the top leaders of a national financial services firm. Our role was to partner with the executive team and other key stakeholders to design and deliver a meeting that helped to:

1.     Build connections and trust among leaders to advance the organization’s vision and strategy

2.     Offer an opportunity to leaders to develop solutions around tensions in their business

3.     Challenge leaders to be role models of leadership and create the environment for their teams to execute on their vision and strategy

Working to fulfill an intention of this nature is a healthy challenge. There are multiple stakeholders, many perspectives on what should be on the agenda, and the stakes are high.

Also, meetings like this aren’t designed in isolation – along the way we are watching the economy, paying attention to the performance of the business, and hoping hurricane season doesn't stop us in our tracks.

At the end of engagements, we always take time to debrief, reflect, and think about what we learned. This helps our team continuously improve how we fulfill intentions. As I reflect on this experience, achieving “the upper end of what’s possible” is on my mind.

Throughout the project, there are times when our clients say, “that’s good enough” or times when our team says, “we are done ideating and need to move to development and implementation.” However, this time around, I am reminded that statements like these help us to navigate but shouldn’t necessarily be accepted. There are times when they are indeed true, but there are many more times, when we need to continuously challenge, continue to develop, draw on past learnings, and get input from others. The upper end of what’s possible is only possible when we commit not to settle.