Strategic Teaming

Because every organization’s needs are unique, CMOE works closely with the organization and/or teams to identify key objectives and outcomes as a result of the strategic-teaming process. Some common objectives and outcomes include the following:

1. Open up dialogue around critical strategic opportunities in the business and discuss how to seize and execute on those opportunities.
2. Gain alignment on a shared strategy so it can be communicated across the organization and cascaded throughout each function that needs to support it.
3. Help cross-functional teams or functional areas of the business jointly identify strategic priorities that will capture competitive advantage for the organization.
4. Make and drive important strategic decisions, define commitments, and develop action plans.
5. Create a disciplined structure for action around the strategies that each business function or team develops in relation to their shared goals.
6. Assist strategic teams with implementation of skills, behaviors, tools, and practices that will ensure that the strategy’s execution is consistent.
7. Seek alignment and define methods for sharing information appropriately, eliminating competing goals, and building successful teams.
8. Identify waste, inefficiencies, and tactical distractions so each function can operate on a strategic track.
9. Establish strategic measures of effectiveness to ensure successful execution and accountability for the strategies that are created.

The Strategic Teaming learning experience is a facilitated process led by CMOE using strategic team tools and concepts that help employees take a collaborative and strategic approach to addressing key business needs and issues. This process is built around a series of sequential phases:

• Phase I is about articulating the need and business case for strategic teaming. It provides participants with a baseline understanding of the strategic effort, as well as key strategy concepts, principles, and skills.
• Phase II is designed to help the strategy team collaborate on creating, building, or modifying strategies and plans to create greater alignment on strategic efforts and their execution.
• Phase III is for creating execution, sustainability, and accountability mechanisms that will drive strategic results and increase team-member engagement, effective teamwork, and ownership of the strategy.

This three-phased approach enables teams to shift from simply being operationally effective to being strategically focused, successful teams.