A Checklist for Your Next Annual Planning Meeting (FREE Download)

When holding your annual planning meeting, it is critical to conduct the event in a location that provides few distractions. You want attendees focusing on the important details of planning your business and not having their attention divided by their normal, day-to-day routine of checking text messages, sending “quick” responses and other similar activities that may be critical to getting things done, but are not conducive to the future-planning process. 

So when it comes to planning the fine details for your annual meeting, you should exert the same focus you expect of attendees. Leaving the details of planning the meeting to the last minute can result in an unfocused event that doesn’t tap into the high-level participation you require. 

Below we’ve prepared a checklist for your annual planning meeting, but also a few strategies to consider when organizing the meeting’s finer details. 

How to Approach Your Annual Planning Meeting 

Real-Time Situational Awareness: Your annual meeting is a collaborative affair,  calling upon your CEO, your leadership team and a strategic coach to show up, be present and be at the top of their respective games. With all the changes and uncertainty in the world today, your leadership team is a critical link between your business and its customers, so be ready to provide them with the correct tools that will lead to strategic thinking and execution planning–and have them do the same.

Repeatable Growth Process: Preparing your team for a high-success meeting can also lay the groundwork for future meetings. High-growth companies can either create a lot of politics or build a repeatable growth process. We strongly recommend focusing on the latter.

Fun Process: Despite the critical importance of your annual planning meeting, it shouldn’t be a high-stress affair. It should be a fun event that allows your team to relax and showcase their best selves, without being on the defensive. Allow your team the breathing room to provide critical insights that can lead to future growth. A fun meeting also allows you to better see your leadership team’s “true selves.” which can provide key insights into which leaders are in the right roles for the next level of the company’s growth. This is an important insight, both for your team’s future happiness and also for the success of the company.

Planning Checklist

Timeline:

Two months (or more) before the meeting.

Tasks: Select your annual planning location and finalize your dates.  

• Find a location that is inspiring, fits your culture and will allow you team to focus on the PLANNING of your business and not on the day-to-day details of working on the business

Related content: Why we recommend planning your annual off-sites a year in advance.

One month prior

Tasks: Select your growth coach.

• Ensure there’s a good cultural and personal fit between your growth coach and your CEO.

Related content: Learn more about PFD Group’s coaching strategies | Why do I Need a Strategic Coach?

Five weeks prior

Tasks: Finalize and distribute a preparation survey to your leadership team.

• Give your team one week to complete the survey. The survey should be mandatory for participants and also require input from their direct reports.

Three weeks prior

Tasks: Based on survey input, finalize a high-level offsite agenda and team activities. 

• Plan a general flow of exercises focused on three areas: Trust and culture; understanding changing customer needs to refine your unique and valuable strategy; and build a clear team and individual execution plan for the coming quarter and year.

Two weeks prior

Tasks: Confirm catering, finalize the event schedule and book any remaining travel that needs to be confirmed.

• For the best value, book air travel no earlier than 45 days prior to travel and no later than three weeks before departure. After that, the airline recognizes the “urgency” of your travel needs and fares go up accordingly.

Related content: What goes into planning an event with purpose?

One week prior

Task: Send out final preparation questions and aggregated survey results to all participants.

• Survey answers should be fully shared, but in a way that preserves the anonymity of  respondents. Transparency helps drive trust and anonymity encourages more honest feedback. Both support the team in focusing their offsite time on the questions that will create the greatest value.

One day prior

Task: Coaching team arrives to complete the set up.

Night before

Task: Welcome dinner.

• A welcome dinner, if possible, is highly recommended. Here you can celebrate the wins of the previous quarter and recognize your core value award winners, while also kicking off your strategy meeting on a celebratory note.

Related content: Who Should Attend Your Annual Strategic Planning Meeting?

Annual Planning - Day 1

Focus: Culture, strategy and team bonding activity.

• The first day is key. It needs to clarify and reinforce your team culture, trust, unique and valuable strategic direction along with time for the team to connect outside of the meeting room.

  Related content: Vision Boarding: Creating Your Future and Your Personal Why

Annual Planning - Day 2

Execution.

• Your meeting agenda should establish clear team and individual priorities and guide the meeting to capture key communication takeaways for the entire company. You should also finalize the quarterly offsite dates for the next four quarters. Remind your full leadership team that these meetings require mandatory attendance while also providing them with enough time to set these dates in stone.

  Related content: Creating Quarterly Themes to Strengthen Team Morale

The next weekly leadership team meeting

Tasks: Share the key takeaways from the meeting; follow up by sending these takeaways to the entire team. Ensure all individual priorities are included in the software you use to run your business.

• We recommend Metronome Growth Systems. Metronome software is optimized so you can work ON your business, and not spend time working on customizing off-the-shelf project management tools to meet your business needs.

  Related content: Who Should Attend Your Annual Strategic Planning Meeting?
  
  

2023 Cultural and Growth Foundation: Why Plan Your Strategic Offsites A Year in Advance?

In the aviation industry, it can be disconcerting for a novice passenger to watch the pilot walking around and checking the condition of the plane. Seasoned travelers, however, know the pre-flight check is a mandatory part of every air journey, whether the pilot is helming a small private aircraft or the massive 787 Dreamliner. 

It may seem redundant for the pilot to check everything that the ground crew also recently checked, but in fact, it is a testimony to the great care the pilot has for the passengers–that he or she will leave nothing to chance. 

Executive Responsibility

The same can be said for planning for the success of your business. While your crew should be highly skilled, you as CEO still take final responsibility for successfully moving your business from one place to another. 

As the CEO, your culture and your team are your growth foundation. You want your entire leadership team to be experts in your market and customers. That is best done in person.

With more people working remotely or in hybrid settings, company offsite meetings are the perfect opportunity to bring your leadership team together to bond, strengthen company culture, and talk about high-level strategies that may get neglected when your team dives into the day-to-day tasks that need to be done.

These regularly held strategic meetings are where CEOs can give and receive the key feedback to keep the proverbial planes running on schedule. 

Develop a Regular Cadence

If you’re a frequent business traveler, you know the exact times your preferred airline departs. In fact, you rely upon the airline and the airport to keep things running smoothly. And when flights start to back up, chaos ensues. 

You don’t need news headlines blaming everything from weather to supply chain shortages to ground grew sickouts to know that delays and cancellations are not good for business. The same is true for your strategic planning meetings. 

Put the meetings on the books at least a year in advance. Make sure everyone knows when and where they will occur and give everyone plenty of time to prepare for the meeting. And keep to the schedule as if you expect the New York Times to blast you for any cancellations or changes that may occur. 

Quarterly Meetings

We recommend holding your high-level strategic meetings once per quarter, either at the beginning of the quarter as a way to codify your plans for the coming 13 weeks, or waiting until the end of the quarter after your numbers drop as a way of wrapping up and reviewing the previous period. 

We find the CEOs we work with are equally divided in their preferences with respect to which schedule is best. 

Another timing consideration–hold your quarterly strategic meetings two weeks before your scheduled board meetings. This gives your senior leadership the opportunity to come together to measure and future-plan your corporate strategy. How have things progressed as planned since the last meeting? What will you be measuring at the next strategic meeting? How will you report on these metrics at your upcoming board meeting? 

Beyond reporting back to your board, holding quarterly strategic meetings gives your A-Players the opportunity to build routine feedback loops. They become more accountable to one another and they also establish the ideal foundation to review and present high-level strategies to their entire team back at the office. 

Modern Day Water Cooler

If you’re of a certain age, you remember the idea of the water cooler chat. People would supposedly gather around the water dispenser to chat about work activities and to catch up on gossip. Whether or not that was ever a real office ritual, the idea behind it was sound. 

“We exist to connect with other human beings”

–Jen Fisher, Chief Well-Being Officer, Deloitte US (via Salesforce.com)

People enjoy the social interaction of working together. And a lot of that has been lost as more companies are going hybrid or fully remote.

Your strategic planning meetings give your executive team the opportunity to reconnect on a personal level. Not only do they get to discuss strategy in person, they learn a lot in the little side discussions that may be largely missing on Zoom as people worry that maybe their side chats are being monitored. 

The offsite meeting provides a forum for getting to know colleagues on a personal level. The side events, the dinners, and the random hallway conversations with colleagues all lead to building deeper connections that are more difficult to establish in an office environment.

Event Format 

The format of the meeting–whether you choose to hold it in a high-end hotel setting or a more casual retreat site–should match your corporate culture. CEOs differ on their preferences and there is no “right” way to plan the format. 

If you absolutely can’t get to an off-site location, a virtual meeting will work. But whenever possible, plan for an in-person format. 

And whether you’re holding the meeting in person or virtual, be sure you leave enough time for personal interaction and reflection.

We also highly recommend using a coach to facilitate your meeting. Coaches can help keep your meeting running on time, making sure you hit all the high points, which leaves more time for you as CEO to join the discussions and require you to watch the clock less as you look to ensure everything happens as you’ve planned it. 

Great coaches book out early, however, which is another key reason to schedule your off-site meetings as early as possible. 

If you’re looking for more ideas on implementing a successful strategic meeting, PFD Group can help. Contact us now for more information, or read about the PFD Stewardship Summit in Alaska. 

Related Content: 

Who should attend your annual strategic meetings

Who Should Attend Your Annual Strategic Planning Meeting?

As we enter the final quarter of 2022, the idea of 2023 is quickly becoming a reality. While we don’t know what to expect of the coming year, one thing is certain. CEOs and senior leaders should already be planning their business strategies for next year and beyond. 

Planning for the future is not a solitary activity and business executives should be laying the groundwork for an annual strategic planning meeting that brings together your senior leadership team for a thoughtful discussion and planning session that will propel your business into the future. 

As you start crafting the agenda and designing your anticipated strategic outcomes for your annual meeting, it is critical to spend some careful time envisioning your ideal attendee list. A misaligned attendee list can quickly derail any positive outcomes you might anticipate from your planning meeting. 

Keep the Invitee List Intimate 

A general rule of thumb is to keep the attendee list at about six to eight people. 

With five or fewer people in the room, brainstorming becomes a challenge. People may feel too pressured to speak up if they feel people are judging their ideas. The more that one person becomes reluctant to share ideas, the more that tension could flow to other attendees. 

On the other hand, if there are more than 10 people in the room, it can be difficult for everyone to be heard. Or for the group to find focus. With larger groups, conversations may drag on, which can leave less time to cover the entire agenda. 

Having more than 10 people could also lead attendees to split their attention or slow down the meeting by diving into side conversations during the parts they feel aren’t relevant to them. 

Bring Your Top Customer Service Expert

Planning for the future involves strategic task making, and these strategies should always be in alignment with the interests of your key clients or customers. While everyone in attendance should be knowledgeable about your customer preferences and market trends, at least one attendee should be an expert from your customer service team. 

Customers are constantly shifting buying habits so the attendee who works most closely in fulfilling customer demands should be in attendance to provide the intelligence and to support the strategic plan by providing insights on the market you serve.

Inviting a customer service professional to the annual meeting is equally true for B2C and B2B businesses, as both must rely upon the ultimate shareholder–the customer–to support any plans for growth and expansion.

What Value Will This Attendee Add? 

Not all employees–not even your senior leaders or A Players–are the right fit for all meetings. This is especially true for the annual meeting. 

The last thing you want to have to happen during your strategic planning is to have a subset of attendees tune out the meeting because they feel parts are “not my area.” If there’s a likelihood they will become distracted and turn to surreptitious texting or emailing while others are speaking, then maybe they shouldn’t be on the attendee list to begin with. 

When building your list of anticipated outcomes for your annual meeting, ask yourself what every potential attendee can add to those outcomes. If you aren’t able to clearly define their purpose, it may not be of value to invite them to attend. 

A Cultural Fit 

Like most companies, you probably have an employee who is a strong tactician. They are do-ers and love nothing more than checking things off their to-do list. You can count on them to get things done, but their vision for the future may not extend much beyond the task list just in front of them. This employee may not be the right to attend a high-level strategic planning meeting. 

Similarly, there’s the person who believes anything and everything is possible until it comes to meeting deadlines. Then, work becomes impossible, demands are too high and it’s everyone else’s fault but their own that they’ve overcommitted to the latest project. 

This type of employee may still bring their talents to the larger organizational structure, but may not be the right fit for your strategic planning meeting. However if their “it’s not my fault” behavior is persistent, you may also wish to reconsider your talent strategy. 

 If you already know a person will show up late or will present over-the-top feedback in the form of constructive criticism, or they will demonstrate any other roadblock to successfully meeting your planning objectives, you should listen to your own inner compass and exclude them from the attendee list. 

A successful annual planning meeting means being strategic about inviting attendees that can and will hammer out an achievable, actionable plan. It is okay to admit that not everyone in your organization fits into this dynamic. Don’t slow down your own strategic planning by inviting the wrong people to the meeting. 

Thoughtful Exclusion

While it is true that not every employee is a right fit for your annual meeting, it is also important to know that being added to the do-not-invite list may feel like a threat to the people who aren’t invited–even if they didn’t really want to attend in the first place. 

Harvard Business Review has coined the term “thoughtful exclusion” on how to handle addressing the people who are excluded from any meeting. 

“...in order to avoid the dreaded logjam of over-inclusion, the brain science makes it clear that, with the right approach, thoughtfully leaving people out could become one of the greatest managerial moves a leader makes.” 

To keep employees, especially senior leaders, from feeling hurt or threatened by being excluded from the strategic planning meeting, have a plan to discuss the intent behind the meeting and why they might not be the right fit at this time. 

Want-To Score

At PFD Group, we have built a Want-To-Score (™ pending), which is a designation that identifies the ultimate doers of any group. These are the people who are most likely to get things done. They have the grit and tenacity to not only see the vision for the future, but also have the vision of how to see the necessary tasks are completed to make this vision a reality 

If you’d like to learn more about how to identify your Want-To players or how to build the ideal annual planning meeting, contact us for more information. 

Strategic Planning And Feedback for Development for 2023

 Recently the World Health Organization (WHO) officially declared an “end” to the Covid-19 pandemic. Although that should come as good news for American businesses, newer challenges are starting to take center stage with American consumers, including the big one. 

Are we in a recession yet? 

Other issues ahead include rising mortgage rates, continued supply chain shortages, and prices on consumer goods on everything from gasoline to groceries. 

Although none of this makes for a comfortable forecast for 2023, it doesn’t necessarily mean there’s a gloomy outlook for American businesses either. As we previously wrote, many major American companies, including Trader Joe’s, Microsoft, American Airlines, and more were founded in times of economic downturn. 

The only real truth for the year ahead is that preparation and planning will serve as the best foundation for the year to come, no matter how the future shakes out.

“Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now.”

― Alan Lakein, author

If you’re looking to align your future with the present day, here are a few key steps to help you build your strong foundation. 

Review Your Core Values

As the checklist for how you run your company, your core values should be front and center in all business strategy meetings. 

Ideally, every employee should be able to quote your core values by heart. Why? Because if your core values guide you in all that you do, your employees should already be aware of that and actually want to follow suit, as they look to replicate your successes in their own leadership and departments.

What makes great core values? Your core values shouldn’t just sound good on paper, but they should carefully align with your business ideals and practices. 

Great core values are what set your company apart. They are the values that are wholeheartedly believed and experienced by your leadership, your employees, your partners, and your customers. 

If your core values aren’t already a tent pole for your business, now is the time to pull them out, and review them. See how you can reframe your internal communications to get your team on board and align their business outputs with the values you’ve set for the business. 

Take a Good Look at Your Internal Team

Covid-19 certainly made recruiting even more difficult than ever as employees–especially those in middle management positions–redefined their work-life balance. 

During the “great resignation,” as it came to be termed, the media focused extensively on the mass exodus of people leaving positions that were no longer meeting their needs. The media spent less time, however, covering the many employees who went to positions that better fit their values and their needs. 

If your employee recruitment has been frustrating, highlighting your mission, your business culture and your core values can be a beacon to employees looking for a better fit for their skills. 

It is also important that you don’t settle for “good enough” for the executives who aren’t in alignment with your core values. Keep in mind that mishires in senior roles can cost businesses hundreds of thousands – if not millions – of dollars in lost revenue.

So choose right, from the beginning, and use this to determine who’s a match for your corporate culture and who isn’t. 

Focus on Your Growth Opportunities

Now is a great time to focus on your growth opportunities. While you may think growth opportunities means increasing revenue and finding new clients, it is equally important to create a culture that allows your employees to grow. 

Here at PFD Group, we are big believers in the idea that creating a culture and an environment that encourages your employees to thrive, should be a central part of your growth strategy. 

As a leader, I can confidently say that there is nothing more rewarding than seeing your employees thrive and grow in their roles. 

–Ethan Martin, CEO, PFD Group

Solicit Feedback

Ostensibly you’ve built your business to serve your clients and to serve your employees. But are you asking them if it does exactly that? 

In a prime tech example, by 2008 users had already started celebrating the annual “Delete Your MySpace Account Day.” The social network was rapidly losing market share to upstart Facebook, which had a better user experience, according to people actively engaged in that experience. 

It took MySpace another 12 years before it was finally acquired by that same upstart. 

If you were listening to MySpace leadership, big plans were in the works that were sure to bring users back. But if you asked your team and your clients, you already knew that Facebook was the place to find clients–nearly a decade before MySpace closed for good.

Internal and external feedback is a critical tool to help you drive growth, customer service and product development. 

At PFD Group, we have developed a facilitated process that carefully solicits feedback from your most engaged clients and customers. 

Week One: Confidential Interviews With Your Leadership Team

During the first week, work with your leadership team to determine what’s at stake, Discuss how you’d like to drive change–if necessary–from what you learn from clients and employees. What are your key growth indicators and how can you align growth with what is on board? 

Week Two: Distribute the Survey

Have your survey ready to go on day one. And remember that each survey should be dedicated to a specific area or topic. Don’t make it too broad or too long. You should be constantly talking with your core customers so written and verbal feedback should always be a part of your outreach. 

In advance of sending each survey, have a full plan in place on how you will outreach to and remind clients that their answers will help drive change. Let stakeholders know time is limited so they don’t put off answering the survey. Also clearly indicate if you’ll be offering an incentive for completing the survey and especially let your customers know WHY this survey is important. 

Week Three: Compile and Share Survey Feedback

Conduct an preliminary review of the survey results to develop questions and topics of discussion that will guide your strategic planning. 

You’ll want to plan a half day or full day, offsite, facilitated strategic planning session to review your strategic planning. Facilitating the meeting will allow your senior team to be fully present during the discussion period, and avoid distraction such as meeting logistics, or who is in charge of ordering lunch. One you’ve discussed and compiled the survey, come up with a plan on how to act on the internal and external feedback you’ve compiled. 

And don’t forget to thank the stakeholders who participated in the survey. 

If you’d like help with your strategic planning for 2023, PFD Group can help. Contact us today to learn how we can help with strategic planning, consumer feedback and employee retention and outreach.

The Story Behind Our Company Name

“It is not the risk I enjoy, and I don’t like the feeling of adrenaline, resulting from perceived danger. Rather, what drives me is my desire to accomplish noble missions while helping my team coolly and mindfully face the hazards and control the risk with operating precision.” 

–Jim Wetherbee, test pilot and astronaut. He is the only person to command five Space Shuttle missions. 

Every day tens of thousands of flights ferry passengers from one place to another. A quick look at the FlightRadar24 live air traffic map will show American skies blanketed with aircraft at any given moment. 

These aircraft deliver more than 100 million passengers to some 200 commercial, and domestic airports, and countless more private airports annually. So important are these aircraft and the passengers they carry, that the greeter aviation industry supports nearly 5 percent of the entire American Gross Domestic Product. 

It’s an awesome responsibility for flight crew and air traffic control alike, to ensure these aircraft and their passengers reach their destinations safely and on schedule. 

Fortunately, thanks to modern technology, pilots and air traffic control are supported by the Primary Flight Device (PFD), which the Federal Aviation Administration defines as:

“A single physical unit that always provides the primary display of all the following: altitude, airspeed, aircraft heading and attitude located directly in front of the pilot.”

Guiding Clients As We Would Aircraft

Clearly, the entire team at PFD Group are avid fans of aviation and travel. So much so that we named our business after these in-flight displays. 

PFD Group CEO Ethan Martin is even a certified flight instructor. He has spent so much time in the skies that he takes the lessons he has learned from the in-aircraft PFD and applies them to the leadership coaching his team at PFD Group provide

“The PFD is a critical instrument for awareness. We provide similar awareness education for entrepreneurs and CEOs who want to better define where they are, where they are going, and where they are tracking on that course.” 

–Ehtan Martin, CEO, PFD Group 

Not A Personal Floatation Device

Yes, we get asked if PFD Group stands for personal flotation device. A lot. 

And no, that isn’t what we do. We provide so much more education than just how to keep your company afloat in times of emergency. 

What We Do

Just like the primary flight display, we guide you and display the key information you need to help you make informed decisions to get you where you want to go. 

In brief, we 

• Utilize our proven 3HAG processes, to help you gain confidence and clarity in your growth strategy. 

• Help you build an incredible team of leaders that support your vision, so you can spend more time on the important tasks that will make your business thrive. 

• Work with you to create strategies that will help you scale effectively, so you and your leadership team feel equipped to confidently execute your differentiated strategy. 

• Provide coaching, strategic planning, and entrepreneurship guidance to companies realizing $5M to $500M in revenue each year. 

“After one year of working with PFD Group, we reached and exceeded goals that we didn’t think were possible at the beginning of the year.”

— Cory Prellwitz, Co-owner of Hometrends LLC

Our Process

• First we talk–about your goals, your business needs, and your core values.

• Then we determine if we are a good fit for your growth needs.

• Next, we build a Thrive Plan in which we determine the strengths of your leadership team and create strategies to emphasize those strengths.

• Ultimately, we help you move the needle and continuously evolve as an organization. 

• Among our many tools, we help you 

  • Pinpoint opportunities for growth

  • Become a better and more efficient leader 

  • Balance your life, so your personal life does not take a back seat to your professional life

Why We Do What We do

When you build a thriving business and life, you have the chance to transform the lives of your employees and of the people in your community. In doing so, you can also create more time for yourself, so you can spend time on what matters in your life most. 

Or in airline speak, we help you determine when to take off, increase elevation, maintain cruising speed, look for blind spots, or land. And then just like the PFD for which we were named, we help guide you to realize your goals. 

Is Your Corporate Culture Lacking Employee Engagement?

If you think employee engagement is on the decline, you aren’t alone. 

A recent Gallup survey found that employee engagement has hit a new low. Just one in three U.S. employees report feeling “actively engaged” at work, according to the survey, while nearly one in seven (14%) report feeling actively “disengaged.” (2022, Gallup.com)

Gallup says it collects this data by asking random samples of the working population about “organizational outcomes, including profitability, productivity, customer service, retention, safety and overall well-being.” 

Managers Are Most Disengaged

An interesting and important side note to this survey is that managers are among the employees who report feeling the most disengaged at work, with manager engagement declining by seven points since the last survey. In particular, managers report sharp decreases in the subsets “believing they have clear expectations” and “feeling someone encourages their development.”

This decline in manager engagement leads to an obvious assumption. If so many managers are feeling disengaged, is it any wonder that employees are also mentally checking out? 

What to do? Gallup recommends going “back to the basics'' by establishing clear employee communications. 

Improving Engagement 

We know remote work has opened up new opportunities for many businesses, and not every corporate culture loans itself to a full-time, in-office environment. But if you do have an in-office set up, we recommend you make it an energizing one that is designed to engage and motivate employees. 

In-Person Meetings

We also believe in the power of in-person meetings. Leadership teams who get together to strategize, socialize and communicate in person on a regular basis are the ones with the strongest employee engagement. 

“In-person meetings provide a sense of intimacy, connection and empathy that is difficult to replicate via video. It’s much easier to ask for attentive listening and presence, which creates the psychological safety that people need to sense in order to engage and participate fully.” 

–Paul Axtell, corporate trainer and author of the book Meetings Matter

Consider how in-person gatherings work in your personal life. 

Have you ever heard anyone make the case that Zoom is an excellent replacement for Sunday dinner, backyard barbecues, weddings and the after-school play? Of course not.

The same is true for work gatherings. 

The side discussions alone are invaluable. They help build trust and allow the team to fully get to know one another. They also often lead to idea sharing that helps foster business growth and success.

Importantly, eight in ten employees say they want in-person meetings. 

We know that in-person meetings are not always possible on a frequent i.e. weekly, basis especially for companies that are fully virtual. Whether you are an in-person business, fully virtual or hybrid operation, it is critical to bring together leadership in strategic, in-person quarterly and annual planning meetings. These meetings should be held in a private, dedicated space that minimizes the risk of interruptions and allows the entire leadership team to fully engage in the strategy of growing and improving your business. 

Good for the Economy 

In the Business Value of Meeting Face to Face, the U.S. Travel Association reports that employees believe in-person meetings help them advance their professional growth, reinvigorate their engagement and productivity and foster better stronger leadership skills

In-person meetings are also good for the economy. The in person gathering can require everything from local catering to air travel and overnight stays. Across the U.S. in-person meetings support 800,000 American jobs and generate nearly $50 billion in local, state and federal taxes. 

Set a Regular Meeting Cadence

If you do bring your executive team together, amplify the results by planning regular meetings–at least quarterly–and set specific agendas and goals for each meeting. 

Nothing kills the positive effects of a great meeting than the loss of steam as “real world”  deadlines and expectations start to take precedence. Knowing that a follow up in-person meeting is already on the books will help keep everyone on track, as they consider how their day-to-day actions will affect the bigger picture. 

Demonstrate the importance of these quarterly leadership gatherings by scheduling them at least a year in advance. 

By giving your team plenty of time to schedule their own life events around the high-level meeting schedule, you let your employees know that you value their time which in turn will improve attendance and participation rates. 

Getting into a regular rhythm may take some work as you get everyone on board, but ultimately, your team will be grateful for the ability to plan around the schedule. 

If you’d like more information on building successful in-person leadership meetings, contact us today. 

Related Content

Meeting in person is great for personal leadership growth as well. Read more about the awesome benefits of coming together at our PFD Group Alaska Summit here.

What Do You Want Your Legacy to Be?

Too often, I come across individuals who seemingly have it “all.” On the surface, they’ve built amazing businesses which serve as models for other executives. What is less obvious, however, is how much some leaders have completely ignored every other aspect of their life in their pursuit of business excellence. 

Is this the legacy you want to build for yourself? 

When developing your vision for the future, you should consider all aspects of your life. Although there are numerous tools that can help you define these categories, one such tool is the Wheel of Life, which breaks life into eight overarching areas: health, career, personal development, finances, life enjoyment, societal contribution, relationships and romance.

What Do I Want to Be Remembered For?

Getting these eight areas in alignment starts with asking yourself the tough but inevitable question, “what do I want to be remembered for?”

When building the framework around your legacy, a good wayfinding exercise is to consider what you’d like your obituary to read. 

In 2019, this piece of advice was exemplified after the passing of my good friend Morgan Nields. His obituary read that he “was a friend to thousands.” His funeral, probably the largest I’ve ever attended, was filled with the same outpouring of love that was personified in his obituary. 

Morgan was an entrepreneur, and a visionary in medical imaging, and he was also always happy to lend a hand to other entrepreneurs like me. 

During his memorial ceremony, I also learned that Morgan had a specific goal for his life. He wanted to make a positive contribution to everyone he interacted with. 

His purpose struck a chord with me and it also continues to guide the work I do with other business leaders here at PFD Group. 

Time, Talent & Treasure

When crafting the vision around your legacy, it also helps to consider that you really only have three pillars that are yours to give. 

Your time, your talent and your treasure 

The expression originates in Matthew 6:21 but it has also become an underpinning for much of today’s philanthropic giving. 

How you choose to share your three pillars with others is completely defined by you. Yours could be a bold vision with your family name gracing medical buildings and scholarship programs. Or it could be a quieter legacy, like Morgan's, whose purpose was tied directly to the people he personally knew and interacted with.

While Morgan left a quieter legacy, it is no less important to the people he touched. 

I’m Too Busy to Define My Vision

If you're thinking, “I’m just too busy to define my vision right now. Maybe next month,” that’s not uncommon. We often hear this sentiment from our newer clients. 

Executives often start with an amazing idea for their business. They pour all–or at least most–of their attention into growing this idea. When the business enters the stage known as “successful,” they might take a moment or two to celebrate. 

But as the business grows, there’s always more to do. Maybe you just don't know when or how to stop “wearing all the hats.” Or maybe your life is not in balance as your business continues to take more than its fair share of your attention. 

A laser-sharp focus on business is never healthy when it comes at the expense of the other aspects of your life. And the demands of your business are only going to get greater, not less, as the business succeeds. 

That’s why it is important to have a vision for yourself that guides you so you can be successful in all areas of your life. 

If you are now at the point in your business development where you can’t even imagine taking the time for yourself, we can help.  We specialize in helping CEOs thrive in their business AND in their personal lives. 

To start, take a look at our Legacy Vision Tool, which can help you codify what you want your future to look like 

If you’d like more information, please contact us today for a one-on-one introductory session. 

What Are Great Core Values?

One of the first questions clients of PFD Group ask us is what are great core values? 

It’s a question that’s difficult to answer because core values are only as great as a company’s ability to fully live and deploy them. 

Making the definition of “great” even more complicated is that each company is or should be wholly unique from any other business. So should their core values. Even two companies who share the exact same stated values should have very different approaches to why those values are the guiding ones and how each business uses those values to guide their daily decisions. 

The more unique your company is, the more your core values will define that uniqueness and the better culture you’ll have. 

Getting Started in Defining Your Values

If you’re in the early phases of building your business, selecting your core values can be the most important task at hand. Your values will define your company, define how you do business, guide how you select and manage your employees, and even define how your customers will do business with you. 

Most importantly, your core values are exactly that: core. They should not change to match current trends or shifts in consumer sentiment. These are the values you set in place that will guide you year after year, no matter what.

If your core values are already in place, only extenuating circumstances should drive their change. While the below examples may help you relook at how you share your values with your employees and customers, they below should not serve as inspiration for change. 

If you’re new to building core values, the below should serve only as inspiration, and not, obviously, text to be copied. Build your own core values to reflect your unique business and your own personal values. 

50+ Core Values 

To get you started, an infographic published by Visual Capitalist in tandem with research from Valuegraphics showcases the top 56 global values with a breakdown of importance by region. The top five globally are family, relationships, financial security, belonging and community. 

Another list of  possible core values and an excellent breakdown of how often each is used can be found in a study published by MIT Management Review, When It Comes to Culture, Does Your Company Walk the Talk?

The survey lists 62 values that are used by at least 1% of companies that have publicly defined their formal values statements. 

A Word About Integrity

On the MIT chart, “integrity” clearly and significantly outpaces all other values with 65 percent of the 562 businesses audited listing “integrity” as a core value. 

Notwithstanding that Enron and Wells Fargo, both deemed some of America’s worst “bad corporate actors” list integrity among their core values, integrity has grown to be a term that is so loosely defined that it has become nearly a cliche. 

If you choose to follow the crowd and adopt integrity as a core value, be sure to fully define exactly what that means for your business. Also note that none of PFD Group examples below list integrity as a guiding principle, despite the fact that they are all well-known, respected businesses.

What Makes a Great Core Value?

So back to the original question. What makes a great core value? 

The best core values are the ones that shine through in all you do and the ones that set your company apart. They are the values that are wholeheartedly believed and experienced by your leadership, your employees, your partners and your customers. 

For core values to make a difference, you need to talk about them all the time. You have to live by them all the time. You need to hire, fire, discipline, and promote by them.

–Scott Rritzheimer, Scale Architects 

Business Core Values

Here are just a few companies who are actively achieving their defined core values. 

Airbnb Core Values

Airbnb: Champion the Mission

Champion the Mission: We’re united with our community to create a world where anyone can belong anywhere.

1. Champion the Mission

2. Be a Host

3. Embrace the Adventure

4. Be a Cereal Entrepreneur

Etsy Core Values

Etsy: Keep Commerce Human

Etsy guiding principles include:

1. We commit to our craft.

2. We minimize waste.

3. We embrace differences.

4. We dig deeper.

5. We lead with optimism

G Adventures

G Adventures Core Values

The core values of G Adventures are Love, Lead, Embrace, Create, Do.

• We LOVE Changing People’s Lives

• LEAD with Service

• EMBRACE the Bizarre 

• CREATE Happiness & Community

• DO the Right Thing

CB Insights

About CB Insights

Help us solve the biggest challenges in tech. Hungry. Humble. Helpful. Hard-working. High standards. We’ve built our company with these values—and we’re growing faster than ever.

Motley Fool

About Motley Fool

At The Motley Fool, our highest priority is to foster inclusion and belonging so all employees can thrive both personally and professionally. We believe diverse teams perform better. From our board of directors to our recruiting pipeline, we strive for diversity, both inherent and acquired.

• Motley: Foster inclusion and belonging.

• Collaborative: Do great things together.

• Innovative: Search for a better solution. Then top it.

• Fun: Revel in your work.

• Honest: Make us proud.

• Competitive: Play hard, play fair, play to win.

Red Carnation Hotels

10 Reasons Why We Love Working for Red Carnation Hotels

“If you have happy employees, you  have happy guests,” Beatrice Tollman, President & Founder. Like every loving family, we run on true family values: trust, respect and caring for each other. This, we believe, is why we all give our very best in everything we do – and why we are known as one of the world’s top hotel companies, achieving countless accolades such as the renowned Forbes five-star ratings and being voted as either the top hotel, or in the top three, on TripAdvisor in every single location.

Vans

About Vans: Our Brand

To us, “Off The Wall” is a state of mind. It means thinking differently and embracing creative self-expression. It’s choosing your own line on your board and in your life. Vans has over 50 years of connecting to youth culture and we continue to advocate for action sports while recognizing the global “Off The Wall” connection between our brand and art, music, and street culture enthusiasts.

• We are DETERMINED — we have the Van Doren spirit. We’re scrappy and resourceful. We use ingenuity to tackle every challenge head on and find a path forward, even if it’s not a straight line.

• We are CONNECTED — culturally, digitally, socially. We build lasting and meaningful relationships with our consumers, customers, partners and family, wherever they might be.

• We are INCLUSIVE — We invite unique perspectives and value different experiences. We want to hear each other’s point of view.

• We are vibrant and EXPRESSIVE in how we speak, interact and get our jobs done.

• We have FUN working at Vans because we work hard and play hard in our pursuit of enabling creative expression.

If you need help creating your core values or ensuring your corporate culture is actively adopting and performing against those values, the PFD Group can help. Contact us today to set up an exploratory call.

The Importance of the Mentor/Mentee Relationship: A Two Way Street

Guiding Your Mentees

Mentorship wears many faces. And it means different things to different executives. Many of us were lucky enough to have mentors at key turning points in our lives. While each mentee/mentor relationship is unique to the individuals, if done right, mentoring can have an immensely positive impact for everyone involved.

While mentorship does take time, working with mentees can be good for business as well as personal development. 

The Benefits of Mentorship 

Even without a direct tangible result, mentorship can provide a strong foundation for your business. 

Not only does it help shape future leaders, it helps create a qualified pipeline of A Players who are ready to move up and move into roles vacated due to retirement or other external shifting of positions.

Mentorship also drives happier workers, who have been found to be more productive, more satisfied with their careers and more likely to stay in their current business, according to research. Nearly nine in ten (88%) of mentees agree that their productivity or effectiveness has increased due to their current mentoring experience.

Mentors, too, can benefit from the relationship. 

Mentors have reported benefits from the two-way relationship, including developing better leader skills, knowledge sharing, and developing an additional sense of purpose and responsibility. In the classic example of “do what I say, not what I do,” mentoring is yet another way for leaders to re-define the purpose of their business and reconnect with their own purpose.

Research has also shown that while people with mentors get promoted faster than their colleagues, people who serve as mentors also are more likely to get promoted–six times more likely according to a survey by Sun Microsystems. Which means not only should CEOs be mentoring their staff, they should encourage their senior-level staff members to do the same. 

As leaders run the risk of getting caught up in the day to day mechanics of managing their business, mentoring can help them define ideal leadership qualities which can re-emphasize those qualities for themselves. 

Giving Thanks

It goes without saying that when mentees look back at the people who helped shape their careers and their personal growth, they should incorporate gratitude into their reflection. 

But gratitude is a two-way street and not a task limited just to mentees. Mentors who find they’ve received as much from the relationship as their mentees can continue to lead by example by sharing their own words of gratitude. 

If you'd like to learn more about developing your internal mentorship program, The PFD Group can help. We would love to talk with you about your vision for your company and how mentoring aligns with that vision.

Build a Daily Routine

In a highly engaging post at project management site Podio.com, an interactive data visualization broke down an hour-by-hour accounting of the daily habits of 26 of the world’s most creative people. Included in the visualization were such notable creatives as Benjamin Franklin, Victor Hugo, Maya Angelou, Richard Stauss, Pablo Picasso and many others.

What’s immediately noticeable in the colorful chart is that most of the people featured get regular and copious amounts of sleep. 

The creatives featured on the visualization are also alike in that they allocate substantial chunks of time for creative work and for food and leisure. On the other hand, only about half of the entrants specifically allocate time for administrative work/day job in their daily routine. Franz Kafka reported the largest chunk of time, allocating about six hours for administrative tasks and/or his daily jobs. 

Structure is Not the Enemy of Creativity

What’s less immediately obvious in this visualization but equally important is that these notable creatives have reported keeping strict daily routines. The data for the visualization was collected from the 2013 book Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey, which highlights the routines of more than 150 creative people. 

The book also includes lots of motivational nuggets, including. 

“Anthony Trollope demanded of himself that each morning he write three thousand words (250 words every fifteen minutes for three hours.)” 

What’s notable from both the visualization and the book is that structure and routine are clearly not the enemy of creativity. Instead the book suggests that building a regular routine may very well be a key contributor to the creative process. 

Maximizing Your Day

In 2020, we wrote a blog post about a similar topic, the importance of creating space and routine every morning. For entrepreneurs, the daily tasks you set for yourself will help you reach your  1-Year Highly Achievable Goals (1HAGs)  and help you make progress on their Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) as you scale your business. 

In other words, building a daily route is integral to the process of goal setting. 

As we noted in that post, another resource for planning a successful morning routine is the book Miracle Morning for Entrepreneurs by Cameron Herold and Hal Elrod. The authors recommend a six-step process in implementing a successful morning routine. The process, captured in the acronym S.A.V.E.R.S.,, is Silence, Affirmations, Visualization, Exercise, Reading and Scribing (Writing). 

Visualizing Your Daily Routine

You may know at PFD Group we are big proponents of creating vision boards to keep you motivated and focused. Creating a visual morning routine planner is also a great way to keep you motivated.. 

As usual, Pinterest has a wealth of ideas on how to create a personalized daily routine, but the website Mashaplans has a beautiful example to get you started. 

If you keep a bullet journal, you may also want to track your daily routine alongside the most important tasks you’re looking at for the coming day to help you emphasize structure in your day. 

Encourage Your Employees to Build a Routine

Now that more people are returning to an office environment, their daily routines are also changing. No more rolling out of bed three minutes before the morning Zoom call. 

It’s important you acknowledge these changes–and that they might not always be easy to adopt–but also to encourage your employees to keep their best habits and to find new, better ones. 

A Life of Service

Just as we saw in the habits of creative people visualized above, it’s important that  your daily routine is a well-rounded one. In many of the examples, you’ll see people visualizing brushing their teeth or making their bed. 

These are clearly important elements to a daily routine, as taking care of yourself is always a priority. But if you and/or your employees are pursuing larger life goals, your daily routine should expand to incorporate those goals. 

For example, if one of your personal or professional Core Values is giving back, you may want to put that core value into action by including an element in your daily habits. 

Unplug and Unwind

Often we hear people tell us they just don't have the time to spend on daily check-ins. But as we’ve already said, think of the daily check in as a way of investing in yourself. 

One daily habit to consider adding to your routine is taking time off to unplug at night. Unwind, uplug, turn off the social media. Science has pretty much proven you’ll get more sleep, feel more rested and be more creative if you do. 

Plus the time you save might just be the time you’ve been looking for to invest in yourself. 

As you start to visualize your daily routine, know that we at PFD Group can help you connect the dots between daily routine, and your Big, Hairy Audacious Goal. If you’d like more information, please contact us today for a one-on-one introductory session.