CHAPTER 3

COMMONLY-ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT REAL TIME STRATEGIC CHANGE

This section of the book answers a handful of the most commonly asked questions people have about this powerful approach. These questions, culled from experiences of working in a wide variety of organizations, represent a composite list of initial inquiries people typically make as they explore applying the technology in their own organization. There are two responses to each question. The initial responses represent first-hand accounts by leaders; these are supplemented with my own perspective in the plain text which follows.

When Would You Use the Real Time Strategic Change Approach?

“There are a lot of bright people ready to articulate ideas to make METRO or any organization better at what it does,” says Dan Linville, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 587, who was involved with a culture change process at METRO, an agency responsible for the Seattle, Washington area’s water pollution control and public transit needs. He describes his perspective of potential payoffs from using this approach to bring about change: “Getting all these people together at one place and at one time gives you a lot better shot at finding new solutions to old problems.”

Making any organization better at what it does and finding new solutions to old problems is a broad but reasonable goal for an initial round of sorting through appropriate applications for the real time strategic change approach. Because this approach is founded on a set of principle-based processes and practices, it is highly flexible in application, and can be used to support a wide variety of change initiatives. It is equally adept when a strategy must be developed by hundreds of people from a “clean sheet” or when the strategy has been set by leaders and the large group’s task is focused solely on developing plans for implementation.

So now we are left with the question, when is it not appropriate? The first situation in which this approach would be inappropriate is where minor or incremental changes are the goal. Given the time, money, and energy required to support a real time strategic change effort, incremental changes would probably not yield a big enough payoff to warrant the required investment.

A second case would be if an organization’s leaders were not fully committed to creating an empowered, interdependent, organization-wide team. For some leaders, the most difficult organizational changes are in their own patterns of behavior. This process is designed every step of the way to unleash an organization’s collective knowledge, skills, and creativity. If a leader were uncomfortable with pushing decision making down and raising people’s influence in their organization, this approach would prove to be absolutely disastrous.

A third condition that would argue against applying this approach would be one in which the necessary commitment cannot be secured from other key stakeholders, be they union representatives, senior managers, or informal leaders in the organization. It is possible to move forward without buy-in from these important players, but the work proves harder and the risk of failure is greater. Dealing directly with these issues on the front end of the change effort makes for a cleaner, clearer initiative with much better odds of success.

A fourth scenario that raises a red flag is when the required resources are not committed up front by an organization’s leaders. Even if substantial changes are required and an organization’s leaders believe in creating an empowered, interdependent, organization-wide team, a real time strategic change effort is set up for failure by cutting corners and trying to get by with minimal investment.

How Can Organizational Leaders Support a Successful Real Time Strategic Change Effort?

“Whoever is the leader in this type of change process better be very visible to the troops and involved in the planning,” advises Geoff Garside, general manager of Marriott’s Hong Kong hotel, who used the technology to support a total quality management initiative. “You can’t blend into the background and expect things to happen on their own. You’ve got to keep active and react quickly if you see things headed in the wrong direction in the large group events. Otherwise, things can just fizzle out on you because you’re busy waiting for someone else to provide leadership. If you’re not willing to personally involve yourself in leading this effort, you’re better off saving your money and not wasting your time. You’ve got to be prepared to put your time and energy in, if you’re going to be asking people in your organization to do the same.”

The leadership role in a real time strategic change effort is not something that can be delegated to someone else and checked in on occasionally. Treating the application of this technology like another in a long line of projects on an organizational “to do” list minimizes its potential impact and a leader’s ability to make the most of the time, money, and energy invested in the process. Because things move so quickly and are highly responsive to emerging data, key decisions are made on a continuing basis. Not being involved in these decisions is not being a leader of a real time strategic change effort. In addition to defining the scope of work for the change effort (normal leadership work in any change process), leaders also need to be a part of designing the overall process, or at least defining a context for it. Each organization’s particular circumstances call for a unique application of the technology. Deciding how many people will ultimately be involved in the large group sessions, what their composition should be, and the actual agendas for these meetings may sound like details leaders usually wouldn’t want to be bothered with. However, in applying the real time strategic change technology, these details have wide-ranging, strategic implications that warrant attention.

In the large group events that form the foundation of the real time strategic change technology, leaders join other participants in various working groups, and are as involved and accessible as anybody else in the room. Although leaders generally give a “view from their perspective” (illustrated in the three day agenda in Chapter 4) they take part fully in all other work as a member of the large group. Being accessible through question and answer sessions, in working groups, and during breaks and lunches provides leaders with an opportunity to communicate with people throughout their organization. Most people in large organizations have been burned at one time or another by past promises of change, and are wary about trying their luck again. Ensuring that leaders are personally involved in the key decisions guiding the organization’s change effort and accessible throughout the process are key investments required for success.

How Can Others Support a Successful Real Time Strategic Change Effort?

“If you’re aligned properly and focused on the same objectives, you can react to changes in the marketplace much faster,” says Ken Kentch, hospital health plan administrator at Kaiser-Permanente’s Santa Clara, California hospital that used this approach in designing a new facility and work processes. He discusses the advantages gained by having a strong, aligned organization-wide team: “People are clear on their individual roles and the organization is clear on its collective role. Bottom line, you get a lot more accomplished when you’re all on the same page.”

Along with the roles leaders need to play, people are also typically interested in how the rest of the members of an organization contribute to the success of a real time strategic change initiative. People throughout an organization add value in three distinct ways when applying this approach. The first of these involves building the common database of strategic information which forms the basis for an organization’s overall strategy, and subsequently, the decisions and actions taken in line with that strategy. As mentioned earlier, the most complete picture of reality includes the most perspectives, and the large group events provide an excellent forum for these dialogues. A second equally critical role organization members play in this process is in crafting strategy, whether it’s for the overall organization or for their individual work group. Thirdly, the skills and knowledge developed in this process provide people with the capabilities required to analyze emerging issues and opportunities, synthesize new data, and continue making real time strategic changes in how they do business in the future.

In addition, two smaller, select groups support the real time strategic change process: the design and logistics teams. In collaboration with consultants experienced in the technology, design team members are charged with determining the purpose and agenda for their organization’s events. Logistics teams are responsible for all of the behind-the-scenes support that make these large group meetings a seamless experience for participants. Design team members are selected to represent a microcosm of the group coming to the event (in this way they are able to get their “finger on the pulse” of what will and won’t work for the larger group); logistics teams are often staffed by internal consultants, trainers, and other support people. Although these two teams are discussed in several sections of the book, Chapter 11 details the planning process followed by design teams, while Chapter 12 includes an overall picture of the roles played by logistics teams.

How Many People Can be Involved in a Single Event?

“At first we considered designing our events for 500 people at a time with each session being held on three consecutive Saturdays,” reports Gil Rodriguez, a bargaining committeeman at Ford’s Dearborn, Michigan Assembly plant and the key union representative behind the design of the largest real time strategic change event we’ve held to date. He shares his perspectives on how many people can be involved in a single event: “With that approach it would have taken us four to four-and-a-half months for everyone in the plant to participate. As soon as someone put out the idea of having it at Cobo Hall in downtown Detroit and having all 2,200 people come together for three consecutive days, we all said, ‘Why not?’ If there’s any way for you to involve your entire organization in this process at once, do it. The positive impact you gain will far outweigh the extra time and energy you have to put into planning it that way.”

The real time strategic change technology can be used to advantage in small organizations numbering as few as a dozen individuals or in very large organizations counting thousands of people as members. The size and scope of the large group events appear to be limited only by our own courage and that of our clients’. We began ten years ago working with sixty managers at a time at Ford Motor Company. Now 500 person real time strategic change events are commonplace.

As referenced in the quote, we supported Ford Motor Company’s production launch of its thirtieth anniversary 1994 Mustang car. To do that, we brought together all 2,200 employees from the Dearborn Assembly Plant for a three day interactive working session. Although more complex than any real time strategic change event we’d ever held, the results were remarkably similar to those achieved in working with much smaller groups. Because 800 people had been the largest group we had ever previously pulled together for one of these events, we opted to stage this session in four separate rooms (with approximately 550 people in each room). In addition, all 2,200 participants joined together for certain parts of the process in a large auditorium. Because we used separate rooms, we designed the agendas in such a way that presenters could rotate to ensure that all participants heard the same messages from these key stakeholders. This added complexity meant that the flow of the design and target times became absolutely critical. One missed milestone would result in logistical nightmares for everyone. We also made use of closed circuit television for several simultaneous presentations to the total group.

Multiple large group events held close together in time have also proven to be an effective means for large organizations in achieving fast and far-reaching change. Chapter 10 includes criteria and questions you can use to help think through your organization’s answer to the question of the size and scope of a real time strategic change event: how can you best achieve the critical mass needed to bring about change in your organization?

What Resources Are Required For a Real Time Strategic Change Effort?

“A lot of people ask me, ‘How can we afford to spend so much money on these large group meetings when things are so tough financially?’” relates Bob Reilly, general manager of Ford Motor Company’s glass division. “My answer to them is that when you’re in trouble is when you most need to make these kind of investments. You’re going to spend a lot of money with this kind of approach … just in time off work you’re going to have a pretty steep bill. And you’re going to have to have faith that it’s a good investment, because there are no guarantees. But if you’re lukewarm about it, go study it some more. We had observers in from three different companies watching our events. If you’re not ready to get behind this approach right away, go see for yourselves what’s possible. It needs to make sense for your business, but don’t let the up-front investment get in your way of making a good business decision. It may cost you more not to do this in the long run.”

Creating a profound impact on an organization’s change efforts carries with it a significant resource investment. Specific dollar figures depend on the scope and magnitude of the change effort and the organization’s size. But do not be deceived: the real time strategic change technology typically involves taking hundreds of people out of their normal jobs in an organization for two to three days at a time. In fact, one smaller organization actually opted to close up shop entirely to hold their event. Extensive pre-planning and thorough follow-up support are required. Time off the job is needed for teams to plan the large group event, gather data, and manage the numerous logistics issues associated with bringing together hundreds of people at the same time and place for an interactive working session. Arrangements have to be made regarding facilities, lunches for participants, and materials. Cost figures—people, time, and money—are substantial and need to be included in any “go-no go” decision dialogue. However, because of the large scale nature of this approach, direct and opportunity costs per person are much lower than comparable figures for multiple small scale consulting and training initiatives ultimately involving the same number of people. We also believe the returns are much better than those achieved by more traditional approaches, which makes real time strategic change a more than justifiable investment in the right circumstances.

What Kind of Follow-Up Is Required After Large Group Events?

“Follow-up is crucial, too.” highlights John Devine, chairman of First Nationwide Bank. He stresses the importance of committing to the change effort over the long haul: “ You open Pandora’s box with these large group sessions by raising people’s expectations, accountability, and responsibility all at the same time. Once you do that, it’s awfully difficult to get people back in the box again. None of this is a quick fix by any means, and if you get started with it, you had better be prepared to continue working on it for awhile.”

Although the real time strategic change approach makes the future happen faster, it is not a one-shot miracle cure for whatever ails an organization or the people who work in it. The process creates significant pressure for demonstrable change and people leave these events with high expectations that change will continue to unfold and be supported throughout their organization over time. People take charge of making changes happen at lower levels in organizations in the early going, but if they find that they are alone in doing business in new ways, these initial successes will be wasted.

What specific follow-up or support is needed depends on the types of changes to be made, an organization’s circumstances, and the strategies and plans it decides to implement. In some situations, additional large group gatherings may be necessary. These might focus on certain aspects of the change effort. They may also include people at other levels or from other parts of an organization. They may also serve as training sessions to develop people’s knowledge and skill bases required to do business in new ways. A wide variety of spin-off initiatives consistent with the changes agreed upon in large group events often emerge over time, further solidifying new practices and processes throughout an organization. Support over the longer haul could take the form of gradually pushing responsibility down to lower levels; building teamwork; or developing and implementing systems, structures, or new work processes consistent with an organization’s new strategic direction. What is important to note here is that the final evaluation after a large group event is merely a checkpoint in your change process, not the finish line. If you are not committed for the longer haul, do not get started with this approach. The expectations you raise, and how far they fall when they go unmet, will leave you worse off than if you had never done anything in the first place.

What Kind of Control Is There in This Process and Who Has It?

“I’ve changed how I manage quite considerably through my involvement with this approach,” says Martin Raff, a regional director in the United Kingdom’s Employment Service. He noted that he’s had to change his own style of management in order to take advantage of the real time strategic change approach: “The key changes have really been about sharing power and letting go. Even as a senior line manager, I felt I had to be responsible for pushing forward my agenda at all levels. It was incredibly demanding on me, but I didn’t have any mechanisms that would meet my needs and objectives any other way. By getting the overall strategy into everybody’s minds, I’ve found it easier to trust people to take things forward with the same objectives, maybe in different ways than I would have done, but taken it forward just the same. At the end of the day, I’ve found this approach more effective and less demanding of me.”

“Trusting the process” is often one of the greatest investments required from participants in a real time strategic change process. Most people in organizations are accustomed to a certain level of personal control over their work and the results they achieve. Predictability, certainty, and having everything go according to plan becomes a goal, even if an unconscious one. Control is exercised by deciding who is going to do what in the plan, and then monitoring things to make sure that they happen in the prescribed manner.

In place of control by a few, participation and involvement of many is highly valued in real time strategic change efforts. This demands the building of a common understanding throughout an organization by free and open sharing of strategic information, as well as allowing decisions to be made by those most affected. There is no place in this formula for establishing and reinforcing a small group’s privilege and power. Controlling information and making decisions for others runs counter to the basic premises of real time strategic change. In fact it most often leads not only to uninformed decisions being made, but also to people who lack motivation and a belief that they can make a difference in their organizational lives.

A real time strategic change effort follows an organization’s natural dynamics. At first glance, to some people it may appear that little control exists. Plans change on a regular basis and flexibility is the norm. This image stands in stark contrast to the predictability normally associated with good control measures. However a great deal of control exists within this approach, but it is a different kind of control than what most people are used to. It is control of the process, not control of the content or specific outcomes. This new kind of control, experienced often for the first time by people involved in a real time strategic change process, becomes a model for at least one of the new ways of doing business.

Large group events are tightly orchestrated and flexibly implemented to provide the most freedom and to maximize the group’s chances for success. By ensuring that all participants have ready access to a common database of strategic information and that they are aligned with the organization’s strategy, letting go a little becomes easier. This oxymoron suggests a twist on the definition of control. Bob Waterman once described this shift in The Renewal Factor by suggesting the answer is to “Give up control, in the narrow sense, to get control, in a broader sense” (Waterman, 1987).

How Does an Organization’s Strategy Fit Into a Real Time Strategic Change Effort?

“The thing about this process,” points out Mike Mackie, senior vice-president for Marriott’s Hotels, Resorts, and Suites, “is that it’s a blessing and a curse. People walk out of these meetings on board and committed to making certain changes in the organization. That’s a blessing assuming you’re making the right changes. The curse comes if you’re implementing the wrong strategy … and you’ve got hundreds or thousands of people in your organization basing their decisions on it every day. That can prove to be a very healthy wake-up call in a lot of ways!”

To succeed, you must make sure you’ve developed one of many possible “right” strategies. All strategic decisions take on added importance because of the power generated by having an entire organization acting in concert. Major positive results can be achieved in a shorter cycle time using the large scale technology, but flawed decisions, implemented in real time across an entire organization are sure to sink your ship sooner.

The technology makes it possible for the thinking of all key stakeholders to be considered when formulating the overall strategy. This provides an instantaneous quality control checkpoint. Strategy can be set by an organization’s leaders, drafted by them and revised by the rest of the organization, or actually emerge during the large group event itself. The approach and processes used are designed to ensure a “right” strategy is the one you are implementing. The real time strategic change technology can be used to determine a “right” strategy and add significant value to your change effort. As noted earlier, if the choice of methods for selecting a strategy involve only a small group, the chances of developing a “wrong” strategy increase significantly.

What Impact Does a Leadership Team Have on the Process?

“As part of our large group events, we spent a lot of time in our organization developing values that we’d live by,” explains Bill Buchanan, county manager in Sedgwick County, Kansas. “One of our values had to do with two-way communication and listening to people from all levels in the organization. We had been discussing merging departments. After considerable work had been done examining that possibility, I called in the department head who had not yet been consulted. She said, ‘I thought the value of communication was important to you and this organization. If you valued communication, you would have asked me what I thought about this instead of telling me.’ She nailed me. To understand the power of her statement, you have to understand our organization and its history. I threw my hands up as if to surrender and said, ‘You got me. Now let’s start over with this plan.’ That changed the dynamics of not only the meeting, but also how others perceived we were going to do business from then on. I can tell you, too, that story got out in the County rumor mill pretty quickly. It earned us a lot of points from people who doubted whether we were serious about doing business differently. This was my learning. Other leaders in the county could tell you theirs, too. You all need to be on board if the process is going to work, and you can bet that people will test you every step of the way.”

The real time strategic change approach both requires and creates a strong, aligned leadership team in an organization. The top team’s involvement in designing the overall change process provides an excellent team building opportunity on high stakes and very visible issues. Top teams typically continue to gain confidence, clarity, and commitment as change efforts unfold. However, it is important to note that this new way of doing business puts a large spotlight on an organization’s leadership team by magnifying their values and behaviors. They are on stage in a literal sense during the event and figuratively over time in the organization.

Even people who deeply want to believe that things can be different will watch for any crack in the leadership team’s commitment or alignment with the new way of doing business to ensure they do not get fooled into supporting a superficial change process. How questions are answered, and even what leaders do during breaks in the large group events are scrutinized. Harsh or evasive responses to questions and even eating lunch with each other send the clear message that “business is as usual.” Although minor issues in the scheme of things, during times of change these minor issues become symbolic acts to which people attach great meaning. A strong, aligned leadership team that sends messages consistent with new ways of doing business becomes a model of collaboration and commitment to common goals for the entire organization.

In addition, the real time strategic change technology creates a unique platform for a leadership team to educate people on the challenges they see facing the organization. It is also an opportunity to learn from their people and to integrate that new thinking into their own. Another is being authentic with each other, and even more powerfully, with the large group where honesty, vulnerability, and declared lack of knowledge go a long way toward building trust, confidence, and commitment. Leaders who do not know all the answers may be concerned that they will be seen by their people as weak or ineffective. But this supposed weakness is actually a fundamental assumption in this approach to organizational change. It is one of the basic premises underlying why large groups need to be brought together in the first place. Although a strong, aligned leadership team cannot bring about significant organizational change by themselves, their support, commitment, and collaboration are vital to the success of a real time strategic change effort.

What Other Benefits Does This Approach Offer?

“Unexpectedly, you find leaders emerging as part of this process,” reports Anne Linsdau, a group director of human resources for Allied–Signal, who points out another likely return from the investment made in a real time strategic change effort saying, “It’s marvelous to see people at different levels taking on more responsibility, and having the information they need to make a difference. It’s a win-win solution because it enhances the self-worth of the individual, and there’s value for the company because more people are tapping into their potential and can assist us in making things happen.”

Although specific benefits possible depend on an organization’s particular situation, several typical advantages of the real time strategic change approach merit mention. Often people are surprised to discover colleagues, previously wallowing in a sea of pessimism deep down in the formal hierarchy, being enthusiastic and optimistic about the opportunities they now see. People who want to make a difference discover many avenues for supporting a real time strategic change effort, such as committing themselves to do their part in implementing changes. They may also provide leadership back in their unit or section by involving and informing those who could not attend the event in the deliberation and outcomes, or they may join a cross-functional process improvement team to work on long-standing rivalries, competitive issues, or poor “handoffs” between departments.

New leaders also emerge in this process near the top of the organization chart. Some senior executives see the change effort as an open invitation to be the kind of leader they always wanted to be but felt would not be rewarded in the organization. Others recognize that their old ways will no longer be appropriate nor accepted by their colleagues, or those above and below them, and either decide to try to change their ways or to leave the organization, making way for new leaders to be discovered.

Although what I have described so far in this chapter could be called hard business results, there is another softer side that the real time strategic change approach effectively addresses. This approach does not force you to choose between hard and soft results. In fact, each becomes a path to the other as hard business measures are achieved in ways that promote individual dignity, meaning, and community in organizations.

Rarely do people have the opportunity to participate in dialogues regarding substantive organization-wide issues, or to personally influence strategic business decisions and outcomes. Often, initiatives designed with the best of intentions, including developing greater dignity for people, miss their mark and come under fire because of their exclusive, directive style of implementation. Conversely, knowing how our part fits with the whole, to see that valued, and to recognize that what we do day-today makes a difference to the customer, both the one in the next section and the paying customer at the end of the line, can be a great source of meaning and satisfaction in our work lives. Having a say in how we do business and where our organization is headed also adds depth and quality to our organizational experience. Developing organizations that are safer, more secure communities fosters feelings of belonging, commitment, and a common bond that far transcends the “punch the clock” mentality that still persists in too many organizations today.

The Choice For You and Your Organization

Real time strategic change represents a fundamental rethinking and redesign of the way organizations change. You may be interested in changing the way your organization does business in order to move ahead of competitors, face up to potential threats and challenges, more fully satisfy your customers’ needs, or respond to calls for greater involvement from your own members. This technology has proven itself to be a rigorous, flexible tool for aligning large numbers of people with common goals and for stimulating collaborative action to achieve desired results. As you continue reading, I invite you to explore more deeply the question of whether this approach is a good fit for your organization. How effectively can it help you meet your particular needs and challenges? Can you create the capacity to implement all the phases of work required and provide the necessary ongoing support over the longer haul? My hope is that the remainder of this book will serve to inform your discretion and that the choices for you and your organization become clearer the farther on you read.

“One of the reasons I think this process works is that with hundreds of people in the room you get a different sense of what the elephant looks like than you do with nine blind men looking at it. By that I mean, you just don’t get the same perspective traveling around putting the picture together piece by piece, which is how we normally did business (at Marriott). As only one person, you have trouble collecting all the pieces of the picture, let alone knowing how they fit together. The whole picture only starts to emerge when you bring all the pieces together at the same time and you begin to move them around with 500 people’s help. My grandfather told me when I was first leaving for school that I shouldn’t be going to learn as much as I could about as many different things as possible, but that genius comes from putting things together in different ways. Although we always seemed to agree on the problems we had in this company, we put solutions together in the same old way: each person would have their own solution to the problem and the other four people in the room would disagree. These large group sessions allowed us to put things together in different ways—my grandfather’s definition of success.

“Another reason this approach works is that there’s a clear intent to get some solid work done … to align your organization both conceptually and in some very specific areas. For most organizations anytime you gather together more than 100 people for an event, there’s great opportunity for things to go awry. So the big events are always tightly controlled with motivational speakers or presentations. But that’s no way to get real work done. You can’t roll up your sleeves and get to the business issues when all you do is listen to other people talk. Too many organizations, I’m afraid, just send out “memos of change” when they need to radically transform the way they do business. The problem with this approach is that memos can’t ever provide enough information to the people getting them, or enough feedback to the people sending them, to be a useful means for getting real work done.

“We’ve used this large group approach in hotels all over the world to support the implementation of our Total Quality Management (TQM) efforts and the single biggest thing I’ve seen come out of it at all levels is that people expect to be involved in major decisions that get made in the company. There’s still a role for leadership in setting direction, but you’ll hear a loud hue and cry and people will hold you to account if you just go off and try to run the show by yourself. So why should you bother with it? Does it sound like too much time and hassle?

“My belief is that you’re going to make better decisions by involving these people, and you’ll end up with longer lasting changes if you build commitment and support for them in your organization. You definitely need some kind of effort like this, even if it’s a little different approach. This is a different way to do things and will require you to take some unusual steps. Thinking about the time and energy that goes into designing these meetings with a whole group of people from different places and levels in the organization is just one of these examples. But for us, that was a helpful step. We spent too much time “doing” in Deming’s Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle in this organization, so stepping back a little to plan was a good model for us.

“Finally I’d like to say that I think there’s been a basic shift in business thinking during the past few years that this approach is right in line with. We used to think that the best organizations were of one mind … one way to do things. Now I think it’s much more about being multi-minded … getting a lot of points of view and feelings on the table and coalesced. I believe every person deserves the right to individual respect for their perspective and that we need to have the same regard for the thoughts, beliefs, and understandings of a dishwasher that we do for the general manager of the hotel where he or she is working. We’re past the time where people will blindly follow leaders, no matter how good the leaders are. This approach gets ideas out on the table, whether you’re dealing with twenty people or 500 people. It’s the way we need to manage in the future. I really think we all need to move toward what I call a willing suspension of independence, and you’re only able to do it if you can get your point of view out for others to hear. People won’t commit to being on a team that doesn’t fit their values. Just issuing a corporate directive isn’t enough anymore if it will do harm to the environment or communities people live in.

“The common belief in organizations is that speed is served better in making changes by including fewer people in the decision making process. The fact of the matter is that no decisions are good decisions if they’re not understood or implemented in the real world. My experience is that these large group sessions help you do both.”