HHT #170 - Get Away to Get Ahead

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Get Away to Get Ahead

Planning and Conducting Your Next Executive Strategy Retreat

September 30, 2009

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In this issue...

-- Get Away to Get Ahead

-- Planning and Organizing Your Executive Strategy Retreat

-- Home Health Care Leadership Minute

-- The Customer Service Companion: The Essential Handbook For Those Who Serve Others

-- About the Author

-- Permission to Reproduce

Welcome,

Welcome to this issue of Home Health Care Today, the leading electronic newsletter for home health care and hospice executives who want to grow their business and get ready for the future. Every other Wednesday, we bring you strategies and insights that will help you take your agency to new heights.

For ideas to grow your Private Duty Home Care business, subscribe to Private Duty Today, the bi-weekly newsletter for non-medical home care CEOs. Your complimentary subscription is available at www.privatedutytoday.com.


Get Away to Get Ahead

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  • A state park lodge in Illinois
  • The guest house of the Archabbey at St. Meinrad's Indiana
  • An agency director's home in Honolulu
  • A wooden sailing ship in Maine
  • A fishing lodge in New Brunswick, Canada
  • A luxury hotel and resort in Florida
  • The training facility of an NFL team

What do all of these places have in common?

These are places where we have facilitated Executive Strategy Retreats for our clients over the years.

One of the blessing we have received is the opportunity to work with some amazing leaders in a variety of organizations from Fortune 500 companies to large hospital systems, from rapidly growing home health agencies, to the Detroit Lions football team. One of the common denominators of these exceptional leaders is their ability and willingness to get away in order to get ahead.

They are willing to step back from the busyness of running their business to reflect, to think, to discuss, and to strategize. They recognize the value in bringing together the top leaders in their organization to assess their current reality, examine the forces and trends shaping their environment, define their direction, and create strategies to gain competitive advantage in the marketplace.

What's an Executive Strategy Retreat?

Executive - The top leaders in an organization who are responsible for directing and controlling the activities of the organization.

Strategy - Generalship, the art of war, techniques for gaining the better of an adversary. Methods for achieving some worthwhile purpose.

Retreat - A period of withdrawal for reflection, study, learning, meditation, or prayer. A place of privacy or safety.

We're talking about a time of quiet reflection and learning where top leaders in your organization gather to define the future and to create competitive strategy. It's about getting away in order to get ahead.


Planning and Organizing Your Executive Strategy Retreat

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Write articles that establish your expertise.Sitting on my sun porch this morning, I could feel the crispness in the air as fall comes to Kentucky. Summer's over, the grandkids are back in school, and football has started. It must be time for Strategic Planning.

In home health agencies that have a January to December fiscal year, the last quarter seems to be a great time to get away to think strategically about the coming year. It's a great time to plan, organize, and conduct your Executive Strategy Retreat.

In my first commercially published book, Strategic Focus: A Gameplan for Developing Competitive Advantage, I wrote in detail about putting together a high impact executive retreat. Here are some tips for planning your next off site event:

1. Select Your Strategy Team

There are two primary criteria for selecting the members of your retreat team:

A. Select members of top management who have the vision to set direction for the agency, and who have an understanding of the marketplace which gives them an ability to create vision.

B. Include the key people who will be needed to implement your strategy once it is developed.

2. Pick a Great Retreat Site

I showed you a list of places where I've led retreats. I think it's important to find a place that's at least 50 miles from the office. Find a place that has a warm, cozy meeting room, comfortable lodging, and good food. I suggest avoiding large convention hotels or resorts that cater to golf or tennis. You want to avoid distractions so you can focus on the team and the conversation.

3. Develop Your Agenda

Create a detailed time line of your strategy session. Be clear about the items on your agenda, and allow plenty of time for discussion.

Remember, this is not a staff meeting where everyone goes around and makes presentations. This is a time of questions, reflection, discussions, and decisions.

Build in time for breaks, small group conversations, and taking a walk in the fresh air.

4. Make Ideas Visible

Use a technique such as storyboarding to make ideas visible during your discussions. You can use a flip chart or a white board, but I've always preferred storyboards, index cards, felt pens, and push pins.

After a two or three day retreat, I'll have the wall covered with strips of 3 x 5 index cards, capturing all of the ideas and decisions we have discussed.

5. Document the Results

For most leadership teams, this is the most difficult part. You need to write a summary document the captures the results of your strategy session.

That's why I love the storyboarding technique. Once I have all of the strips of index cards from our discussions, I can quickly sit at my computer and write a complete strategic plan for the agency.

6. Take Action

Once you get back to the office after your retreat, you need to take action. I've seen way too many executive teams who have gone away for three days, come back with some great ideas, but never took focused action. They went back to the same old same old.

In your summary document, create a strategic action plan. List the strategies, goals, action steps, responsible person, target dates, and resources required. Then use this action plan to communicate the plan and to hold people accountable for completing their agreed upon action steps.

7. Use an Experienced Facilitator

One decision that will make your Executive Strategy Retreat much more productive is to bring in an experienced facilitator to lead the process.

"To facilitate," means "to make easy." The job of the facilitator is to keep your group on track, to help them stick to the process, to help them make ideas visible, and to help you summarize the results. In our experience, the CEO of the agency cannot be both the leader of the group and the facilitator of the process. Bringing in an outsider to facilitate your retreat is a wise investment in the future of your agency.

For more information on booking your Executive Strategy Retreat, call Julie Raque at 1-866-209-5101 or click on the link below.

For information on planning your Executive Strategy Retreat:


Home Health Care Leadership Minute

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Here are some recent posts from our Web Blog, The Home Health Care Leadership Minute:

  • Future Technology May Help Keep Seniors Safe
  • CNN Survey on President Obama's Health Care Reform
  • Statistics on Home Health Care Growth
  • Boomers Boost Web Traffic
  • M.M.S. Study on Home Health Care from a Doctor's Viewpoint
  • North Carolina Nurses Educate Legislators About Effects of Medicaid Cuts

Click Here for Home Health Care Leadership Minute


The Customer Service Companion: The Essential Handbook For Those Who Serve Others

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NAHC Annual MeetingBy C. Leslie Charles, CSP

Service. It's the hot topic in home care these days. Now, there's a common sense handbook designed for front line service workers which goes beyond talk and into application.

Your home care team members will just love the wit and wisdom of Leslie Charles. Inspiring, educational, energizing, The Customer Service Companion will change the way you look at your work - and yourself!

"This book is so much fun we gave it away as client gifts a few years ago."

Stephen Tweed
CEO
Leading Home Care

Want a fun gift for your home health and hospice team members that will help them be more customer friendly?

Order Your Copies Today!


About the Author

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Stephen Tweed, CSP, is Chairman and CEO of Leading Home Care ... a Tweed Jeffries company. For over 25 years he has been a recognized leader in strategy and leadership development for home health care & hospice companies and associations. He is the author or co-author of seven books, five of which were written specifically for the home care industry. He has served on the boards of directors of three not-for-profit home care agencies, and has served as interim President & CEO of a $25 million home care company.

Stephen is a past-President of the National Speakers Association, a 3500 member international society of experts who speak professionally. He is also the father of a 38 year-old son who is physically disabled and uses the services of home care on a daily basis.

Meet the entire Leading Home Care Team


Permission to Reproduce

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Permission is granted to healthcare publications, associations and companies to reproduce this article in your publication, or to distribute copies to your leaders, on the condition that you reproduce the credits and contact information as follows: "Reprinted with permission from Home Health Care Today. Copyright 2009 Stephen C. Tweed. To receive a FREE subscription to this newsletter, log on to www.leadinghomecare.com."



Contact Leading Home Care

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phone: 1-866-209-5101

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