Strategic Planning Facilitation
A strategic plan your team will actually execute.
A fast, focused process that aligns your leaders and activates your strategy in weeks, not months. Strategic Planning Simplified is a complete strategic planning engagement that guides your leadership team to create a plan they will be excited to run. A core component is a hands-on, two-day workshop where I guide CEOs and executive teams through seven hard questions. After just two days, you leave with a three-year strategic plan compact enough to fit on two pages, clear enough for anyone to repeat, and strong enough to survive Monday morning.
Trusted by leadership teams at Kiewit · Farm Credit Services of America · Valmont · INEIGHT · FNIC · Quantum Workplace
9 of 10
clients invite Jeff back
1,000+
workshops & retreats facilitated
5 Years
Leading a Billion-dollar brand
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Most strategic planning fails. And it fails the same way every time.
You cleared the calendars, booked the room, and had the big conversations. For a few weeks it felt like your new strategic plan was working. Then everyone drifted back to what they were doing before. It isn’t your fault. The process is broken, and it breaks at three predictable points.
✘ Before the RETREAT
Flawed from the Start
Teams mistake goals for strategy: a growth number on the whiteboard with no answer for how to get there. Meeting time goes to today’s fires, prep is thin, and last year’s plan gets new dates instead of new decisions.
✘ DURING THE RETREAT
Motion Without Progress
The days fill with slide decks, tangents, and rabbit holes. The loudest voice shapes the plan, quieter leaders nod but are not aligned, and the group leaves without making any hard choices.
✘ AFTER THE RETREAT
The Change Doesn't Stick
Even great conversations lose momentum without a process to carry them forward. The budget never catches up to the plan, initiatives stall, each quarter starts over with new goals, and the strategy gets shelved.
✘ THE REAL PROBLEM
Wearing two hats doesn't work.
You already know how it goes. You spent your strategic retreat half-leading, half-participating, doing neither well. Too busy facilitating to think strategically about the future. And did you talk too much and sway the outcome? Instead, you want to be an active participant and let an objective professional keep the discussion out of the ditch. And you want to walk away with a tangible plan, so your team can immediately start tackling the strategic initiatives that will move your business forward.
✔ THE Fix
You don't need a bigger plan.
You need a better process and a master facilitator to keep it on track.
Be an active participant, not the one keeping the retreat on track.
I’m Jeff Shannon, a businessperson who facilitates strategic planning workshops, not a consultant who hands you a binder and leaves you with a confused, misaligned team. Before this, I spent 17 years at Conagra Brands, including as Brand Director for one of its billion-dollar divisions where I led one of the most transformational chapters in that company’s history. I’ve been in your shoes, and I prioritize practicality over theory. I have facilitated 1,000+ workshops and retreats, and clients regularly invite me back to hone their strategic direction and keep up their forward momentum.
Strategic Planning Simplified is a complete strategic planning engagement. A core component is a facilitated, two-day workshop where you and your leadership team follow a proven, seven-question framework to create a three-year strategic plan they will be excited to execute. Refined across hundreds of strategic workshops, this is an intentionally fast process, built to ensure you quickly gain momentum to accomplish strategic initiatives.
And since strategic planning is all I do, I know where the process breaks down, and I keep your team honest. In the workshop, I focus on drawing out every voice, defusing the cynics, making room for fresh ideas, and surfacing the tradeoffs and sensitive issues your team has been avoiding.
Because I keep the discussion focused and on track, you’re free to be an active participant. You get to push, disagree, brainstorm, and help decide your company’s future instead of managing the room. That’s the difference with a strategy session that is aligned and productive, a session you can be confident will change what happens on Monday morning. And when the strategy is clear, decisions stop piling up on your desk.
“Jeff’s facilitation, from executive retreats to system partner collaborations, showcases his unique blend of preparation and adaptability. He fosters a safe environment for open dialogue and creates clarity and alignment that last beyond the workshop.”
Krista Brinkly McDonald
EVP Chief Strategy Officer
Farm Credit Services of America
9 of 10
clients invite Jeff back
1,000+
workshops & retreats facilitated
5 Years
Leading a Billion-dollar brand
Two days. Seven questions. A plan your team will actually execute.
✔ STRATEGIC CHOICEs
What do we want to become?
What situation are you really in?
Start with an honest diagnosis of the present before you plan the future.
What mountain are you climbing?
One three-year aspiration, stated so clearly ten people describe it the same way.
What is your scope?
Who you serve, where you play, and where you don’t.
What is your competitive advantage?
The competitive attributes you have or need to build.
In a hands-on, two-day workshop, I guide you and your team through a proven framework: seven hard questions, refined across hundreds of strategic planning workshops with leadership teams making decisions under real pressure. Not seven weeks. Not seven slide decks. Seven choices that produce a three-year strategy your team developed together and will actually execute.
✔ Planning CHOICEs
What are we doing to make the transformation?
What are your Sacred 5 Priorities?
The five priorities that get your time, money, and energy—and what won’t.
What could derail this plan?
Five pressure tests that surface the doubts before they sink you.
What must happen in the next 90 days?
Named actions, named owners, real deadlines.
When the workshop ends, you don't get a binder. You get two pages anyone in the company can repeat:
One strategy page, one plan page, strong enough to survive Monday morning. And because the two pages carry the why, not just the what, your managers can make the call when reality shifts, instead of walking every decision back to your desk.
It’s not just a workshop. It’s a proven process resulting in an actionable plan that survives Monday morning.
A done-with-you process that helps you gain clarity, make choices, align your team, define actions, and set due dates without the stress of “running the show” alone. Five phases, from the initial call to a strategic plan that’s still moving you forward three years later.
1
Host Alignment
A focused 30-minute leader interview to clarify your objectives, shape the agenda, and lock logistics. This ensures your strategic workshop is built around the choices you actually need to make.
~ 60 days before the workshop
2
Ready the Team
Each participant gets a personalized video, a prework assignment, and a custom webpage, including the Real Situation Assessment. They arrive prepared, so the room starts with clarity and momentum instead of an ineffective SWOT analysis.
2–3 weeks before the workshop
3
In-Person Analog Workshop
A facilitated two-day, hands-on, analog workshop. No slides, no lectures, no virtual or hybrid, no AI. Small groups, multi-track solutions, and proprietary strategy canvases draw out every voice, turn discussions into aligned choices, and establish priorities, owners, and due dates. Working together, the team creates the first-draft strategic plan.
The two-day strategic planning workshop
4
Done-For-You Documentation
Your sticky notes and flip charts become a polished, three-year strategic plan. I turn the workshop output into a clean second-draft strategic plan, plus photos of your team in action, ready to share with your board.
Within a week
5
Plan Activation & Handoff
A warm handoff call, the Win the Next 90 Days playbook, and a ready-to-run 90-day accountability agenda. This support keeps the plan alive after Monday and continues to gain momentum, quarter after quarter.
~ 1 month after the workshop
Every phase serves one promise:
The plan still drives what your team does, long after the room clears.
Start where my clients do—by aligning on the actual strategic problems you need to solve.
Strategic retreats usually open with a SWOT analysis, and the SWOT rarely changes a decision. The Real Situation Assessment replaces it: a scored, honest read of the situation you are actually in and the problems your strategy has to solve. This is the same diagnostic I run in every engagement, and it gives your team a score and guidance to start the conversation you may be avoiding.
Ten minutes. Free. The same STEP 1 my clients run.
FREE
ASSESSMENT
What changes with this
two-day workshop?
TYPICAL STRATEGY SESSIONS
👎 Months of meetings that drain the team
👎 Keeping your own meeting on track
👎 A sixty-page binder no one opens
👎 Unspoken misalignment that derails execution
👎 Every decision routes back to the CEO
👎 A strategic plan that dies on a shelf
AFTER JEFF’S TWO-DAY WORKSHOP
👍 Two days that end in real decisions, with clear priorities, owners, and due dates
👍 You are free to be an active participant
👍 A two-page strategic plan anyone in the company can repeat
👍 Leaders are aligned and will describe the strategy the same way
👍 Managers will know the “what” and the “why”
👍 A three-year strategic plan that survives Monday morning and beyond
Getting started is simple.
1
Book a discovery call.
We talk through your situation and what a clear strategy would change for your team and your business. No pitch deck.
2
I run the process for you.
We start with the Real Situation Assessment and readying your team. Next, I facilitate the two-day strategic planning workshop and create the polished draft of your three-year strategic plan. I take care of this all for you, so you can be an active participant in your strategy session, not the facilitator.
3
You have a plan people are accountable to.
Clear priorities, named owners, real deadlines, and a 90-day rhythm that immediately creates momentum on your strategic initiatives. Follow-through stops depending on your reminders.
Trusted by leaders, year after year.
Clients regularly invite Jeff back when they want to hone their strategic direction and keep up their forward momentum. He works with CEOs, executive directors, and executive teams across corporate, industrial, and nonprofit sectors: organizations ready to move from talk to action.
-
![Curt Hudnutt]()
"Jeff helped us distill a complex set of challenges into a clear, actionable strategy. His fresh approach and energy engaged the team throughout, and he even helped us present it to our board, where he received rave reviews.”
Curt Hudnutt
CEO, American AgCredit -
![Lalit Agarwal, CEO, APPA]()
“Jeff’s facilitation of our strategic planning process was outstanding. He fostered camaraderie among staff and board while driving swift, effective decision-making — and synthesized hours of work into clear, actionable documents.”
Lalit Agarwal
CEO, APPA -
![Greg Harris, CEO, Quantum Workplace]()
“Our strategy needs to evolve as fast as our industry. Having a consistent partner to facilitate the conversations that keep us in front of our competition has been invaluable.”
Greg Harris
CEO, Quantum Workplace -
![Krista Brinkley McDonald, EVP, Chief Strategy Officer, Farm Credit Services of America]()
“Jeff creates clarity and alignment that last beyond the workshop. With Jeff at the helm, I always breathe easier, knowing we’ll reach our desired outcomes.”
Krista Brinkley McDonald
EVP, Chief Strategy Officer
Farm Credit Services of America -
![Scott Hill, President, First Insurance Group]()
“We worked with Jeff on strategic planning last year and made great progress. This year we invited him back to tackle some big strategic topics. He took an issue we'd discussed for six weeks and got us to clarity in one hour. We'll be working with Jeff again.”
Scott Hill
President
First Insurance Group -
![Jake Macholtz, Chief Executive Officer, INEIGHT]()
“Jeff's facilitation has been a key ingredient to our business planning and leadership development program and overall success for the last eight years. He maximizes our planning efficiency and ensures that every voice is heard. Jeff's approachability, professionalism, and readiness to challenge brings the best out of our team.”
Jake Macholtz
Chief Executive Officer
INEIGHT
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The method, proven in print.
Strategic Planning Simplified is the published version of the framework I run in every engagement. I’ve led hundreds of strategy sessions and know where the process breaks down. I know how to get teams aligned and focused and keep discussions out of the weeds. Following this proven framework, teams quickly determine top priorities, along with owners and due dates. Most strategy books describe what good strategy looks like from the outside. This book details the step-by-step method to create a strategic plan your team will execute.
Read it to see how the approach works, and share it with your leadership team. Then bring me in to run it with your team, when the stakes are too high to leave the outcome to chance.
100% satisfaction guarantee
If the engagement does not meet the outcomes we agreed to, or your team does not believe the work was valuable, tell me within seven days of the workshop and you will not be billed. No debate. No fine print. It is written into every agreement.
Few facilitators will put this in writing
You already know a finished plan changes nothing. You can run another six-month strategic process that ends in another big binder, or you can spend two days making the choices that will move the business forward and leave with a strategic plan your team will run. If your team needs clarity, alignment, and a strategy that survives Monday morning, let’s talk.
The only question that matters is:
What changes on Monday morning?
A real conversation about your situation, not a sales pitch.