Situation
To continue growing their company and ensure future success, Allstar Holdings’ leadership team began to re-evaluate their business strategy. They wanted to take their strategy to the next level, and they liked the robust resources Wipfli provided, so they engaged with Wipfli to do so.
After the initial review of strategy documents and conducting of executive interviews was complete, it was time to move into the core strategy-planning workshops with the leadership team. Typically, these consist of Wipfli facilitating full-day, in-person strategy sessions.
However, everything was set to kick off just as COVID-19 started to trigger stay-at-home orders across the country. Conducting strategy sessions in person was no longer an option.
Strategy
With all the technology available in today’s working world, Wipfli had the capability to facilitate the core strategy workshops over a video conferencing tool. This approach would not completely take the place of in-person contact but would allow for collaboration and encourage the team participation necessary to have everyone’s voice heard in building out the plan.
Allstar’s CEO, Grady Stephens, was somewhat skeptical about conducting two full-day strategy sessions remotely, but he trusted Wipfli enough to move forward with the virtual facilitation.
The decision was made to hold two half-day sessions back-to-back one week, with another two back-to-back the following week. The sessions would be held virtually over video so that everyone could see each other.
After that first session, Wipfli asked all seven Allstar executives to rate the effectiveness. Feedback was surprisingly positive given this new territory they’d entered. The executives were optimistic about the next session and even eager to get back to it. Grady said, “It went better than I could have imagined.” There were far fewer side conversations, which allowed everyone to further contribute, share their individual ideas and collaborate to make significant progress in each session.
Results
In a relatively short period of time, Allstar’s executives have updated the company’s mission, vision and values; identified their strategic pillars and priorities; and begun building out action plans.
Significantly, they were so pleased with how the virtual half-day sessions were going and the progress they were making that Grady made the decision to add two more half-day sessions. The leaders felt Wipfli brought not only expertise in strategic planning to help guide them but also kept the team on track through a professionally facilitated, collaborative approach. Having Wipfli available to lead extra sessions so they could continue building out their action plans gave them further confidence that they were making the right decisions and setting their business up for success.
Client profile
Founded in 1979, Allstar Holdings is a Minnesota state-licensed general contractor that specializes in residential and commercial exterior construction, multifamily housing maintenance, residential exterior remodeling, storm damage and insurance restoration.
