Testimonial Quotes -- The Strategic Offsites Group, LLC

"Strategic offsites are a fundamentally different kind of meeting, both in terms of the objectives you establish and in terms of the effort necessary to free up the conversation and drive out-of-the-box thinking. Too often, executives make the mistake of using people who aren't trained specialists in strategic offsite design and facilitation, and the meetings end with no buy-in and no clear next steps. It's like tennis - you don't use a good player to teach you tennis, you find a good coach. You don't want to spend the entire offsite discussing the probable - you need to break out and begin to collectively explore what's possible. And that's hard to do with your internal people.

Prior to our meetings, the preparatory work by the team at Strategic Offsites has been not only outstanding but extraordinary. They are adept at framing the issues, gathering relevant data, and preparing participants so that when we convene we’re ready to make the most of the meeting. As facilitators, Strategic Offsites has no peers. They listen, elicit all points of view, make sure the discussion is solidly grounded in fact, and, when necessary, challenge participants to genuinely confront the issues. Their artful, structured way of leading a group of executives through a series of complex issues to genuine alignment around a strategy adds enormous value to these critical meetings.”

Thomas J. Wilson
President
Allstate Corporation

Allstate Corporation is the nation's largest publicly held personal lines insurer, providing insurance products to more than 16 million households.

“Strategic Offsites is highly adept at bringing together a comprehensive set of people representing different senior level perspectives of the company and getting them to deliberate thoughtfully about issues of long-term strategy. And because of the high-quality pre-meeting work done in collaboration with Strategic Offsites, we don’t spend hours watching consultants or division heads make presentations. Instead, when we arrive at the meeting we’re ready to engage the facts and through a mutual process of discovery arrive at and align around five or six highly focused strategic initiatives that will take the company forward.”

Doug Stotz
Former Senior Vice President, Strategy
Monster.com

Monster.com, the flagship brand of Monster Worldwide, Inc., is the leading online global careers network, with sites in 23 countries around the world.

"In today's volatile environment, the need for sound major decisions is critical. Generally only a small group of senior officers is involved, and strategic offsites provide top executives with an important forum to air their views. The facilitation brings structure and discipline to the meetings so that participants can fully discuss the issues. Frequently senior management wants to analyze a situation with an idea of moving to action. They have a general outline of the issues, but need help with process and coming to conclusions. They don't need a big strategy study with a 40 page report. Instead, it's very helpful to bring in a facilitator who can guide the discussions and help the participants analyze the issues in a disciplined way. It's a different, more pragmatic approach than the big consulting firms take, but one better suited for these kinds of situations."

Edward A. Brennan
Retired Chairman, President & CEO
Sears, Roebuck & Co.

While serving as chairman and CEO of Sears, Roebuck & Co., Mr. Brennan drove the largest voluntary restructuring in US corporate history at the time, increasing shareholder value over 7x through the spin-off and sale of companies including Allstate, Dean Witter, Discover, Coldwell Banker, Homart, Prodigy and Advantis.

"They are the superior choice for this kind of work. Their strategic insight is as good or better than the top strategy consulting firms, and their ability to help management teams use strategic offsites to make smart decisions and act on them is unique in the field. They aren't saddled with the cost structure of the larger consulting firms, so they are more economical to use. And I don't have to worry about their priorities - they are there to deliver a great work product at my offsites, not sell me on large strategy projects."

Laura R. Dunne
Assistant Vice President, Strategy Development
Allstate Protection

Allstate Protection provides property and casualty products and is the largest division of the Allstate Corporation, the nation's largest publicly held personal lines insurer, providing insurance products to more than 16 million households.

"The offsites they managed for us resulted in decisions that we really owned as a senior management team. This is in contrast to prior offsites we had held, where the outcomes were tainted and lacked participant buy-in because the facilitators showed up with their own agendas or an inappropriate bias. The success of these offsites also reflects the careful preparation they put into planning, especially the time spent framing clear objectives for the offsite, and the strength of their facilitation. We also benefited significantly from working with them in a series of strategic offsites over several years. They built an approach for each offsite that leveraged the work accomplished in the past, and this continuity increased the overall effectiveness of the offsites for the senior management team."

Kenneth R. Meyers
Executive Vice President, Finance, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer
United States Cellular Corporation

United States Cellular Corporation is the eighth largest wireless communications provider in the US, providing service to more than 3.9 million customers in 26 states.

"US Cellular was growing - we were making 10-12 acquisitions a year - and we needed to develop a more strategic plan for the future. At the same time, our management team was too execution - and operations - oriented and we needed to broaden our view and develop our strategic skills.

I knew we needed outside expertise to help design and facilitate our strategic direction and plan. We needed a strong facilitator to keep us in line, and prevent us from going off on the kind of tangents we had in the past. My direct reports were an eclectic group, and unanimity is not the norm with executives at that level.

We started with a single two-day annual planning meeting. After we saw how well the first offsite worked, we decided to add on a quarterly one-day strategy meeting. Each offsite built on the work from the prior one, and that continuity provided great value in helping make sure that we didn't drop the ball on any strategic initiatives.

The strategic offsites were significant events to us, and were a great help in making decisions. The process they put in place forced us to address the tough questions and instilled a discipline among the team. They helped develop our people dramatically. The decisions we made in these strategic offsites were a major factor in setting a course that doubled our customer base and quadrupled our share price."

Don Nelson
Retired President & CEO
United States Cellular Corporation

United States Cellular Corporation is the eighth largest wireless communications provider in the US, providing service to more than 3.9 million customers in 26 states.

"I went into this suspicious. Based on a prior experience one of my clients had with a major consulting firm, I was expecting flim-flam, and lots of people using buzzwords but bringing no real value. Working with them, however, changed my whole outlook on what good consultants can help an organization achieve. The Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois (LPCI) faced serious issues, and the survival of the organization was in doubt. They managed a series of strategic offsites for the LPCI Board of Directors that were instrumental in pinpointing the critical issues facing the organization, and accomplished something I thought would be impossible - uniting a diverse Board behind a single, coherent strategy for turning around the organization. The Board came away from the offsites with a renewed sense of mission and the short- and long-term plans they helped us develop became our guiding principle for the next 2 years."

John H. Stassen, Esq.
Partner, Kirkland & Ellis
Chairman of the Board, Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois

Kirkland & Ellis is one of the leading law firms in the US. The Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois is a leading voice for historic preservation.

“Strategic Offsites is very good at challenging the conventional wisdom of a company – something every organization can use when faced with difficult strategic choices, a new competitive landscape, or a need to do business differently. If you already know the answers, you don’t need to conduct the meeting – and what Strategic Offsites does better than anyone else is to help move you along toward the answers you need but which may not be apparent.”

Doug Arnold
Vice President of Human Resources
World Kitchen

World Kitchen, Inc. and its affiliates manufacture and market bakeware, dinnerware, kitchen and household tools, rangetop cookware and cutlery products sold under well-known and trusted brands including CorningWare, Pyrex, CORELLE, Revere, EKCO, Baker’s Secret, Magnalite, Chicago Cutlery, and OLFA.

“When we do strategic offsites right they have a significant impact on the business, especially through the commitment to follow-up and to implementation that we develop at the meeting. Strategic Offsites has a unique ability to design and conduct offsites that give you that momentum. A sense of ownership and a depth of understanding of the issues that comes from the debate, dialogue, and, ultimately, alignment create the energy and passion necessary for success. And it ensures that you walk out of the meeting with detailed implementation plans that bridge the gap between strategy and action.”

Bill Gisel
Chief Operating Officer
Rich Products

Founded in 1945, Rich Products is known around the world as the founder of the non-dairy segment of the frozen food industry and a leading supplier and solutions provider to the food service, in-store bakery, and retail marketplaces. As one of the world’s premier family-owned food companies, Rich’s posts annual sales exceeding $2 billion.

“The work Strategic Offsites did for us was absolutely phenomenal. They helped provide the critical success factors – solid meeting pre-work, clarity of objectives, and expert facilitation leading to real alignment – that enabled us to address a strategic issue with which we had been struggling for some time. Their ability to uncover the real opinions of executives and quantify that information before the meeting and then use it to surface issues and genuinely engage those issues at the meeting itself enabled the team to overcome barriers to success. Most importantly, the implementation of the plans that emerged at the offsite is already generating significant results for our business.”

Zaydoon H. Munir
Senior Vice President
Experian

With approximately 30 years of experience and more than 30,000 clients in North America, Experian helps organizations reach new clients and build, nurture, and maximize lasting customer relationships. Its businesses include credit solutions, marketing solutions, and automotive solutions; and Experian Interactive assists consumers in managing the financial aspects of key life events. Experian also provides U.S. consumers with tools and services to help them understand, manage, and protect their personal credit profiles.

“We were deliberate in wanting to leverage somebody who could draw out the way we see and feel and think about the business, as opposed to having somebody who would be overly prescriptive like one of the big strategy consulting firms. Strategic Offsites certainly knows strategy but doesn’t pretend to know more about the business than they really do. Through their complete objectivity, they were able to make us stop doing the business and really think the business. They have an extremely well-structured process for doing that – it’s logical but still allows the freedom to explore the issues in all of their aspects. And Strategic Offsites brings a set of tools and frameworks that are appropriate for your particular strategic issues and that create a sequential process that allows for creativity but brings the discussion back home and nails it down. And with Strategic Offsites, unlike the big strategy firms who send their new MBAs, you get their most experienced people – and they really deliver the magic.”

Duffy Smith
Senior Vice President, Supply Chain
Rich Products

“The offsite is much more beneficial if you have a disinterested third party like Strategic Offsites facilitating it. They have the ability to move you beyond the company hierarchy and the day-to-day conversations that get in the way of dealing with strategic issues. I was initially very skeptical but because they came so highly recommended I was willing to take a chance on engaging them. At the conclusion of our offsite, my team and I agreed that it was the best, most productive strategic offsite we have ever had.”

John Schooler
President
USERS

USERS, a unit of FiServ, Inc., provides the technologies that enable credit unions to achieve their business goals within today's highly competitive financial services industry. USERS focuses on delivering technologies that add value to a credit union's business and enable tangible, bottom-line benefits - including improved workflow and efficiency, reduced costs, increased revenue, and greater choice and control.

“In preparing and facilitating strategic offsites, the Strategic Offsites Group provides precisely the right balance of content and process needed to make sure both that the discussion has real substance and that it moves forward to an actionable conclusion. Their ability to generate insights in an objective manner adds depth and perspective to complex business issues, and their ability to guide a team of diverse members, with diverse skills, through a strategic conversation helps harness the best thinking of the organization and put it to work to grow the business.”

Richard M. Ferranti
President, International
Rich Products