Welcome to the 34th edition of The Pulse, your bi-weekly newsletter of Insights for Strategy Leaders. And welcome to all of the new subscribers since the last edition!
In this edition:
- 🚀 3 Takeaways from Elate's Leadership Offsite
- ⚡ Introducing Insights: Reduce Risks, Maximize Results
- 🎥 Why Strategy and Operations Leaders Love Elate
- 🍿 Strategy Snacks, a Video Series
Let's jump in!
Last week was a fun one here at Elate.
We kicked things off with a Leadership Offsite to plan for the year ahead and wrapped up with a company-wide Q4 Kickoff. Between the two sessions, it was impossible to not feel exhilarated with all that we’ve accomplished already, but more importantly, what is on the horizon.
However, heading into the week there was a slightly different tone.
For those unfamiliar with Elate, we started the company a little over five years ago, launching our platform shortly after. We built the company out of the pain we felt firsthand as Strategy and Operations Leaders as we attempted to bring together long-term vision with tactical execution.
Fast forward five years, and Elate looks very different today.
We've grown exponentially, learned countless lessons, and built a culture rooted in seeking feedback early and often. That evolution led to a hunger for renewed clarity as we entered this new chapter as a business.
With that in mind, I want to share three key takeaways from our Leadership Offsite that I believe helped provide the necessary direction for our Leadership team. And while some of this is still a work in progress, I’m hopeful that our areas of focus and intentionality will help your teams ask tough questions and ensure alignment heading into the new year.
1) Clarity on ‘The Why’
There is no better way to get everyone aligned than by starting with the bigger questions: Why did each of us join this company? Why are we still here? And why does our company exist?
Before diving into the tactical, or even the strategic, I can’t overstate how much value comes from understanding the deeper ‘why’ for people in the room. It fosters connections that go beyond the surface and creates a sense of purpose that permeates every level of the organization.
At Elate, this starts with our Leaders. The willingness to openly share why you choose to join your company, what got you excited about this company and role in the first place, and more importantly, why do you continue to say ‘yes’ to being here can really serve as a catalyst for creating something people want to be a part of building.
This also leads nicely into the company’s ‘why’, or otherwise stated, your company’s Vision and Mission statements.
For some companies, this might be the first time you are setting Vision and Mission statements. While for others, this should be a validation of our current statements to ensure there is still alignment with the direction and reality.
Starting the day with this exercise will help catalyze conversations around shared goals and a belief in direction.
2) The Power of Saying ‘No’
There is a misconception that Strategic Planning is about all of the new, exciting initiatives and goals we will be taking on in the year. In fact, after seeing this play out countless times, I believe that when companies go into Leadership Offsites with the main focus on building out and assigning initiatives to teams, they are likely going to fail in delivering on expectations.
Why? Well, because it’s easy to say ‘yes’ to things in Leadership Offsites. It’s much harder to say ‘no’.
Whether it be to enter a brand new market, build a feature, or make X number of new hires, it is easier to say ‘yes’, because the business case makes sense.
Rarely in Leadership Offsites will someone present a key initiative that doesn’t have some semblance of value. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be brought up.
Here’s an example:
“We need to enter into the enterprise market, because in doing so we will be able to increase our addressable market 3x, as well as double our contract values.”
Wow, that sounds incredible.
And while it’s easy to then start discussing whether the finances make sense to do so, what often isn’t taken into account is whether this initiative will pull us away from our ideal customer profile. Or, does it create a sense of confusion with employees who we’ve communicated a different vision to over the past few years?
Part of the other value in starting your Leadership Offsite by communicating and validating the Vision and Mission is that it empowers other members of Leadership to say “Should that really be a priority? How does that align with our vision and three-year horizon?”
A great strategy is as much about what you don’t do as what you do.
3) Finish Well
I will be the first to admit that these sessions can be long.
As much as I love getting offsite and casting Vision, aligning teams, and prioritizing the right initiatives, if done right, these sessions can take a lot out of you.
So when it comes to the end of the day, it can be easy to just start going through the motions. Or worse, just punting a bunch of hard conversations or emotions to future discussions that may or may not happen.
While it sounds simple, do not underestimate the power of being intentional with how you finish your Leadership Offsites. In fact, go out of your way to finish well.
For us, that means a few things…
1. Clarity on next steps.
First, we have a clear outline of what’s next? We ask our Finance Leader to provide a schedule for upcoming budgetary conversations based on what was discussed with all members of Leadership. We schedule, or preferably, have extended product roadmap follow-up sessions ready to go. And we have department discussions teed up.
This ensures we don’t lose momentum from the Leadership Offsite.
2. Returning to the human element.
Additionally, we finish how we started. By putting the human first.
Now, I can’t take credit for these questions, because they came at the suggestion of one of our team members. But at the end of our sessions we ask each of the Leaders in the room to share their answers to the following questions:
- One word to describe today = ____.
- Today I learned ____.
- I’m looking forward to ___.
- One thing I’m grateful for is ___.
These sessions will likely have a healthy level of tension, with a split of folks feeling as though they got or didn’t get what they wanted. But regardless of the end outcome, we need to come back to their shared belief that we are all driving towards the same goal. To build a great company.
These questions help bring us back to the fact that everyone in that room is a human. Don’t lose sight of that…
Leadership Offsites set the tone for your organization. They influence not just your 2025 Kickoff but your culture as a whole. At Elate, we’re focused on fostering a culture of purposeful work—and it starts at the top.
In the next Pulse, we’ll dive into how these conversations carry throughout company-wide messaging and direction for the year ahead. For now, I hope these takeaways spark new ideas for maximizing your Leadership Offsite.
⚡ Introducing Insights: Reduce Risks, Maximize Results
In case you weren't aware, a few weeks ago we launched Insights, and I couldn't be more excited about the value this feature is already bringing our customers.
Strategy and Operations Leaders face a significant challenge in identifying potential risks and blockers within their strategy before they become costly setbacks. This is something I often talk about in these newsletters.
Complex plans are often scattered across spreadsheets, slide decks, and word docs that quickly become outdated, making it nearly impossible to dive into your plan and spot areas of weakness.
Where do you even start? And how can you make sense of information that hasn’t been updated in… how long?
This results in a reactive approach to strategy execution. What was once a manageable risk has become an off-track objective—a costly setback that could have been avoided but now demands time and resources to correct.
This ⤴️ is why we built Insights. To identify these bends before they become breaks.
Check out the video below to learn more.
🎥 Why Strategy and Operations Leaders Love Elate
When we hosted Blueprint back in August, we had the chance to sit down with a few of our customers to hear about their experiences with Elate. We kept the questions open-ended to avoid introducing any bias.
When we asked them about their favorite thing about Elate, we expected the answers to focus on the product. Instead, most of them talked about their experience working with our team.
To me, that’s something truly special—a testament to our mission of supporting strategy and operations leaders in meaningful ways.
🍿 Strategy Snacks, a Video Series
We are beginning to post more and more helpful content on our LinkedIn page, usually 2-3x per week. Think 60 second videos about planning frameworks, operating rhythms, themes, etc. So follow us on LinkedIn if you're interested in these popping up on your feed, or check out our Strategy Snacks Playlist on Youtube.
Here is the latest snack: Why Your Operating Cadence is a Non-Negotiable for 2025 Success.
Thanks all for today, have a great rest of your week.
- Brooks
