Twenty cities.
Plans built together.
In 2016 I was asked to rescue a stalled strategy workshop in New Delhi. It turned into six years as lead designer and lead facilitator of a global retailer’s market development program: more than twenty cities and markets, from Kuala Lumpur and Shanghai to Montreal and Madrid, with the people who would have to deliver the plans.
Client
Global retailer, franchise model
Sector
Retail
Where
20+ cities and markets, five continents
Period
2016–2022
Format
Programs of three to five modules, two to five days each, on site and later online. 200+ participants. Lead designer and lead facilitator
The situation
Real business cases, not training.
The company had built its business on large warehouse stores on the outskirts of town. The question was where the next growth would come from: new markets, whole cities, people who couldn’t reach or afford these stores.
Leadership didn’t want a consultant’s report. They wanted plans made by the people who would execute them. That meant putting country managers, retail, expansion, purchasing and logistics, often from franchisees with very different owners, at one table for the first time. Real investment decisions would rest on what they produced. The business content was entirely theirs.
What I did
Delay the answer.
I designed the architecture: the method, the order and the setting. One rule hung on the wall: defer judgment, postpone solutions. Teams first worked through the facts: market data, trends, how people in that city actually live and shop. We went on retail safaris and into people’s homes. Teams had to confront the shocking facts they could no longer ignore. Only then did ideation start: what-if thinking, value propositions per customer segment, the forces that would block them, impact versus effort.
After every step, teams presented to colleagues from other markets, who were there to challenge, not to applaud. Plans ended in a Dragons’ Den. The very first program closed with a letter each participant wrote to their future self.
The format evolved as teams learned, from five multi-day sessions to shorter modules, then compact online sessions. I wrote the facilitator guides and trained the company’s own facilitators, so the method no longer depended on me.
What changed
A school for the next generation.
We put many of their ideas on the walls during our sessions: meeting customers closer to their homes and work, smaller city formats, and order and pick-up points. Not all of them started there, and these sessions weren’t the only place: many people across the company were working on the same question.
What I see now: many of these participants hold executive and country manager roles. They were invited for a reason, so the program didn’t do that alone. What it did give them was a lasting habit: start from the facts, hold back the answer, and test it on people who don’t agree with you. That habit is what I’d bring to your team.
Need a plan your teams own?
Bring me one question about your team. 30 minutes, no pitch.
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