Who: Pobl Group, a large housing association with stock across 14 of the 22 local authority areas in Wales.
The brief: To design and facilitate an all day strategic workshop, focusing on the EDI (Equality / Equity, Diversity and Inclusion) strategy, reviewing the distance travelled and forward planning towards the next strategy. Attendees included: EDI group members representing all the departments across the organisation, members of the senior leadership team, the EDI Lead, board members and the Chair of the board (approx 25 people in total).
What I did: I absorbed a vast amount of background documents to fully understand the current context! I designed the session using the Three Horizons model. After an initial PESTLIED horizon scanning, we considered:
- what is the vision for the future we want to bring about, and where are there already seeds of this desired future
- what is the current situation, where have we come from, and where are we, what can we celebrate and what do we have yet to work on (I put some members of the leadership team to contribution and briefed them to deliver short and sharp “lightning talks” to add context and information)
- how are we going to get from our current reality to our desired future (we considered this looking backwards in a future visioning exercise, and looking forward in an action planning activity)
The event took place at the Lysaght Institute in Newport, which is a lovely building – and we took full advantage of the wall space by using magic whiteboard, and putting up our thinking and outputs all around the room as the day developed.
I was very happy with the structure, timings, and flow of the day, ane the choice of the Three Horizons as a framework for the day. They were a lovely group to work with, very engaged and willing to get stuck in.
I collected all the materials and wrote them up into a report that would inform the next draft EDI strategy.
What they said: I received some positive feedback on the day, and a lovely unsolicited email from the EDI Lead the next day!
“I just wanted to thank you once again for your exceptional facilitation at yesterday’s strategy day. Your ability to keep us focused and on time, all while guiding us effortlessly through discussions about our current situation, future aspirations, and the steps we need to take to get there, was truly impressive.
I’ve already received numerous compliments from attendees who were particularly appreciative of your calm and composed style. Your expertise and approach really made a significant impact on the success of the day.
Thank you once again for your outstanding leadership and support.”
Image source: Pobl Group