Ben Rouse, strategy offsite facilitator
Ask five leaders what the strategy is.
You'll get five answers.
I run strategy offsites for scale-up executive teams.
Book a call → see the approach
// many 60-slide decks were harmed in the making of this strategy
// proof of work. zero consultant fog.
What teams bring me in for
Setting the strategy
You want a strategy the whole exec team has shaped, not one the CEO wrote and presented.
Reviewing the strategy
You set a direction a year ago. Is it still right, and is it working?
A new team gelling
New faces around the table, and you need to work as one team quickly.
Turning strategy into how the business runs
You know where you're going. Now what does each team stop, start and own?
28%
Only 28% of the executives and middle managers responsible for executing strategy could list three of their company's strategic priorities.
From an analysis of 124 organisations. Donald Sull, Charles Sull and James Yoder, "No One Knows Your Strategy — Not Even Your Top Leaders", MIT Sloan Management Review, 2018.
// most teams think they agreed. nobody checked.
Run the diagnostic with your own team
// twelve minutes, five people, no preparation
How it works
Four steps, start to finish.
- Understand. Scoping calls to learn your objectives, your business, your team, and how much time you can get everyone in a room.
- Design. A process built for your team, so everyone feeds into the strategy and you agree on something people understand and want to deliver.
- Facilitate. One day or several. I run every activity, so everyone, the CEO included, can focus, listen, contribute and decide.
- Follow through. You leave with the communication drafted and next steps owned by name. Then I check back in to see whether the strategy has stuck.
Approach
Custom every time. One spine.
No two teams get the same session. Each one is designed around your situation. Underneath, the same five moves, each one visible to the room.
- Collect. Every view on the table, including the ones people usually only say in the corridor.
- Challenge. Assumptions on the wall, named and owned. Most strategy days skip this, which is why most strategy days don't stick.
- Choose. Trade-offs decided together, in the room, in front of each other.
- Create. The plan built in the room, not in a document three weeks later. Rough and shared beats polished.
- Commit. Named owners, real dates, and a check-in already booked.
What you leave with
- A strategy your team can explain in one sentence. The same sentence.
- Objectives written by the people who will own them.
- The assumptions on record, with a date to revisit them.
- A date to check whether it has stuck.
// what you don't leave with:
// a 60-page deck nobody opens
→ see selected work
Fifteen years of difficult rooms.
I started out teaching maths. Year 9, last period on a Friday, teaching quadratics to people who'd rather be anywhere else. It turns out that's excellent preparation for a leadership offsite where two directors haven't spoken properly in a year.
Now I design and facilitate strategy work for scale-up executive teams and the wider organisations around them. Every session is built from scratch. I sketch on flipcharts rather than arrive with a deck, because a drawing the room watched being made belongs to the room.
Disagreement isn't the problem to manage. It's the raw material. Most of the executive teams I work with are brought in by leaders who already know what needs saying and want someone in the room who'll make it safe to say it.
Common questions about strategy offsites and facilitation
What is strategic dissonance?
Strategic dissonance is the gap between the decisions your strategy would produce and the decisions your organisation is actually making. It isn't disagreement, and it isn't resistance. It's what happens when capable people work from different readings of the same strategy, each doing what they believe is right. Research led by Donald Sull at MIT Sloan found that only 28% of the executives and middle managers responsible for executing strategy could name three of their company's top priorities.
How does it work?
Four steps. Understand: scoping calls to learn your objectives, your business and your team. Design: a process built for your team, so everyone feeds into the strategy. Facilitate: one day or several, with every activity run for you so the whole team, CEO included, can focus and decide. Follow through: the communication drafted and next steps owned by name, then a check-in to see whether the strategy has stuck.
What do you actually leave behind?
A set of decision rules the leadership team has built together: what you are choosing, what you are not, and how someone should choose between two options when nobody senior is in the room. Plus clear ownership of the measures that tell you whether it is working. The point is that people can use it on a Tuesday, not that it reads well as a document.
What services do you offer?
All-inclusive offsite packages: a 1-day Executive Offsite, a 2-day Strategic Alignment Offsite, a 3-day Residential Strategy Offsite, and a 5-day Strategy Sprint or Multi-Team Offsite. Every package includes diagnostic and stakeholder scoping, 1:1 participant discovery, bespoke session design, on-site facilitation, post-offsite deliverables, and all UK travel, lodging and materials. Follow-on strategy embedding support is available to cascade decisions and align the next layer of the organisation.
How is this different from a traditional strategy consultancy?
Traditional consultancies write the strategy for you. Ben facilitates your team to build and own it themselves, which is what makes execution actually stick. The output is a set of decision rules the team can use, not a slide deck.
Who is this for?
Founders, CEOs and leadership teams of scale-ups and mid-sized organisations — typically 20–500 people — who feel the gap between their stated strategy and how decisions actually get made day-to-day. The same approach works inside larger companies (including teams at Google) where the engagement is with a leadership team of similar size.
Who is Ben Rouse?
Ben Rouse is a strategy offsite facilitator. He runs strategy offsites for scale-up executive teams, usually to set the strategy, review it, help a new team gel, or turn the strategy into how the business runs.
How long is a strategy offsite?
Most executive strategy offsites run 2 days, long enough for leadership to confront the hard conversations and agree the decision rules without losing momentum. The flagship Alignment Offsite is a 3-day residential for CEOs and 5–9 senior influencers of growth-stage scaleups (50–500 headcount), covering identity, strategic direction and cascade design end-to-end. Shorter 1-day intensives and longer multi-week programmes are also available depending on scope.
What's the difference between a Design Sprint and a strategy offsite?
A Design Sprint (4 days, Mon–Thu) solves a specific tactical problem — framing a challenge on Monday and testing a prototype by Thursday. A strategy offsite (typically 2–3 days) works one level up: aligning the leadership team on direction, priorities and ownership so that whatever gets built next is built on shared foundations. Sprints answer 'what should we build?'; offsites answer 'where are we going and why?'.
How long does a strategic alignment programme take?
It depends on scope. Most leadership team alignment work starts with a 1-day, 2-day or 3-day offsite, with diagnostic scoping and individual participant discovery before it, then post-offsite deliverables and a 90-day execution framework afterwards. Larger strategy sprints or multi-team offsites run across 5 days. Follow-on strategy embedding support is available at a day rate when the decisions need to cascade through middle management or broader operational teams. Most of this work starts about four weeks out.
How much does a strategy offsite cost?
Offsite packages are priced at a transparent flat fee: £4,000 for a 1-day Executive Offsite, £7,000 for a 2-day Strategic Alignment Offsite, £9,000 for a 3-day Residential Strategy Offsite, and £12,000 for a 5-day Strategy Sprint or Multi-Team Offsite. Every package includes diagnostic and stakeholder scoping, individual discovery calls with every participant, bespoke session design, on-site facilitation, a synthesis of decisions and an actionable 90-day execution framework, plus all UK travel, lodging and facilitation materials. There is no added expense billing. Strategy embedding support is £3,000 per day.
What should a strategy offsite actually produce?
Decisions people can use. Not a document, not a refreshed vision statement, and not just a good day. The test is whether someone in your organisation could face a real choice next week and know which way the strategy points. If the offsite ends with agreement in the room but nobody can tell you what stops as a result, it produced energy rather than strategy.
Should we use an external facilitator or run the strategy offsite ourselves?
Run it yourself if the decisions are already made and you need a good discussion. Bring someone in when the leadership team disagrees and has not said so, or when you need to be a participant rather than the chair. A CEO facilitating their own strategy session is the most common reason the real disagreement never surfaces, because people read the room and agree with the person running it.
What is the difference between a strategy offsite and a team away day?
An away day changes how a team feels about each other. A strategy offsite changes what the organisation does on Monday. Both are legitimate, they just need different designs, and the trouble starts when one is booked and the other is expected. Briefs that arrive asking for team building often turn out, once you talk to people individually, to be about strategic disagreement nobody has named.
How many people should be in a strategy offsite?
Small enough that everyone speaks. Usually the CEO plus five to nine people who genuinely influence the direction. Beyond about ten the session tips into presentation and the quieter people stop contributing, which is expensive, because the quieter people often hold the information you need. If more people need to be involved, cascade sessions afterwards work better than a bigger room.
How do we stop the strategy dying after the offsite?
Teach it rather than send it. A deck circulated after the event gives people the conclusion without the reasoning, so the first situation nobody anticipated defeats it. Plan who teaches what, name what stops as a result, and set a rhythm that checks whether real decisions reflect the strategy. The ninety days after the offsite is where most strategies quietly fail.
How far in advance do we need to book a strategy facilitator?
About four weeks is comfortable, because the individual conversations before the session are where the real brief emerges. Shorter is possible. If you already have an offsite in the diary next week and a growing feeling it will not get you what you need, it is still worth a conversation.
How do I get started?
Start with a conversation. A short call to work out what you actually need, which is often not what the original brief said. Use the contact form below or the direct booking link to grab a slot.
Services
- 1-Day Executive Offsite — £4,000.
- 2-Day Strategic Alignment Offsite — £7,000.
- 3-Day Residential Strategy Offsite — £9,000.
- 5-Day Strategy Sprint / Multi-Team Offsite — £12,000.
- Strategy Embedding Support — £3,000 per day for follow-on facilitation to cascade decisions and align broader operational teams.
What it costs
Offsite packages use a transparent flat fee with no added expense billing: a 1-Day Executive Offsite is £4,000; a 2-Day Strategic Alignment Offsite is £7,000; a 3-Day Residential Strategy Offsite is £9,000; and a 5-Day Strategy Sprint or Multi-Team Offsite is £12,000.
Every package includes diagnostic and stakeholder scoping, individual discovery calls with every participant, bespoke session design, expert on-site facilitation, a synthesis of outcomes and key decisions, an actionable 90-day execution framework, and all UK travel, lodging and facilitation materials. Follow-on Strategy Embedding Support is £3,000 per day.
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