LEADERSHIP ALIGNMENT · STRATEGIC PLANNING

Co-creating strategic direction with leaders in Costa Rica

The leaders did not lack ideas. They needed enough shared understanding across functions to turn those ideas into a direction people could recognize, support, and carry forward.

Project snapshot: San José, Costa Rica · Cross-functional leadership group · Graduate consulting team · Appreciative Inquiry facilitation.

The situation

Strategic planning can produce polished language without producing shared ownership. This group was working through future direction, priorities, and what success should mean across functions. The challenge was to create a foundation that held more than one perspective and could guide work after the conversation ended.

What we examined

As part of a graduate consulting team, I helped design and facilitate a co-creation process grounded in Appreciative Inquiry. We brought leaders together to surface strengths, explore aspirations, and make different views of the future discussable. The inquiry helped the group move from parallel ideas toward a common language.

The work

We structured the sessions so participants could develop the direction themselves. Leaders worked toward vision statements, strategic goals, priorities, and practical measures of success. The process emphasized listening and participation because the value of a strategy depends partly on whether the people carrying it recognize themselves in it.

What the work produced

The engagement produced a shared strategic foundation: co-created vision language, clearer priorities, goals, and success measures. It also gave the participating leaders common language for the next stage of work and a direction they had helped shape themselves.

If this sounds familiar

When leaders agree in principle but pull in different directions in practice, organizational alignment consulting can help the group make its choices visible. Start a conversation.