Your "think-tank" meetings can be the most important work you'll do all year.

And they can be far more productive with expert facilitation from former corporate executive and management expert Don Blohowiak.

We have served many diverse organizations—businesses, universities, trade associations, not-for-profits, and government bodies—to hold retreats that met their unique needs and ambitious objectives.

Designing the Future Retreats are designed to engage leaders in meaningful—sometimes very spirited—discussions. Our specialty is helping leaders think through and work through "fork in the road" issues that impact their organization: Strategy; structure; personnel…

Our forte is in helping executives to engage in productive strategic thinking. As the Retreat gets underway, we teach effective methods to elevate the quality of both the participants' thinking and their interaction. That helps to assure that you get the utmost leverage from your precious time away from pressing matters back at the office.

A Defined Process

We use an extensive preparatory process for identifying critical issues for discussion. Working with key executives, we zero-in on specific outcomes for your retreat, and then generate and refine a discussion outline to guide the meeting of the minds. Usually, the Discussion Map presented to the sponsoring executive is an actual map—so you can see at a glance the ground we'll cover and how everything fits together.

Often, we deploy both information-gathering (surveys and interviews) and information-dissemination (articles and reports) ahead of the Retreat so that participants are fully prepared for an enriching and enlightening discussion that produces the targeted deliverable.

On site, our active facilitation draws-out your people's best thinking on complex issues. We probe, prod, and, yes, sometimes push, participants to get from them the richest, deepest, most creative thinking possible.

The discussions—often employing both large and small groups— customarily conclude (depending on client goals) by generating specific action plans for implementing your organization's freshly renewed vision.

Our clients are usually amazed the amount of ground we cover in the time they've allotted for the Retreat. Before the Retreat, they say, with genuine concern: "You'll never get meaningful discussions around all those issues." And then after the Retreat, with genuine elation: "Wow! You did it."

Our secret is simple. The disciplined preparation we put into the Retreat enables everyone to get the most out of it.

Following the Retreat, we provide clients with an extensive written record of the discussions, and, when appropriate, our Recommendations.