The Foundry: Facilitating a Group to One Action Agenda
Put the leader plus 7-8 people in a room, surface 25 problems, then focus on the one or two addressable ones.
- Difficulty
- Advanced
- Time to result
- ~days to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 85%
Rumelt's facilitated process (a 'Foundry') for getting a group of senior people to coalesce around a single action agenda. The core insight is that senior executives already know the challenges; the hard part is diversity of interest and fear of action. By putting up 25 problems on the board, the group physically sees it cannot do them all and is forced to focus on the important, addressable few.
Origin
Richard Rumelt, from his consulting practice ('General Imagination'). He frames it as the 3,000-year-old answer to strategy: put five to eight smart people in a room and have them work a problem-oriented process, with him as facilitator rather than answer-giver.
Core principles
- 01Senior executives already know the challenges; the obstacle is diversity of interest and fear of action
- 02Action requires someone in the hierarchy to decide, since acting changes people's roles and power
- 03Surfacing many problems at once makes the need to focus self-evident
- 04The facilitator draws out deeper understanding rather than dictating the answer
- 05The output is an action agenda, not a mission/vision document
How to run it
- 1
Convene the leader plus 7-8 people
Get the organizational leader (usually the CEO) plus another seven or eight people to take two to four days off-site to work the problem.
Pro tip Keep it small; this is deliberately not a large committee.
Watch out A committee asked for 'our strategy' will list everything everyone wants and go nowhere.
- 2
Surface every problem onto the board
Facilitate the group to post 25 or so different problems and challenges around the room using notes or a board.
Pro tip Let people see the full wall of problems; the visual makes 'we can't do them all' undeniable.
- 3
Sort by important and addressable
Work through which problems are genuinely important and which are actually addressable, bringing in outside perspective where the group lacks knowledge.
Pro tip If the group can't tell whether a problem is addressable, ask who in the organization knows or can be flown in.
Watch out Executives disagree about importance and, more consequentially, occupy positions of power that shape their preferences, so surface those interests.
- 4
Commit to actions on one or two key challenges
Narrow to the one or two key challenges that can actually be addressed and decide the coherent actions to take on them.
Pro tip When someone asks 'where's the mission/vision document?', restate that the deliverable is an action agenda.
Watch out Someone must ultimately decide; hierarchy exists because action changes power relationships and people are hesitant to make those calls.
In the wild
Interviewing Donald Rumsfeld during the second Iraq invasion, Rumelt heard that the Defense Department had an expert on everything but 'they all disagree and each have their own private agenda.' Rumsfeld asked if academics had a solution; Rumelt said no — you put five to eight smart people in a room and have them work it.
→ This crystallized the central problem the Foundry addresses: coalescing people with divergent interests around one action agenda.
At the start of a Foundry, Rumelt gets 25 different problems posted around the board. Seeing them all at once, participants who have never done this realize they cannot tackle everything.
→ The group spontaneously concludes 'we better focus,' which is exactly the shift the process is designed to produce.
Common mistakes
Trying to satisfy every interest
A strategy 'to do everything everybody wants' is what a committee produces and it goes nowhere.
Avoiding the decider role
Because action reshuffles power and status, leaders hesitate to decide; without someone saying 'it's going to be this way,' the organization freezes.
Is it for you?
Best for
A CEO or senior leadership team that already knows its challenges but is stuck on internal disagreement and inaction
Not ideal for
Early-stage startups where a single founder can decide quickly, or situations lacking a leader with authority to make the final call
From the transcript
“you should put five to eight smart people in a room and you tell him to come up with something”
“when they see the 25 different problems or challenges they realize you can't do them all”
“identify you know the one or two key challenges that can actually be addressed and what are we going to do about it”
“someone in the end has to say it's going to be this way”
From the episode
Good Strategy, Bad Strategy
Richard Rumelt