STRAYLIFE

In making the transition from a service based company to a product based, original IP shop, we knew there were going to be some significant challenges in “rebooting” our mindset, environment, and strategy.

We wanted to capture the essence of what made us really great, refine that into a common vision, and then build around it the infrastructure, resource, and individuals that could make such an ambitious mission a success. A hefty task to say the least, but we pulled it off and are now in a better position than ever before.

Here’s five key points that made it work for us:

Get everyone on board
The core of the vision needs buy in from everyone, and that means ensuring that everyone has a voice. The ultimate goal is for everyone to feel like they’re helping propel, as opposed to being pulled along.

Clear the slate
Start from scratch, tear everything apart, give yourself a completely blank slate. However remember to carefully package and carry over the elements of the old business that really made it special so that they can be placed upon your blank canvas and given room to breathe.

Get Out
Get everyone away from the work environment, preferably out into the fresh air and away from civilization. You want to be in a place where dreams can run free and everyone thinks anything is possible.

Core Tenets
When you’re out there, the most important thing to agree upon as a “take-away” are the principles that will guide all the other decisions you make from that point forward. This external environment should be most conducive to this sort of thinking, and if you get it right, all other decisions should flow on from these core tenets.

Remind
It’d be way too easy to get back to work and to fall back into the old way of things. Remind everyone of what you achieved together, of the strategy, the tenets, the milestones that act as stepping stones to the realization of your collective vision.

So that’s a super quick perspective on how we did it. We’ll aim to post blogs on more of the specific workshops and processes we follow through our reboot in the coming weeks, as we think this process would hugely benefit any business.