The constant rapid changes in today’s business climate demands on-the-fly gear shifting for teams and business units. Few can afford to wait until next year’s three-day strategic off-site meeting, a model fast becoming a relic of more halcyon days.

So how do you quickly and nimbly get everyone on board to create collective mindshare and emotional investment in charting a path for the foreseeable future?

I like short and simple things, so here’s a technique I use regularly to get folks off the three-day vision meeting and onto a three-hour vision meeting.

I did this with the executive team of a Pacific Northwest homebuilder, at the height of its success at the beginning of 2008. We all know what transpired later in the year. To this day, the CEO maintains that this “pre-mortem” exercise enabled them to weather the multiyear downturn and emerge in a position to not only survive but also thrive.

The reason is simple: I had them paint a perfect disaster, then simply reverse it. When disaster did indeed strike, they had already internalized a backup.

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