Creating a new strategy requires original thinking. It requires new perspectives on the environment in which the business currently operates, the resources of the business, the needs that the business can serve, ways in which the business can out-perform its competitors, and future trends. Without reconceptualising one or more of these elements, you will end up with a strategy of "last year, plus a bit".
Ordered, disciplined thinking is not usually enough to achieve such a reconceptualization. You also need to harness the power of unconscious thought processes. To produce new insights, the brain needs time to reflect.
Developing new ways of thinking requires breaking with habitual ways of thinking, and this is what happens during sleep. You've probably had the experience of having a difficult problem to solve, you thrash at it during the day, your thoughts continue to bubble around, and in the morning you discover a fresh perspective on the issue. Sleep allows previously unconnected thoughts to come together to produce new insights. The same thing can happen while you are thinking about issues unrelated to the problem to be solved.
As Louis Pasteur said "Fortune favours the prepared mind". First, work on the problem consciously, then keep it in your mind so that unconscious processes can do their work. History is full of discoveries which appeared as "flashes of insight" - but only because the discoverer had been agitating the problem.
One of my favourite books is "The Act of Creation" by Arthur Koestler (1964). I regard him as the true pioneer of creative thinking skills, pre-dating Edward De Bono. He discusses the story of Archimedes, who was asked by the King to assess the gold content of an intricately-worked crown. Archimedes knew he needed to measure the volume of the crown, but could not think of a way to do this without melting it down (which clearly was not an option). Then one day as he climbed into his bath, he noticed that the water level rose, displacing the volume of his body. In his famous "Eureka!" moment, he connected the two ideas and solved the problem. Koestler points out that Archimedes would have seen the water level rise every time he had a bath, but would not have taken any notice of it unless he was agitating the problem of the crown.
Companies differ widely in the processes they use to develop strategy. Some spend half a day; others work on it for many months. Whatever the scale of your process, you can utilize the power of unconscious thought. New insights on an issue are unlikely to be appear during a single session. Leave the question open and come back to it, and see what new thinking has emerged. If you are holding only a half-day session, send out a questionnaire beforehand, to get people thinking about key issues in the lead-up to the discussion. If you have a two-day event, canvas as many issues as possible on the first day, so sleep can do its work overnight.
To get an innovative strategy, let it bubble.
