🛠️ The Perfect Workshop
The 3 Phases of successful workshops. What I’ve learned from 150 workshops since 2008 about dramaturgy, methods, and real impact. With a special invitation for three companies.
Hi 👋 I’m Florian Schleicher. This is the FutureStrategies newsletter. Thank you so much for reading along 💚
Almost all strategies, concepts, and projects start with a workshop. Since 2008, I’ve led more than 150 workshops – from 2-person core teams to events with 50 participants. From strategic to operational.
Sometimes full of inspiration, sometimes laser-focused on outcomes. Sometimes for leadership teams seeking direction, sometimes for experts exploring new ways of working.
I love workshops.
And more and more often, I get the question:
“What makes a workshop truly great?”
So today, here’s this special post about workshops.
Full of learnings, observations, and methods.
Let’s start with this:
A perfect workshop doesn’t feel like work — it feels like a collective awakening.
For me, there’s no such thing as a “perfect” format. The art lies in creating spaces that make exactly that possible. And it all starts with one central insight and a lot of intentional craft.
So today, we’ll look at:
1️⃣ What makes a workshop perfect?
Then we’ll dive into the three core phases of my workshops:
2️⃣ Entering
3️⃣ Centering with lots of methods
4️⃣ Exiting
And finally, a few practical tips:
5️⃣ Your next step
💎 What is a (perfect) workshop?
The key question at the beginning of a perfect workshop is: What do we want to achieve?
Each of my workshops is structured differently, because it depends on the kind of future we’re working toward.
Over the years, I’ve tested countless methods – but it wasn’t until I developed my own model that my workshop design became truly strategic:
The Focus Map.
A visualization and decision-making matrix that helps us create the most energizing workshop format for our organization and team. The Focus Map helps us identify which of the five key forces we want to bring to the forefront of the workshop.
Together with my clients, I use this to find out what they really need.
Do we have the right problem?
The question sounds simple, but it’s often the biggest lever for real impact. In many cases, the problem exists in my clients’ minds but hasn’t yet been clearly defined.
That’s why my role as a consultant and strategist is to take a closer look right there.
“We are hired to begin at the beginning. Like the medical professionals that our four-phase model of diagnose, prescribe, apply and reapply suggests, our highest value offering is our ability to bring new perspective and understanding to our clients’ problems.”
Blair Enns, The Win Without Pitching Manifesto
Workshops that start with a fixed solution in hand feel like obligatory appointments. Workshops that start with genuine curiosity about the problem generate energy.
Together, we uncover possible problems the workshop can solve and then define the core problem we want to focus on:
That’s why I never start by asking: “How do we solve this?” but rather:
“What do we want to build?”
(it)… is a phenomenally underrated question for clients and teams. Clarity on problems makes chaos around solutions feel 10x more exciting. The opposite is near impossible.
Rob Estreitinho
The most important question at the beginning is always: “What?”
It gets my clients to think about something in a new way instead of telling me something they already know. “Why” can feel intimidating and focus on the past. And “How” often leads to a description that doesn’t really help.
“What” questions are open and forward-looking.
What do we want to achieve with the workshop?
What are the feelings the workshop should evoke?
What would a good workshop spark?
What makes this workshop important?
And that’s exactly why my workshops always look different:
From marketing strategy workshops to team culture workshops, brand archetype workshops, trend inspiration sessions and sustainability workshops as well as hands-on campaign planning workshops.
Every good workshop needs five things to create real impact:
Vision – Where are we headed?
Capabilities – Do we have the right people in the room?
Incentives – Why should they engage?
Resources – Do we have enough time, space, and methods?
Action plan – What happens next?
If even one of these is missing, the impact fades.
This is also reflected in Dr. Mary Lippitt’s model on change competency.
Once the goal, setup, and impact curve are clear, we move on to the true heart of the workshop: the dramaturgy.
How we begin. How we go deeper. How we close.
For me, that means: Entering. Centering. Exiting.
My workshops always take place physically and in person. I don’t do remote workshops because I believe people work best on big challenges when they’re in the same real space. But here are a few inputs in case you do take part in a virtual workshop.
🖼️ Entering
How we arrive determines where we’ll go.
The perfect workshop doesn’t start in the room. It starts in the preparation.
I rarely use pre-reads, simply because they often end up unread by some participants.
Instead, I almost always work with targeted pre-questions or small mini-surveys. This helps to understand the people involved, identify critical points, and gather input so that everyone feels heard.
In addition, there’s intensive preparation on my part:
Previous activities around the topic
Competitor analysis and customer voices
And when it comes to that last one, my basic rule is:
Because as Roger Martin writes:
„Strategy does not start with what shareholders want, or what ‘core capabilities’ we have. It starts with a profound appreciation of and fascination with customers, and a deep desire to make their lives/businesses better off.”
In the workshop itself, I like to start with a simple icebreaker format.
My favorite: the Guided Exhibition.
I visualize key results from the preliminary conversations and surveys anonymously in the room – on walls, tables, or displays. The participants then walk through this “exhibition”: they mark, add, underline.
This creates a collective understanding in the first few minutes of what really matters: What’s on our minds? What are we actually here to talk about?
And we skip the long-winded round of introductions.
A few other methods I like to use include:
The Expectation Radar – mapping expectations and risks
Stinky Fish – “What don’t I want to say, but it’s still there?”
Speed Networking or Human Bingo – ideal for larger groups.
These methods create presence.
They bring people into the now. And they make it clear:
Today is not about getting through the agenda.
It’s about diving in.
By the end of this phase, all participants have arrived and are ready for the core part of our workshop.
🔮 Centering
Focus. Focus. Focus.
Now comes the true core of the workshop: the work on the topic.
In my Strategy Labs Centering means: focus, depth, energy – beyond group discussions and flipcharts.
Sometimes it’s about shaping a vision. Sometimes about resolving a conflict. Sometimes about discovering new options.
It’s the phase where we explore the problem from different perspectives, test hypotheses, let ideas evolve, and develop concrete steps.
And because every team, every goal, and every organization is different, this phase is never the same. That’s why I work with a strategic repertoire, which I select based on the goal, context, and group dynamics.
Here are some of my favorite formats for the Centering phase:
🎭 Archetype-Workshops
Brands with character are clearer, bolder, more credible. Working with brand archetypes helps teams make the invisible visible – and clearly define their own brand role.
“Marketing without a system for managing meaning is analogous to ancient navigators trying to find port in treacherous seas on a starless night. What they need is an enduring and reliable compass - a fixed place that illuminates both where they are and where they must go. For marketers, the theory of archetypes can act as this compass.”
Margaret Mark & Carol S. Pearson
📣 Future Press Release
A classic from the Amazon world: We write a fictional press release from the future. Who are we? What have we achieved? What excites the world about our solution?
“Teams write speculative press releases to describe - in detail - the successful delivery of an envisioned future product or service, down to the quotes from product managers and happy customers.”
Scott Smith in How to Future
🐅 Tiger, Paper Tiger, Elephant
A wonderfully visual model to distinguish between real challenges (tiger), imagined obstacles (paper tiger), and systemic blockages (elephant) – and to act accordingly.
I described it in this Instagram post:
🔀 Mutation Game
The method developed by Fred Pelard helps break mental boundaries in innovation projects: we take an idea and mutate it in different directions – outrageous, pragmatic, visionary – until it suddenly looks completely different (and often better).
🧠 Empathy Map & Personality Games
Ideal for truly understanding target groups – not just rationally, but emotionally. It’s about needs, thoughts, fears – and about deriving relevant brand impulses from them. I like to use this method in the context of customer journeys and campaign planning.
🪦 The Brand Obituary
What would people say about our brand if it no longer existed tomorrow? This unfamiliar thought experiment brings clarity about what truly matters.
🦸 Super Power Model
Where does our unique strength lie – not from the product’s perspective, but from the users’ point of view? This question often leads to positioning that is different, tangible, and desirable.
“‘People Don’t Buy Products, They Buy Better Versions of Themselves’ - When you’re trying to win customers, are you listing the attributes of the flower or describing how awesome it is to throw fireballs?”
Belle Beth Cooper
Each of these models creates a different energy and solves a different problem.
For all of them, I’ve developed specific methods to introduce them playfully and finish with a clear outcome – depending on the goal of the workshop.
Some create clarity. Others spark creativity. Some lead to quick results, others to deep reflection. That’s exactly why my Centering phase doesn’t follow a linear process – it’s a curated choreography.
My task as a workshop lead is to create that space – with structure, but without rigidity.
And when, at the end of this phase, a team sits there with eyes shining, truly seeing for the first time what they can achieve together – then it’s already been an almost perfect workshop.
Because there’s still a third phase we need to master.
🤝 Exiting
Every good workshop needs a strong ending.
Not just to “wrap things up,” but to spark something and leave a lasting impact.
The ending determines whether energy is carried forward – or fades in the room.
It creates momentum,
gathers insights,
builds courage
and brings clarity about what happens next.
A good Exiting includes 3 elements:
1️⃣ The closing round
At the end of my workshops, I summarize the process for the group, highlight the outcomes and the progress we’ve made together, and then ask three simple closing questions – tailored to the topic of the workshop.
It’s a final opportunity for everyone to share input and for me to learn how I can improve.
2️⃣ The Blueprint
Many workshops don’t fail in the room, but in the weeks and months that follow: the energy was there – but everyday life returned.
That’s why I place particular emphasis on what happens after the workshop.
For every project, I create a Blueprint document – a condensed, focused results paper with:
The key insights
A clear structure
Concrete next steps
I recommend defining 3 to 5 concrete actions to be implemented after the workshop. Not ten to-dos – but three real levers.
Now, for each of these actions, four things are needed:
Who is responsible?
When will it start?
What exactly is the first step?
Who will it be done with?
For brand positioning work, I often complement the Blueprint with a Brand One Pager – a visually and conceptually condensed document that summarizes attitude, tone, vision, and core messages.
And: I always work with a feedback loop.
Refinement is part of the process. After a workshop, there is always another space to fine-tune things, clarify open questions, and define the next steps together.
3️⃣ The Follow-Up
Change is not a moment. It’s a process.
That’s why I offer follow-up formats like Brand Health Sessions for my clients – reflection formats that help take stock 6 to 12 months after the workshop:
What’s working well?
What wasn’t implemented – and why?
What needs new energy now?
This way, the workshop doesn’t remain just a memory, but becomes part of real development.
🟢 Final thoughts
Workshops take time.
That’s exactly what makes them so valuable.
They move us from reacting to creating. They interrupt the operational noise – and make space for strategic depth.
And when a team uses that space to align, think boldly, and make shared decisions, it’s not time lost.
It’s an investment in clarity, direction, and impact.
“The greatest gift you’ll ever give your marketing is to say: ‘Stop. Let’s get the foundations right first, especially all the parts no one will ever see: positioning, guidelines, and infrastructure.’
Aaron Orendorff, Editor in Chief Shopify
I love workshops.
Sensing the atmosphere in the room when the right method meets the specific challenge and I realize: “This is where a new way of thinking, working, and leading begins.”
Put simply, every good workshop comes down to these five steps (inspired by Peter Shepherd and Jen Waldman)
This is who we are.
This is what we will do.
Is everybody ready?
What comes next?
Goodbye.
And if we do it right, the “goodbye” is only the beginning.
💚
Your next workshop starts here:
For June/July 2025, I’m offering 3 free Discovery Sessions for anyone planning a workshop that works and creates change.
Whether you run your workshop with me or on your own: 45 minutes with me for more clarity, more structure and an idea that excites you.
Whether it’s about inspiration, marketing strategy, positioning, team culture, sustainability strategy, team training, campaign planning or innovation: I’ll help you take the first steps.
Goal: your perfect workshop.
First come, first served.
➡️ Click here to sign up for one of the 3 free consultation sessions ⬅️
✅ Bonus: My workshop checklist for you
If you’re planning a workshop yourself – or just considering whether a workshop is the right approach – you’ll find a practical workshop checklist on my Instagram channel that helps you stay focused on what really matters.
Simple, focused, proven.
I hope this post has inspired you – to reflect, to plan, or maybe even to finally create that workshop you’ve had in mind for a while.
If you’d like to design your next workshop together:
I’d love to hear from you.
And if you lead workshops yourself:
Take what works for you. And create spaces that make a difference.
Thanks for reading,