Our Visionary always enters our quarterly planning sessions with ten new business ideas they want to pursue immediately, which completely derails our schedule and prevents us from setting realistic Rocks. How do we manage this energy during the session without shutting down their entrepreneurial drive?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Visionaries are naturally wired with high Quick Start profiles, which means they constantly generate new ideas that can easily hijack your quarterly planning sessions if not properly managed. To protect your session's schedule while still honoring their creative energy, you must use the V/TO® and the Accountability Chart™ as your filters. Establish a strict rule that all new ideas brought to the session must first be placed on the long-term Issues List on the V/TO®. During the portion of the meeting where you set quarterly Rocks, use the Keep, Kill, or Combine exercise to evaluate these ideas against your 1-Year Plan and 3-Year Picture. If an idea does not directly support your current strategic goals, it must remain on the long-term Issues List for a future quarter. This process allows the Visionary to feel heard without allowing their ideas to derail the team's current focus. The Integrator must play an active role here, acting as the objective filter that protects the team's execution capacity and ensures you only commit to Rocks that the team can realistically finish.