1. Issues

Bring together a few senior managers – the exercise can be carried out directly with a management committee – in any case, people who are as familiar with strategic orientations as they are with operational realities. Without consultation, either before or during the exercise, ask each of these executives to list the ten or fifteen main risks threatening their company, and then share the results.

Five to seven identical risks will be cited by a large majority of your audience, the higher the number if the strategy is clear and the objectives well defined. But you will also find that ten to twenty other risks (sometimes more if the strategy is uncertain and the objectives random) are listed by a few, or even just one, of those present.

If it's not too late, or if you're not in too much of a hurry to get home, you can then set about getting...