As the Steel Framing Industry Association (SFIA) gears up for its Annual Meeting and General Session on Monday, March 25, 2024, at 12 pm Eastern Time in the Asia 3 meeting room at Walt Disney World Dolphin Resort, Lake Buena Vista, Florida, attendees are in for a transformative experience led by Darcy Bien, a seasoned strategist at Stretch Strategic Leaders. This mini workshop promises to be a pivotal moment for those seeking to chart a course towards sustainable growth and success.
Mini Strategy Workshop To-Dos
At 12:30 pm on March 25 (Asia 3, Dolphin Resort), Bien will lead an interactive session designed to help attendees develop and evaluate their own company strategies. To participate, session attendees should ideally do the following in advance of the session:
- Download and read: Strategy in Motion™ Handout
- Download and read: The Cost of “Hoping”
- Take this survey: Strategic Planning Assessment
Bien will share the results of the survey at the mini workshop.
SFIA Annual Meeting
The Steel Framing Industry Association (SFIA) will hold its Annual Meeting in conjunction with BUILD24, on Monday, March 25, 2024. There is no charge to attend the SFIA event.
- SFIA Annual Meeting, March 25, 12:00 pm ET (includes the 2023 SFIA Awards presentation)
- SFIA General Session, March 25, 1:30 pm ET
- Asia 3 meeting room, Walt Disney World Dolphin Resort, Lake Buena Vista, Florida
SFIA Annual Meeting and General Session is March 25, 12:00 – 1:30 pm ET, in Asia 3 at Walt Disney World Dolphin Resort, Lake Buena Vista, Florida.
Effective Strategy Development
Here are the steps to successful strategic planning, based on Bien’s article, The Cost of “Hoping”:
Step 1: Listen and Learn
You start the process by assessing what you already have available and determine what is necessary to research; this includes both an internal analysis with customer and employee surveys, as well as an external analysis, with industry, market, and competitor research.
Step 2: Develop the Strategic Plan
This includes your vision, core purpose, core values, and key strategic choices you want to focus on. This is an interactive process with working sessions, giving an opportunity to hear different perspectives, but then coming together behind aligned strategic priorities.
Step 3: Implementation
This is where the rubber meets the road with scorecards and action plans. Many companies become anxious when accountability increases and some even “freeze” at this stage. Our process and tools will help you over the speed bump.
Step 4: Strategic Management
The company starts to share the strategy with the organization, devolve action down through the organization and continually assess the effectiveness of the plan, making necessary improvements.
You stick with your plan, you improve, but eventually, it’s time to assess how it went and start over. And with any good process, it gets better with practice!
Come to SFIA Annual Meeting — March 25, 2024
Darcy Bien’s mini workshop at the SFIA Annual Meeting promises to be a transformative experience for attendees seeking to elevate their strategic capabilities. By guiding participants through the key phases of strategy development, Bien will empower attendees to unlock their full potential and achieve enduring success, paving the way for innovation, growth and resilience in an ever-evolving construction landscape.
Jim Collins, ClarkDietrich Building Systems president/CEO and SFIA president, will chair the meeting.
Jim Collins, ClarkDietrich Building Systems president/CEO and SFIA president, and Darcy Bien, SFIA general session speaker.
SFIA General Session
Monday, March 25, 2023, 12:30 p.m. (Eastern Time)
Asia 3
Walt Disney World Dolphin ResortDarcy Bien, Keynote Speaker
Darcy Bien partners with CEOs, executives and leadership teams to plan their organizations’ futures. Recently, she published a book, Strategy in Motion™: A Proven Playbook for Companies Who Win. With more than 20 years of experience helping hundreds of companies, her team-based approach and time- tested processes helped build her national reputation for delivering “actionable strategy.” The daughter of a brilliant entrepreneur who struggled with execution may explain Darcy’s bulldog tenacity among clients for doing whatever it takes to achieve successful strategic implementation – at a rate 2.2 times the industry standard.
In addition to Stretch, Darcy is the Director at Partners in Change, LLC, a Cincinnati-based strategic consulting firm and has also partnered with the Dayton-based consulting firm, Aileron, since 2010, to support their strategic planning initiatives. Prior to that, she was the National Partnership Director of the National Speaking of Women’s Health Foundation, where she developed new partner sales processes and created long-term partner strategies. With her expertise in strategic planning, continuous process improvement, and Total Quality Management, Darcy co-led the Strategic Eight Planning Process with the Greater Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce for five years.
Darcy holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology and an MBA from Harvard Business School. Her career started at Procter & Gamble, where she spent five years cultivating operational, team development, and risk management. As a business solutions consultant, she completed a process improvement sales initiative for Bayer Plastics and a supply chain management project for Johnson Wax Professional.
Recognized as one of Cincinnati’s Forty under 40 and selected as an examiner for the Ohio Award for Excellence, Darcy enjoys volunteering in her spare time – having served as the HBS alumni Club President, PTA President, Junior Achievement Instructor, Parents of Diversity committee member, and on the Leukemia Lymphoma Society Leadership Team. When she’s not volunteering at her children’s school or running her kids to an after-school activity, she’s running the trails with her dogs (who are not bulldogs).
Additional Resources
- SFIA’s Annual Meeting on March 25 to Feature Special Live Awards Ceremony
- SFIA to Give Report Unveiling Member Insights at March 25 Annual Meeting
- SFIA Reveals 7 Winners of the 2023 Industry Project Awards in Online Ceremony