The AI Strategy Session
A half-day workshop with your leadership team. Tagline: decisions by noon.
A facilitated working session where your leadership team identifies the three to five AI moves the business should make, sketches the implementation, and leaves with a workbook and a named owner against each move. The format is built for decisions, not for learning.
Can my leadership team leave the room today with three AI moves we agree on, and a name next to each? The session is built to force the decision. Information comes in as the input; alignment comes out as the deliverable.
| Two weeks before | Intake call with you. I learn the business, the team, and the question you want the morning to answer. |
| One week before | Pre-read goes to attendees: a one-page brief, the day’s agenda, and a short questionnaire each person completes individually. |
| Day of, morning | Three hours: the operating reality of AI at your size, the workflow inventory, and the ranked opportunity exercise. Decisions by noon. |
| Day of, afternoon (full day) | Two more hours: build sequence, named owners, and a draft 90-day plan. Optional. |
| Within 5 business days | The workbook lands in everyone’s inbox: decisions, owners, dates, the leave-behind summary, and the open questions parked for the next meeting. |
- The five to twelve leaders who actually run the company.
- The room. Or the Zoom, if remote.
- Pre-read completed by each attendee, returned 48 hours before.
- A one-page brief from you on what success looks like for the morning.
- One executive sponsor in the room willing to call the decision when needed.
A workbook of decisions and owners. A one-page leave-behind that summarizes the morning in language the board would understand. A short follow-up email three weeks later asking about the first move, which is included to keep the work alive. A facilitated experience with someone who has run this conversation in dozens of rooms and can move the team past the places it gets stuck.
From a recent workbook, page 1 of 16, lightly anonymized:
Decision 1. The renewal-quote workflow becomes our first AI build. Owner: Maria. Start date: July 8. Decision review: September 8. Success criterion: cycle time cut from 12 days to under 5 by the review date, with no increase in error rate.
Decision 2. We will not enter into any AI vendor contract longer than 90 days for the rest of this fiscal year. Owner: CFO. Effective immediately.
Decision 3. Customer service AI is paused for one quarter. The hours saved would not improve a customer-facing number we can defend. Owner: COO. Revisit on October 1.
Half-day in person, half-day on Zoom, or full day in person. The full day differs from the half-day in that we draft the 90-day execution plan together in the room rather than leave it for follow-up. Most teams of five to eight do well with the half-day. Teams of nine or more, or teams that have been stuck for months, do better with the full day. I will tell you which fits your group on the intake call.
“My leadership team had been talking about AI for nine months. We left the room with three things we agreed to do and a name next to each. The workbook went into the operating review file the next Monday.”
President, Regional services group, $74M revenue
Illustrative. Composite of recent mid-market engagements, not a single named client.
RLK Consulting is Ryan King, sole founder. He spent nearly 15 years at McKinsey and Deloitte advising Fortune 50 clients, and now runs a strategy practice in Richmond, Virginia serving the mid-market. The person you pay is the person who does the work.
To begin
Tell me your team size, your industry, and the one question you want the morning to answer. I will tell you whether it fits.