Strategic Power Pauses
Build Team Engagement, Effectiveness + Resiliency
the Creative + Collborative Way
Strategic Power Pauses are visually facilitated, cyclical team planning workshops done at quarterly or bi-annual intervals.
The Power Pause System’s structure and cadence provide an ongoing creative and collaborative process for prioritizing, focusing, setting expectations, and making progress on team and organizational goals - - in a way that works best for humans!
Each Power Pause builds on the next, developing your team’s strategic planning and prioritizing skills while at the same time improving their engagement, performance, resiliency, leadership skills and team work.
Cyclical Strategic Planning
Proactively Set the Focus + Flow
Choose team priorities
Reveal progress + insights
Acknowledge challenges
Prevent burnout + overwhelm
Create sustainable workflow
Assess Team Influence
The Power Pause System
Designed for cyclical quarterly or annual team development, Strategic Power Pauses are a whole-brain methodology that meets leaders, managers and teams where they are, visually facilitating reflection, planning, and goal-setting for greater organizational alignment with decreased burnout.
Create from Momentum
The Year-Start Power Pause
Occurs in mid-late January/February, giving teams a calm, intentional place to land at the start of the year.
Reflect on team successes, impact, challenges & wisdom gained from prior year.
Recognize structures & relationships that are working well and reveal what is calling for attention in the year ahead.
Refocus + Prioritize
The Spring Power Pause
Occurs in Feb/March, often as a second part of Year-Start Power Pause, focusing on the year ahead.
Explore possible focuses for the year
Discern what the team can and cannot influence
Clarify how best to focus + work together for the cycle ahead
Prioritize projects and initiatives based on model for sustainable growth
Acknowledge Progress
The Mid-Year Power Pause
Occurs in June/July/Aug, giving teams a chance to exhale + reset focus for the rest of the year
Review progress + acknowledge successes
Realign Goals + Priorities
Res-set the focus before people take time off for vacations
Often includes Team Synergy Workshops on working wiser (not harder) + wellbeing
Finish the Year Strong
The Fall Power Pause
Occurs in Sept/Oct as an intentional pause after summer and the Back-to-School period
Explore which projects to lean into and where to pull back for the highest impact
Get focused on where to give time, energy and attention in the last quarter
Relieve false pressure and overwhelm to ‘finish it all’ by the end of the year
Create space for what matters most
Downshift to Replenish
The Year-End Power Pause
Occurs mid-November to early December, creating a path for teams to finish strong and intentionally downshift, instead of just “crashing into the holidays”
Acknowledge all they have achieved this year
Harvest the hard-won wisdom from challenges and release the shortfalls
Create permission to downshift and receive the gift of replenishment over the holidays
Return renewed in the New Year
Getting Started with Power Pauses
Not Every Team does every Power Pause every year
The system is flexible, based on what best serves the team and business in any given year.
Any of the Power Pauses can be done as a stand-alone session or added to an existing event or team session.
We also work with teams to develop a ‘cyclical planning + prioritizing calendar’ with 2-3 Power Pauses a year that over time creates a cadence & rhythm and a very stabilizing consistency for teams.
We create experiences that bring teams together and superpower their success
Onsite Power Pauses
We come to you— or your team offsite—for customized team development in person.
Virtual Power Pauses
With expert visual + virtual facilitation, online Power Pauses are highly engaging and effective.
Team Leader Training
We can train your people managers to facilitate their own team Power Pauses.
Catalyzed Us into a Much Stronger Team
“The Power Pause workshops turned my skeptical accounting team into an actual team: by cataloging everything we’d survived and achieved, people dropped their defenses, saw each other’s load, and began working as one instead of a herd of exhausted individuals.”
— Jessica, SVP, Chief Accounting Officer, Retail Industry
About the Creators of the Strategic Power Pause System
The Power Pause Cyclical Planning & Wellbeing Methodology is a co-creation of Leadership Advisor Christine Arylo MBA, and Creative Catalyst Founder Katherine Torrini.
This proprietary system has been developed and tested for over 10 years with organizations, ERGs and leadership programs in the technology, finance, commercial real estate, fashion, retail and entertainment sectors.
Let’s talk about the possibilities!
We 💜 bringing teams together and superpower-ing their success
Power Pauses Gallery
Want to try a Power Pause for Yourself?
Throughout the year, we invite emerging and established leaders to take a Personal Leadership Power Pause, an adaptation of the work we do with organizations and teams—our gift to you.
Enjoy this process as a self-paced leadership retreat to get centered and clear as an individual, so you can show up as your best self, stay focused on what matters, and take care of your people and your mission.
While the Personal Leadership Editions are different from the Strategic Power Pauses for Teams, they give you a taste of the bigger methodology. If you resonate with our approach and want to bring us in to work with your team or group, we’d be happy to support you!
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Personal Leadership Power Pause
An Essential Part of My Year
“ Without the structure of the quarterly Power Pauses, I would just keep pushing through, and miss how much my team and I had accomplished. Takin the space to consider what I need as a human, and what to focus on as a leader has become an essential part of my year.”
— Talent Development Leader, SVP, Robin, Entertainment & Media Industry
