Scaling Up Quarterly Theme Planning Tool

Having a great Scaling Up Quarterly Theme is a great way to bring fun, energy and focus to achieving your quarterly goal. A fun, relevant and episodic theme is a great way to focus your team on executing the great work and goals that were done in the quarterly planning session. It is also a fantastic way to share the Quarterly Plans with the larger organization and cascade your goals to them—opening the way to greater awareness and discussion about implementing and achieving your quarterly strategy.

A winning theme motivates the entire team around the activities (Rocks) and critical number(s) necessary to achieve your quarterly goals. It should be intrinsically meaningful to the team. It can be funny and even a little irreverent (if that fits your culture). Don’t worry about making it too polished. Some of the best themes are avant-garde and you can even get away with some elements of the theme being a little disjointed. Half of the fun is weaving these elements together and telling the story on why the weekly episodic theme toys, tchotchkes, artifacts and activities that you use to keep the theme energized makes sense. Think about it like improvisational comedy.

For example, one team chose “All Hands on Deck” as their quarterly theme. I originally thought this was going to be pretty lame, until the team was challenged with how they were going to activate it and keep it alive. When they talked about designing a 1/10th scale pirate ship on the wall, complete with everyone in pirate costumes, gold coin currency to earn, a booty chest and a kick off lunch the theme really came alive. This was followed up by episodic pulses to the theme in terms of weekly tchotchkes, artifacts and activities to keep it energized, relevant and fun. Likewise, another client with an A-Team theme could use the Chick-fil-A video highlighting this exact “A” performance messaging and having Chick-fil-A sandwiches for lunch one week to “pulse” the theme. It’s the leader’s job to explain the tie-in for maximum impact.

If your team members are regularly using the theme name and elements of the theme in everyday conversation to keep team members focused and accountable, you know your theme is working! Now let’s get started on constructing yours!

Rick Crossland is an internationally known expert, approved YPO speaker, and thought leader on A Player talent. A leading certified Scaling Up coach and the author of the acclaimed business book The A Player, Rick’s innovative approach to recruiting, interviewing, validating, and developing high performers—A Players—has been featured in leading business publications such as Inc.com, Entrepreneur.com, Fortune.com, Recruiter.com, Columbus CEO, and Leadership Insights. With clients around the world, his expertise helps businesses scale by building high-performance teams that drive superior results. Follow Rick on LinkedIn and X (Formerly Twitter).