Strategy Cards
How Do I Move My Team and Organization Forward?
Designed for business and nonprofit leaders
50 field-tested strategies with step-by-step instructions
10 categories spanning the full arc of leadership facilitation
Built for meetings, retreats, and workshops
50
PROVEN STRATEGIES
10
LEADERSHIP CATEGORIES
40+
YEARS OF EXPERTISE
100%
FIELD-TESTED
“I would absolutely use them in my work for strategic planning.”
— Reviewer“This would be a time saver for me. I am always looking for strategies.”
— Reviewer“Love the card idea. They are so tangible and novel. I can hold them in my hand and exchange with others, or compare them side-by-side.”
— Reviewer“You have chosen the ‘best of the best’ in strategies. You have already curated them to the vital few. It saves me from searching through books.”
— Reviewer
Strategy Cards equip leaders and teams to…
Build strong, high performing teams
Learn and improve together to move the organization forward
Extend the team’s collaborative capacity for ongoing team development
Deepen the team’s commitment to the organization’s mission and values
Foster better communication and deeper alignment
Design and facilitate productive meetings
Foster participatory processes within the community
Build skills that move teams forward
Provide clear structures for all types of teamwork
Create agendas, develop trainings and workshops, and engage staff to achieve the intended outcomes
Navigate complexity and manage conflict
Face uncertainty, rapid change, and competing priorities with confidence
Clarify issues and problems, prevent misunderstanding, and find mutually beneficial solutions
De-escalate tension and boost listening
Develop shared understanding to build trust and mitigate conflict
Identify solutions and plan for impact
Agree on areas of improvement and inform decision making
Guide strategic planning and collaboratively establish direction
Establish action plans for successfully achieving a goal
Assess effectiveness and measure progress toward desired results
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Who are they for?
They are built for leaders who facilitate.
Strategy Cards serve any leader responsible for bringing people together with purpose — at every stage of their career.
Three Options Available
Strategy Cards: Moving Teams and Organizations Forward provides 50 curated strategies for purposeful, mission-driven facilitation to lead change, elevate collaboration, and solve problems. Organized in 10 color-coded categories of processes from Building Community to Measuring Results, the cards equip leaders with field-tested strategies to address organizational challenges and ongoing team development.
Fifty curated strategies across ten leadership domains drawn from three careers’ worth of practice
Designed for school and organizational leaders who want to make every meeting, retreat, and planning session count.
Each card distills a proven approach for a specific moment in group work — building connection, surfacing conflict, making decisions, driving commitment, creating real momentum. The cards provide the purpose, time, resources, and source for each strategy as well as step-by-step instructions.
The cards are housed in a two-part box, making them easily accessible on a desk, in a meeting, to view in a training workshop, or to give as a gift. Each card has a hole in the left-hand corner so it can be slipped on a 2” ring that comes in the box.
Fifty curated strategies across ten leadership domains drawn from three careers’ worth of practice
Designed for school and organizational leaders who want to make every meeting, retreat, and planning session count.
Each card distills a proven approach for a specific moment in group work — building connection, surfacing conflict, making decisions, driving commitment, creating real momentum. The cards provide the purpose, time, resources, and source for each strategy as well as step-by-step instructions.
The cards are housed in a two-part box, making them easily accessible on a desk, in a meeting, to view in a training workshop, or to give as a gift. Each card has a hole in the left-hand corner so it can be slipped on a 2” ring that comes in the box.
The digital version delivers instant access: a downloadable PDF sent directly to you upon purchase, ready to use on any device.
Bundle and Save! When you add the Strategy Cards and Digital Strategy Cards to your cart, save and additional 10% off!
Bulk discounts available. Inquire for more information.
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What People Are Saying
“While teaching facilitation skills, I have participants use cards at the table rather than via an internet search that takes time. Plus, you have strategies that are original to you or that I am not familiar with. That’s a bonus!”
— Reviewer“I like the format and the headers. I can scan quickly, and if I need more information, I can look at the suggested resources. I also like the format of the cards, so I have something in my hand to hold and not get bogged down with a book. I like that there are color-coded categories, that there is not a lot of text, and I can go to the sources for more details if I need them.”
— Reviewer
Forty years of leadership in action.
The Authors
Deb Welch, Joellen Killion, and Susan Sparks are nationally recognized experts in organizational development, strategic facilitation, and leadership coaching. With a combined four decades of experience, they have worked with public and independent schools, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations across the United States and internationally.
Together, they have led high-stakes strategic planning sessions, facilitated negotiations between school leaders and boards, authored books and professional development materials, and coached leaders at every level — from classroom teacher leaders to superintendents and executive directors.
Strategy Cards is the distillation of their collective expertise into one immediately useful tool. As Leadership Blueprints, their mission is to develop practical leadership resources that move teams and organizations meaningfully forward.
Everything you need to know.
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Strategy Cards are designed for anyone who regularly works with groups of any size. If you are a leader at any level who is committed to engaging others in an organization's success, Strategy Cards are for you. That includes leaders in the C-Suite, mid-level managers, department and division directors, team leads, consultants, coaches, directors of professional development, and organizational development specialists.
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Each card is a ready-to-use tool for a specific moment in group work:
Opening a conversation so everyone arrives present and engaged
Surfacing the real issue when a group is talking around it
Navigating conflict so it becomes productive instead of destructive
Engaging innovative thinking to understand complex issues or situations
Establishing direction and guiding strategic planning
Building toward decisions that actually hold
Closing a session so people leave with ownership, not just notes
Assessing the effectiveness and impact of actions, initiatives, and programs
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Strategy Cards are for anyone who leads in a participatory way, whether novice or experienced. You don't need to be a trained facilitator — you need to understand what kind of moment you're in and reach for the right card. Strategy Cards gives you the right tools and the confidence to use them.
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If you travel and regularly design, chair, or facilitate sessions, the digital version is a convenient option — always accessible on your devices. The physical version, however, is ideal for keeping on your desk or bringing to meetings. The cards are durable, made of 18pt card stock in gloss with UV coating. The cards have a hole drill in the upper left-hand corner and a ring so that you can hang them for easy use. Whichever format you choose; each card is a ready-to-use tool for a specific moment in group work.
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Begin by defining a clear goal for bringing the group together. Consider your organization's mission as you choose the strategies best suited to achieve your intended outcome. Cards can be viewed individually, by category, or all at once. Each card features a purpose statement on the front so you can quickly determine whether a strategy fits the moment. We've curated the best of the best to save you time, and each card includes proven, field-tested step-by-step instructions on the back. If you want to explore further, the source of each strategy is also identified on the front.
Strategy Cards are not a shortcut — facilitation is a skill, and these cards respect that. What they offer is a scaffold, a structure that gives you the confidence and framework to lead better conversations, whether you're running a 20-minute check-in or a three-day strategic planning retreat.
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As facilitative leaders who have used these strategies for many years, we still turn to Strategy Cards when planning sessions. Flipping through them gives us a springboard for building an agenda — sometimes a strategy we'd forgotten is exactly the right fit, and sometimes we simply want to revisit the instructions. Teams also evolve over time, and as purpose and context shift, different categories naturally come to the fore.
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Absolutely. As you grow familiar with the strategies, you'll find room for creativity. For example, the Collective Statement strategy from the Developing Shared Understanding category could serve equally well as a Planning for Action tool. Similarly, Keep, Toss, Create from Measuring Results can be applied effectively in the Looking Within category. The boundaries are flexible by design.
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Teams can be as small as two people, and there is no upper limit. We have successfully used several of these strategies with groups of 100 or more. The cards can also be used for remote, virtual or hybrid teams.