ryan companies

Challenges / Opportunities

Ryan Companies entered its 2026 Senior Leadership Team Retreat at a pivotal moment. While the organization had significant momentum and a clear path toward achieving $63 million in net profit, leaders recognized the need for stronger alignment, greater ownership, improved communication, and a more disciplined approach to growth.

Several opportunities and challenges emerged:

• Creating greater clarity around organizational priorities and strategic direction.
• Strengthening trust, communication, and accountability across the Senior Leadership Team.
• Reinforcing the connection between operational excellence and business development.
• Breaking down regional and business-unit silos to leverage the full Ryan network.
• Helping leaders understand their role in achieving aggressive profitability goals.
• Addressing unanswered questions related to growth, organizational structure, talent strategy, operating capacity, and long-term competitiveness.
• Creating greater ownership and initiative among leaders rather than waiting for direction from above.
• Maintaining Ryan’s culture and safety commitment while continuing to grow.

Recommendations & Implementations

Mission Facilitators International partnered with Ryan Companies to design and facilitate a highly interactive three-day Senior Leadership Team Retreat focused on leadership alignment, strategic clarity, and action. Key elements of the retreat included:

Strategic Alignment

• Created a retreat experience around the themes Get Real, Get Aligned, and Get On It.
• Established a clear purpose for the event focused on trust, communication, decision-making, and organizational performance.
• Facilitated conversations around the role, responsibility, and expectations of Senior Leadership Team members.
• Helped leaders explore what they needed to start, stop, and continue doing to strengthen organizational performance.

Business Development Integration

• Positioned business development as everyone’s responsibility.
• Facilitated discussions connecting operational excellence with business development success.
• Led interactive exercises focused on relationship-building, client engagement, key account strategies, and business development behaviors.
• Helped leaders identify practical actions they could immediately implement within their areas of responsibility.

Leadership Dialogue and Trust Building

• Designed highly interactive sessions emphasizing discussion over presentations.
• Facilitated open conversations around leadership concerns, strategic questions, and organizational priorities.
• Created opportunities for leaders to engage directly with executive leadership through fireside chats and panel discussions.
• Established psychological safety and respectful challenge as core norms throughout the retreat.

Action Planning and Accountability

• Guided leaders through commitment-based exercises focused on ownership and follow-through.
• Created structured opportunities for leaders to identify specific actions they would take following the retreat.
• Built alignment around key strategic priorities, growth objectives, and performance expectations.

Results

The retreat produced meaningful alignment around Ryan’s future direction and generated several key outcomes:

• Greater understanding of Ryan’s path toward achieving and exceeding $63 million in net profit.
• Stronger commitment to collaboration across business units, regions, and service lines.
• Increased awareness that exceptional project delivery is one of the company’s strongest business development tools.
• Greater focus on relationship-based business development and key account growth.
• Alignment around the importance of safety, culture, communication, accountability, and disciplined execution.
• Increased ownership among Senior Leadership Team members regarding organizational outcomes.
• Clear commitments to improve CRM utilization, client engagement, cross-functional collaboration, and pursuit management.
• Identification of critical strategic questions requiring continued leadership attention and discussion.

The retreat also reinforced several organization-wide themes:

• Build stronger client relationships.
• Leverage the full Ryan network.
• Focus on key accounts.
• Maintain CRM discipline.
• Persist through challenges.
• Use technology and AI to enhance effectiveness.
• Strengthen leadership accountability.
• Communicate Ryan’s full capabilities and value proposition.

Follow Up

Mission Facilitators International continues to support Ryan Companies through ongoing leadership facilitation and annual Senior Leadership Team retreats.
Because the facilitation partnership spans multiple years, each retreat builds upon previous conversations, commitments, and organizational priorities. This continuity allows the leadership team to move beyond surface-level discussions and accelerate progress on strategic issues that matter most.

The retreat outcomes and leadership commitments were incorporated into Ryan’s broader strategic roadmap and leadership communication efforts, creating a foundation for continued alignment, accountability, and execution throughout the organization.