Board directors are often worried about how to participate in strategic planning without imposing their will on the CEO or outsmarting their authority. The lengthy planning processes and three- to five-year time frames are being replaced by strategic frameworks that articulate the priorities of the organization. Business plans that combine objectives for programmatic and operational goals, financial forecasts, as well as robust annual plans with clear timelines and metrics are becoming more frequent.
But a board focused on its oversight duties needs to be involved in the formulation of strategy, and assessing the strategic activities that are taking place, knowing that there will always be situations that require a lot of attention from the Board and establishing a monitoring plan for the strategy. This article will discuss ways to accomplish all of this while allowing the Board to be involved in strategic conversations and contribute productively to them.
One of the most popular articles on this website is our post on how to facilitate an event for strategic planning for your board. This article addresses an important problem that is raised over and over again in this regard where the board must draw the line between managing strategy and managing the company. This is an important discussion since if the Board believes that its role is to rubber-stamp every plan given to it, it’s at risk of becoming an “rubber stamp” board. It is important to avoid this by having a direct dialogue between boardmeetingsolution.org/ the board and management on the strategic issues that they consider to be the most important. This will enable the board to assist in framing the issues and management to be open to suggestions from the board that could help refine and improve the problem-solving process.