Role of the Board in Strategic Planning

There are good reasons why many CEO's get uneasy about the notion that their Board should participate in the strategic planning process. They see many of their Board of Directors as:

• Not experts in the business
• Not involved enough in the business
• Not great at strategy, and frequently
• Not aligned around previously defined priorities

Many directors would agree. Writing the strategic plan is not something they necessarily have the expertise, involvement, time or strategic planning skills to carry out. Writing the plan is clearly the role for experts - the management team.

But…that does not mean that the Board of Directors doesn’t have a key role in the strategic planning process.

Here’s how - The Board of Directors should lead the strategic planning process. Leading means:

• ensuring that there IS a strategic planning processensuring that the Board and management understand what all the steps of the process are
• ensuring that someone from Management or the Board is accountable for each of the steps of the strategic planning process
• monitoring the progress of the strategic planning process to ensure it is happening as planned

The Board of Directors should participate in the strategic planning process. Participating means:

• Spending time as a Board to define (if necessary), review (annually) and articulate (clearly) the vision, mission and core values of the organization. This is a PRIMARY REPSONSIBILITY OF THE BOARD. The Board of Directors, through its governance mandate, is the keeper of the Company's mission, vision and core values.
• Spending time through committees or as an entire Board, reviewing outputs from the strategic planning process, understanding what is being developed and APPROVING the strategic direction that is ultimately determined for the organization.
• Spending time on a regular basis to receive updates on how the plan is being executed and whether expected outputs are being achieved.

To summarize, the Board of Director's role in strategic planning is to ensure that there IS a strategic plan, that it MAKES SENSE for the organization, that it’s being EXECUTED and that it’s WORKING.

If there are Board members who say they don’t have enough involvement in the strategic planning process there is something wrong: either the process is broken or the Board isn’t doing it’s job.

Facilitated worksession for : Board of Directors.
This simple facilitated worksession will help boards evaluate their current effectiveness.

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