Questions and Answers
What role should our Board of Directors play in Strategic Planning?
Our normal recommendation is that the Strategic Planning team is composed only of members who are active in the day to day operations of the business. This would preclude Board members, other than those that are within the management ranks, from participating directly as a part of the planning team. This should not imply, however, that the Board does not have a role. A Board is often instrumental in establishing certain mandates that define what is acceptable in terms of on-going business performance. If these exist, they should be communicated to the planning team in advance of the first meeting. The Board should be fully briefed on management's expectations of the planning process. The time interval between meetings also offers a good opportunity to advise Board members on progress and solicit their input. Finally, an executive summary of the plan should be prepared and presented to the Board on an annual basis.
Our review of the outside assignments takes a long time and seems to offer marginal benefit versus having team members review documents offline. Do you have any suggestions on how to improve this activity?Team members should in fact review all outside assignments well in advance of your Strategic Planning meetings and come prepared to ask questions or offer comment on the material they have reviewed. At the planning meeting itself you should use the assignment review to accomplish three goals: 1) Build consensus. Lively debate is essential if you are to avoid wrongly assuming consensus where none exists; 2) Suggest direction. Rather than simply accept the information presented at face value, team members should continually ask, "What does this information imply about our future direction?"; 3) Identify Strategic Issues. The assignment review should raise additional significant questions that will need to be resolved before Strategy can be formulated. Team members should be continually challenged to make the assignment review a very focused and mentally active exercise. This will make the time spent as productive as possible.
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