Board directors often fret about how they can participate in strategic planning without stepping over or micromanaging their authority. The long-running planning processes and three to five-year time frames have been replaced by strategic frameworks that set out the organization’s priorities. Business plans that integrate goals for programmatic and operational aspects with financial forecasts, and robust annual plans with clearly defined time frames and metrics are becoming more frequent.

But a board focused on its oversight responsibilities needs to be involved in defining strategies, comprehending the strategic initiatives that are taking place, knowing that there will always be situations that require substantial attention from the Board and creating an effective monitoring plan for the strategy. This article discusses how to accomplish all this in a way that allows the Board to be part of strategic discussions and participate in them, while avoiding the pitfalls that can cause problems with strategic management for the entire business.

One of the most popular articles on our site is our post on how to facilitate an event for strategic planning for your board. This article addresses a question that is often raised in this area and that is how the board should define the line between managing the company’s strategy and directing its own. This is a critical discussion as if the Board believes that its role is to rubber-stamp every plan that are presented to it, it’s at risk of becoming a ‘rubber stamp’ board. It is crucial to avoid this by having a clear conversation between the board members and management about the strategic issues that they deem most important. This will enable the board to assist in framing these issues and also for management to be open to suggestions from the board that hones and refine the problem framing.

boardmeetingsolution.org/strategic-planning-and-the-role-of-the-board-management