Which comes first, planning or development?  At first glance, the act of setting goals (a part of planning), seems to be a “do me first” type of thing.  However, when it comes to board work, a better answer depends on the overall “state of the board.”  If your board is fulfilling ALL of its basic responsibilities satisfactorily, then it may be appropriate to set aside other areas of board work in order focus additional attention on developing a new 2-5 year strategic plan.

But that was a trick answer.  Part of a board’s basic responsibility IS planning, lots of goal setting, strategy development and performance monitoring anyway.  One could argue that much of important board work consists of helping the organization to stay focused by coordinating planning or goal setting, for:   annual operations, executive performance, board recruitment, etc.  Additionally, well-organized boards can devote the majority of every full board meeting to processing strategic issues and devote committee meetings to strategic planning work on an incremental basis (instead of concentrated energy at an annual retreat) . 

The bottom line answer is:  strategic planning and board development are NOT mutually exclusive.  Strategic thinking should be a constant exercise when developing policy.  A strategic issue is, after all, something that impacts an organization’s fundamental likelihood of success.   A great board, by definition, acts strategically as frequently as possible.

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3.22 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."