One downside of the current have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too approach to planning (meet for a half day or so to create and adopt a "strategic plan") is the lack of ownership of the board involved.  I am increasingly asked to tell people what content should go into a plan, as in "what goals should we set?"  In this approach, the board doesn't really set the direction for the institution that they are charged with guiding.  Rather, they are looking for the quickest way to get a document that will support funding requests. And of course, a hired hand like me knows sight-unseen the magic answer to the question:  “what is the least amount of effort needed to create something credible and useful”…right?

Without adequate time devoted to commissioning data for decision making, external scanning, analysis and having thoughtful consideration of goals and alternative strategies, these boards (and their cooperating executive staff) are surrendering their responsibility to the community to hired hands.  Is it really our job as consultants to set a client organization’s goals?  I am comfortable suggesting areas for goals or talking about reasonableness of goals but these aren't my goals to set.  I mean, I won't be the one trying to reach these milestones or the one on the hook if sufficient progress isn't being made in the organization's outcomes.  I appreciate the confidence and I recognize the apparent disdain of many board members for anything time-consuming (such as meeting, reading, thinking and discussing) but I cannot be paid enough to accept responsibility for relieving a board of its responsibilities.