The Strategy Myth

Author: Garth Nowland-Foreman

Have you ever been on a board and the staff (sensibly) prepared a very appropriate ‘draft’ plan, and presented it to the board to approve? The board members generously congratulated the manager on a good plan and desperately searched for something to question, contribute, edit, or add value. At last someone spotted something that needed to be changed (that was more than the typo on page 2), and to everyone’s relief the board quickly adopted the plan with that one change, so they could now move on to the next (less awkward) agenda item. 

The board members felt guilty – had they actually added anything of value?. The chair wondered if the other board members should have been brought in earlier to discuss the plan. And the manager felt frustrated that it all seemed to depend on them, and they wondered if the board actually really understood all the dilemmas and trade-offs involved in crafting a realistic plan with the resources they had available to them. In short, most people were at least a little bit disappointed, and everyone else was in denial!

“Strategy” is one of the key things we get told boards should lead on – as opposed to “operations”, which we are told should be left to the manager and staff. And, I’ll let you into a secret. It wont necessarily be improved by either reducing or increasing board member involvement. There is a bigger problem at stake; we have fallen for the Strategy Myth. There is a myth that everyone knows what a “strategy” is and how to develop a “strategic plan”, and the biggest myth of all, that it’s simple how a board should add strategic value.

“Strategy” has become used so often it has been drained of almost all its meaning. First, of course, we have strategic plans. But we also have strategic assets, strategic personnel, strategic messages, strategic communications, strategic relationships, strategic partners, strategic funders, etc, etc. It is used so ubiquitously, it almost means nothing more than “big and important”. There is a billboard just outside of Ōtautahi Christchurch, that advertises a company called Strategic Septic Tanks. Now, as someone who lived through the Christchurch earthquakes, I know how strategic a portaloo can be, and so I can easily transfer that sense of relief across to having a working septic tank, but, honestly, is that really our strategy?

The other way, the idea of “strategy” is used (not very helpfully) in popular culture, is on reality-tv shows, where it is used as an accusation against someone being sneaky, playing the game, using a cunning if not dubious tactic to gain advantage, rather than play fairly. I don’t believe this is a particularly useful guide either for our organisations and their boards.

So far too often, in frustration, our “strategy” just gets reduced to a plan for what happened last year plus 8% - whether it's our budget, clients or activities.

In working with literally hundreds of non-profits over the years, at LEAD we have been able to uncover some important practical lessons about strategy in the real world, and especially the board’s role in adding value.

Most importantly, “strategising” and “planning” are not the same thing. In fact they are almost opposites – oxymorons! The best planning is SMART – specific, measurable, assignable, realistic, and time-bound (1). It explicitly identifies and analyses all the parts that need to work together. But a SMART Strategy is just stupid. The best strategy is holistic, ambitious, and provides a broad sense of the big change we want to see in society – so we have a clear horizon to swim towards in everything we do. It worries about our values and the politics of who holds power in and around our organisation. Effective strategy hones in on what leverage we have to make the biggest difference in heading towards our horizon. 

The main problem with conflating our strategy and our plan, is that often organisations do one (call it their ‘Strategic Plan’) and think they have done both. A Strategy without a Plan will fall apart in its implementation. One study (2) showed that individuals who wrote down their goals and outlined action steps had a 76% success rate in achieving them, especially when shared weekly with a friend (indicating an advantage to the structured SMART approach). This compared to a 43% success rate for those who didn’t document their goals. Alternatively a Plan without a Strategy cannot assure you everything is aligned in the right direction to maximise impact. It will tend towards you keeping on doing just more of the same, rather than what is most important to do. The most effective organisations have both a strong guiding strategy and detailed, specific plan.

This distinction between strategising and planning also helps us solve the dilemma of how boards can actually best add value. Unless it's a very ‘hands-on’ (often all-volunteer) board, it will usually not be in the best position to be on top of all the specific detail needed for a good plan (who, will do what, when and how?). Where there are staff who are, by the nature of their day to day involvement, more on top of these details, it’s sensible to leave it to them to pull together the plan in a SMART way.

Instead, the board has an important role as Kaitiaki of the Kaupapa (guardians of the Vision and Values) to set the big-picture horizon which we should all be swimming towards. This is where the board has something substantive to contribute, some value to add to the process. And then its main role with the plan is to ensure it looks to be well-aligned with the agreed strategy. This gives them something specific and useful to focus on when reviewing a plan – rather than searching frantically to find something wrong (or the typo on page 2). (As an aside, if our board members don’t have something substantive to contribute to our strategy, something important and useful to consider regarding our Vision and Values, then we may need to look again at our recruitment criteria and processes.)

What does this all look like in the real world? At LEAD we have developed a simple 3-step process for putting this in practice. You can learn more about this and other handy tips for practical strategic direction-setting for boards in LEAD’s April’s Governance Bytes. LEAD also offers a strategy facilitation process with your board and leadership team, which can be tailor-made to your organisation and the particular context that you work in.

 Footnotes:

1. This is the original version that Doran first proposed in Management Review (Nov 1981). Today the most common criteria have been slightly adapted as Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.

2.Traugott “Achieving your goals: An evidence-based approach”, Michigan State University Extension. 26 August 2014. Retrieved 09 January 2024.