Nadia Pace
In nearly every boardroom I enter, I ask the same question: what does success look like for this organisation in three years? The silence that follows is telling.
Boards are understandably busy. Their meeting agendas are full, their papers thick and their discussions thorough, as they review KPIs, approve budgets, scrutinise compliance reports and manage risk registers.
Yet when I ask about strategy, about direction, about tomorrow, at best, I am met with vague gestures towards a document created two years ago at an off-site. At worst, there is a shared look that says: with the lightning speed of the day-to-day, we simply don’t have time for that.
This is the paradox at the heart of modern governance. Strategy’s lack of an immediate payoff means that boards either underestimate its importance or misunderstand it entirely. They confuse activity with strategy, mistaking being short-term busy for being long-term strategic, but the cost of this confusion is steep.
When leadership consistently overlooks strategy, the spotlight eventually falls on the effectiveness of the board – and recent research shows that 93% of executives want their directors replaced.
The strategy illusion
Many boards still believe that strategy requires little more than a full-day workshop outside the office, where 12 executives tick boxes on flip charts filled with aspirations and good intentions – all swiftly forgotten with the first wave of e-mails the next morning.
Real strategy is a discipline that requires dedicated time, consistent follow-up and uncomfortable questions. It demands that executives step back from the daily fires to consider where the organisation is going, not just where it is struggling today. With this demand comes an added benefit: strategy development grants executives the ability to think – an undervalued resource in an era of constant ‘doing’.
Yet across organisations – large and small, international and local – I see CEOs spending nearly 85% of their time on operational issues, in which crisis management, client proposals, employee problems and minor details have become major priorities.
When I ask executives why, they typically answer, “if we can’t handle the problems of today, how can we think about tomorrow?” To which I respond that without tomorrow’s thinking, today’s problems only multiply – margins shrink, competition intensifies and the organisation drifts.
Without strategy, it is the operational equivalent of fighting fires with fuel.
What strategic boards actually do
A truly strategic board needs a highly effective chairperson who recognises the importance of strategy.
The best chairs I have worked with are non-executive directors (NEDs). They work on the business, not in it, maintaining the distance needed to see patterns that executives, buried in daily operations, cannot. And crucially, they make space for strategy on the agenda.
Indeed, ensuring long-term strategy is a regular feature of a board’s agenda is the fundamental responsibility of its chair. If they do not create time for strategic discussion, it sinks lower and lower on the board’s priority list until it is missing from it entirely. The urgent crowds out the important, every time.
Strategic boards establish clear structures, forming strategy committees that meet quarterly – not monthly, which is too granular, nor annually, which is too distant. Quarterly provides the rhythm without overwhelming executives who are already stretched.
Unlike typical board sub-committees, these committees enable executives to step away from operational noise for the space to brainstorm, challenge assumptions, recognise blind spots and translate strategic ambitions into concrete actions with deadlines.
Between quarterly meetings, NEDs focus on ensuring momentum. While the responsibility to design, develop and implement strategy rests firmly with executive management, the NED’s role is to challenge, support and facilitate that development, even at sub-committee level.
Challenge, not criticism
Another distinction that separates effective boards from performative ones is their understanding of the difference between challenge and criticism.
Challenging is constructive, identifying potential blind spots, considering risks and asking the tough questions whose answers pave the path to success.
Criticism, by contrast, is destructive. It questions for the sake of questioning and demotivates executives who have spent months developing plans, positioning the non-executive as adversary rather than adviser.
Boards often confuse the two. While some believe their job is to rubber-stamp and nod along with management decisions, others interpret their role as to interrogate management, so they challenge everything. Neither approach works.
Strategic boards must work with, never against, executives. Their role is to facilitate the strategic process by providing expertise and perspective – acting as a catalyst for management’s vision rather than its author. However, such a partnership requires trust, and trust requires presence.
NEDs who only appear at quarterly board meetings cannot build genuine understanding. Only when they invest time in the business to speak with executives and build rapport with stakeholders can they grasp the context in which decisions are made – and realise their full potential in futureproofing the organisation.
What to do differently
Creating a strategic board is possible with definitive action.
Start by addressing the next board meeting agenda: what percentage of time is dedicated to strategic discussion versus operational oversight? Ideally, dedicated quadrants of time cover legal and compliance, leadership, processes and strategy – with each 25% fiercely protected.
Establish clear accountability, outlining who owns each strategic initiative and its deliverables, timelines and guidelines for escalation. Here, the creation of a strategy committee will help – if one does not already exist – in which a small team of non-executives dedicates time, meets quarterly and reports progress to the full board.
It also requires an intentional culture shift across company operations. When every team member understands the overarching strategy, they rephrase the questions they ask at each stage of a project’s process. Where once they only checked if a project is on track, now they also consider how it ties into the organisation’s clearly defined, bigger picture, multi-year plan. Strategy becomes embedded in every move the organisation makes, with everyone driving it together towards a shared destination.
Although that destination remains fixed, the ‘how’ must be allowed to evolve. True strategy documents must be ‘live’. Instead of rigid commitments, strategic plans should stay adaptable to both industry trends and internal changes, while keeping the organisation’s direction and objectives crystal clear.
The cost of deferring strategy
When boards fail to prioritise strategic discipline, the consequences quietly compound: margins erode, talent leaves and investment opportunities pass.
The organisation survives but doesn’t thrive. Executives lose faith in governance itself, so they begin to view directors as obstacles rather than allies – thus that extraordinary 93% dissatisfaction rate.
Strategic thinking is not complicated, but it is an operational priority that requires discipline. That discipline depends on daily choices: to protect time for thinking, to hold people accountable and to look beyond today’s crisis towards tomorrow’s opportunity.
Boards are uniquely positioned to make these choices – now all that remains is whether they will choose to do it.
Nadia Pace is an NED and C-Suite mentor.
