Fair enough, but there is a prerequisite that gets considerably less attention:

The board has to be aligned enough to oversee the strategy effectively.

McKinsey recently made this point in the context of AI strategy, noting that, “Without alignment between the board and management, oversight becomes either superficial or paralyzing.”

While AI may be forcing the issue into sharper focus, the principle applies much more broadly. It is difficult for a board to provide meaningful strategic oversight when directors and management are not operating from a sufficiently shared understanding of the strategy in the first place!

That doesn’t mean every director needs to agree with every strategic choice. In fact, a board that agrees too quickly probably isn’t providing much value.

Agreement isn’t commitment.  Alignment is commitment.

Agreement says, “We all think this is the right answer.”  Alignment says, “We understand the decision we have made, why we made it, what assumptions it depends upon, and what would cause us to reconsider it. And once the decision is made, we are committed to supporting its success.”

That’s a much higher bar.

And commitment doesn’t mean directors stop questioning the strategy. New information emerges. Assumptions prove wrong. Circumstances change (especially competitive, regulatory, and technological conditions).  The trick is knowing the difference between constructively challenging the strategy and continually relitigating a decision simply because it wasn’t your preferred choice.

Twelve Directors Can Hear Twelve Different Strategies

Directors bring different experiences, expertise, time horizons, and perspectives on risk. Those differences are enormously valuable. They are part of the reason we have boards in the first place.

But unless the board periodically develops a shared understanding of the strategic choices being made, those different perspectives can turn into different definitions of success:  One director may believe growth is paramount. Another may believe the organization is prioritizing margin. A third may think management is deliberately sacrificing both to build a capability that won’t pay off for three years.

All three can listen to the same strategy presentation and leave believing they heard the same thing…Until the next major decision exposes that they didn’t.

Misalignment revealed is more useful than misalignment concealed.

Alignment Requires Conversation, Not Presentation

This is where meeting design matters.  A 60-slide strategy presentation can transfer enormous amounts of information without creating much alignment.

Alignment comes from conversation.

• What are we really trying to accomplish?
• What choices are we making?
• What are we explicitly not going to do?
• What assumptions have to be true for this strategy to work?
• Where are we taking risk deliberately?
• What indicators would tell us that our assumptions are wrong?

Those are not presentation questions. They are discussion questions.  And boards need enough time and structure to wrestle with them (Hint: so limit the presentation time and maximize the discussion time!)  Why?  Because big decisions deserve better conversations.

Disagreement Can Actually Produce Stronger Alignment

Here is an interesting paradox:  Boards sometimes mistake alignment for harmony. As a result, they may avoid surfacing disagreement in the interest of keeping everyone “on the same page.”

Genuine alignment often requires the opposite.

• Put the disagreements on the table.
• Have directors articulate what concerns them.
• Test assumptions.
• Ask the dissenting director to make the strongest case against the proposed direction.
• Ask: “What are you seeing from where you sit that the rest of us might be missing?”

Once you have asked good, probing questions, then decide.  The objective isn’t unanimity. Nor is it to grind away until everyone agrees.  The objective is to use the differences in the room to make a richer decision, develop shared clarity around that decision, and build the commitment necessary to support it.

I like to put it this way:  Candor before the decision. Commitment after the decision.

After the debate, every director should be able to explain something close to the same strategy, including the tradeoffs the board and management have consciously accepted.

They don’t have to agree that it was the only possible course, yet they do need to understand and support the course that was chosen.

The Boardroom Test

Here’s a simple experiment: At the conclusion of your next substantial strategy discussion, give every director an index card.  Don’t let them confer with each other.  Ask them to write down the answer four questions:

1. What are our three most important strategic priorities?
2. What is the biggest assumption underlying our strategy?
3. What is the most important thing we should watch over the next 12 months to know whether the strategy is working?
4. What would cause us to reconsider the course we’ve chosen?

Collect the cards and then read them.  Don’t expect identical words or automatically treat the differences as a problem.  Treat them as information.  You’re looking for meaningful consistency.

• Why did one director identify an assumption nobody else mentioned?
• Why are three directors watching a completely different indicator?
• Why does one director think a particular development would warrant reconsidering the strategy while everyone else would forge ahead?

The discrepancy is the beginning of the conversation, not the answer itself.

The degree of consistency, and the conversation created by the differences, may tell you more about strategic alignment than another hour of PowerPoint ever could.  Before the board can expect the organization to align with the strategy, the board needs to determine whether it [the board] is aligned around the strategy!