I love whiteboards. No digital tool has ever been able to replace them, in my opinion. There’s something about that glossy canvas, the smell of those chisel-cut markers, and the madness from having the wrong eraser that just smudges every color except purple, for some reason. Years ago, I worked in a space that two entire walls filled with whiteboards. Four eight-by-four canvases waiting for inspiration to color it. I would fill it with architecture diagrams, ideas, expectations, and then leave them there for months to refer to.
The best of a whiteboard is having a blank canvas to start with, just waiting to be filled with months’ worth of ideas.
The worst part of a whiteboard is having a blank canvas.
If you’ve ever participated in a strategic planning session, you’ve probably experienced “the blank whiteboard problem.” Everyone gathers in the boardroom, there’s coffee, donuts and a veggie platter. Laptops are opened, and someone uncaps a marker, walks to the whiteboard, and asks the question everyone knew was coming: “So… where do we start?” It seems like such a simple question, yet it has an uncanny ability to make an experienced leadership team stare at each other for a few uncomfortable moments before someone finally offers the first idea.
Once that first idea appears on the whiteboard, the floodgates usually open. Someone suggests improving customer service. Another talks about expanding into a new market. Operations wants to become more efficient, IT believes aging systems need to be replaced, Sales wants to acquire new customers, and Finance starts discussing profitability. Before long the whiteboard is covered with circles, arrows, sticky notes, and enough ideas to keep the organization busy for years. By every outward appearance, the meeting has been productive.
The challenge is that the organization may still be no closer to defining its strategy. Ten points to management for filling the whiteboard. Minus ten points to the company for still having no idea what to do.
That isn’t because the people in the room lack experience. In fact, the opposite is usually true. Every person around the table is bringing valuable insight from their own area of responsibility, and every suggestion probably would improve the business in some way. The problem is that each idea is often evaluated independently, without first agreeing on the direction the organization is trying to move. When there is no common destination, every good idea sounds like the next priority, and conversations that should have been about strategy gradually become conversations about projects.
Worse, the buffet of ideas presented often get captured as “the strategy” even though it’s no more strategic than the options at your local lunch buffet restaurant. Lots of choices, no real focus. Great for lunch, bad for business.
A Better Start
A root problem, I believe, is having the wrong starting point. Having a team come with ideas or answers to the question, “What should we do?” is setting people on the wrong path. It may feel practical, and it may get people talking, even filling the whiteboard quickly. Unfortunately, it also skips over the one discussion that gives every other conversation meaning. This is when I return to three questions that help define a strategy:
- Where are we trying to go?
- What’s stopping us from getting there?
- What do we need to overcome that?
I like these questions because they force clarity before they encourage action. The first asks the leadership team to agree on the destination rather than the journey. The second narrows the discussion by avoiding too many derailing ideas, and focuses on identifying the obstacle that is actually preventing progress. It’s interesting to see how many frustrations or pain points are kept quiet when someone realizes those pains are not preventing the business from moving, just themselves. The third question shifts the conversation toward action, but only after everyone understands what problem they’re actually trying to solve. By the time those questions have been answered, the strategy has often begun revealing itself naturally because the discussion is no longer about every opportunity the organization could pursue. It’s about the direction the organization has deliberately chosen.
This is where we want to be. This is the only thing stopping us. This is how we’re overcoming that. Now nothing stands in our way.
In reality, more things will, but repeating the last two questions eventually solves the pain points. Then, and only then, is it good to begin talking about projects, technology, organizational structure, process improvements, budgets, or timelines. Those conversations are important, but they belong later in the process because they exist to support the strategy, not define it. When organizations reverse that order, they often end up with a collection of worthwhile initiatives that never quite fit together. When they get the order right, priorities become easier to establish, projects begin supporting one another, and difficult decisions feel considerably less arbitrary because everyone understands where the organization is trying to go.
The next time you find yourself staring at a blank whiteboard, don’t judge the quality of the session by how quickly it fills with ideas. A strategy isn’t measured by the number of suggestions written on the board, but by whether the people in the room share the same understanding of the destination before the marker ever touches it.