<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss version="2.0"
xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/"
xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/"
xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"
xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/"
xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/"
>
<channel>
<title>Strategic Planning – Michel Fortin</title>
<atom:link href="https://michelfortin.com/tag/strategic-planning/feed/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
<link>https://michelfortin.com</link>
<description>Diagnose. Architect. Scale.</description>
<lastBuildDate>Wed, 06 May 2026 22:26:00 +0000</lastBuildDate>
<language>en-US</language>
<sy:updatePeriod>
hourly </sy:updatePeriod>
<sy:updateFrequency>
1 </sy:updateFrequency>
<generator>https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0</generator>
<image>
<url>https://michelfortin.com/wp-content/uploads/monochrome-light-apple-touch-icon-180x180-1-150x150.png</url>
<title>Strategic Planning – Michel Fortin</title>
<link>https://michelfortin.com</link>
<width>32</width>
<height>32</height>
</image>
<item>
<title>What AI Means for Your Next Board Meeting</title>
<link>https://michelfortin.com/ai-board-meeting/</link>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Michel Fortin]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Fri, 13 Mar 2026 15:26:02 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[AI Innovation]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Expert Leadership]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Strategic Planning]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[AI Strategy]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Board Governance]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Competitive Positioning]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Market Differentiation]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://michelfortincom.bigscoots-staging.com/?p=5740</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Most board-level AI conversations focus on cost savings and efficiency. The better conversation is about positioning, risk, and competitive advantage. Here's how to frame it.]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[
<div class="wp-block-group article-summary"><div class="wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained">
<h2 id="article-summary" class="wp-block-heading">Article Summary</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Most boards treat AI as an operational efficiency question when it’s actually a strategic positioning variable. AI compresses differences between competitors on execution while amplifying differences on expertise, trust, and brand authority. This post frames three questions boards should be asking, argues for connecting AI investment to positioning strategy, and outlines a practical agenda for shifting from an operational AI conversation to a strategic one.</p>
</div></div>
<div role="navigation" aria-label="Table of Contents" class="simpletoc wp-block-simpletoc-toc"><h2 class="simpletoc-title">Table of Contents</h2>
<ul class="simpletoc-list">
<li><a href="#article-summary">Article Summary</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#the-operational-conversation-vs-the-strategic-conversation">The Operational Conversation vs. The Strategic Conversation</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#how-ai-changes-competitive-dynamics">How AI Changes Competitive Dynamics</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#three-questions-every-board-should-be-asking">Three Questions Every Board Should Be Asking</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#the-positioning-dimension-boards-miss">The Positioning Dimension Boards Miss</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#what-id-put-on-the-board-agenda">What I’d Put on the Board Agenda</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#the-boardroom-shift-thats-coming">The Boardroom Shift That’s Coming</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#frequently-asked-questions">Frequently Asked Questions</a>
</li></ul></div>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">AI shows up in almost every board meeting now. But the way most boards discuss it reveals a fundamental gap between how they think about the technology and how it’s actually reshaping their competitive landscape.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The typical board conversation about AI goes something like this: “Where are we using AI? How much are we saving? What’s our AI strategy?” These are reasonable questions. They’re also the wrong starting point for a strategic discussion.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">After sitting in dozens of these conversations across industries, the pattern I’ve noticed is that boards tend to treat AI as an operational tool when it’s actually a strategic variable. That distinction matters enormously for the decisions they make next.</p>
<h2 id="the-operational-conversation-vs-the-strategic-conversation" class="wp-block-heading">The Operational Conversation vs. The Strategic Conversation</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The operational AI conversation focuses on efficiency. Which processes can we automate? How many FTEs can we redeploy? What’s the ROI on our AI tooling investment? These questions have clear answers and measurable outcomes. Boards are comfortable with them.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The strategic AI conversation is harder. It asks how AI changes the competitive dynamics of your market. Whether your current positioning becomes stronger or weaker as AI adoption accelerates. How buyer expectations shift when they assume every company uses the same tools. And what happens to your differentiation when the capabilities AI provides become table stakes.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Most boards are having the first conversation. Very few are having the second. And the second one is where the consequential decisions live.</p>
<h2 id="how-ai-changes-competitive-dynamics" class="wp-block-heading">How AI Changes Competitive Dynamics</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The most important thing I’ve observed about AI adoption is that it compresses differences between competitors on operational dimensions while amplifying differences on strategic ones.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">When every company in your market can produce content at scale, automate outreach, analyze data faster, and personalize at the individual level, those capabilities stop being differentiators. They become baseline expectations. The companies that built competitive advantages on operational efficiency or execution speed find those advantages eroding.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">What doesn’t compress is <a href="https://michelfortin.com/ideal-framework/" data-type="link" data-id="https://michelfortin.com/ideal-framework/">strategic positioning</a>. How well you understand your specific market. The depth of expertise you bring. The trust relationships you’ve built. The <a href="/authority-building/">authority and credibility</a> your brand carries. These become more valuable as AI levels the operational playing field, because they’re the things AI can’t replicate.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">This is the conversation boards need to be having. Not “how do we use AI to get more efficient?” but “how do we use AI to become more strategically differentiated?”</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">I’ve written about this dynamic through the lens of <a href="/high-tech-high-touch/">humanization and high-tech, high-touch principles</a>. At the board level, the practical implication is that your AI investment strategy should be evaluated against your positioning strategy, not just your operational budget.</p>
<h2 id="three-questions-every-board-should-be-asking" class="wp-block-heading">Three Questions Every Board Should Be Asking</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Based on the pattern I’ve seen across engagements, three questions consistently separate boards that are making good AI decisions from those that aren’t.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>“How does AI affect our positioning relative to competitors?”</strong> This is the question most boards skip entirely. They discuss internal AI use without considering how competitors’ AI adoption changes the market landscape. If your primary differentiation has been speed or volume, and AI now gives that same advantage to every competitor, you need a new source of differentiation. A <a href="/competitive-intelligence/">competitive intelligence</a> process that tracks how AI is changing your specific market is no longer optional.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>“What becomes more valuable as AI becomes ubiquitous?”</strong> The answer is almost always the same: demonstrated expertise, genuine relationships, original thinking, and trusted brands. These are the things that AI-assisted companies still need humans to provide. Boards that understand this invest in building those assets alongside their AI capabilities. <a href="/organic-visibility/">Organic visibility</a> built on real expertise compounds in a way that AI-generated content volume never will.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>“Where are we creating AI-dependent risk?”</strong> This is the governance question that most boards haven’t formalized yet. If your content strategy depends entirely on AI generation, what happens when search engines change how they evaluate AI content? If your sales process relies on AI-automated outreach, what happens when buyers start filtering it out? Every AI dependency creates a corresponding risk, and boards should be tracking those risks with the same rigor they apply to financial or regulatory exposure.</p>
<h2 id="the-positioning-dimension-boards-miss" class="wp-block-heading">The Positioning Dimension Boards Miss</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">When I work with companies on <a href="/power-positioning-pillars/">positioning strategy</a>, AI has become a variable I account for in every engagement. The reason is that AI adoption changes the positioning landscape even for companies that don’t use it extensively.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Here’s a practical example. If you’re a consulting firm and every competitor is now using AI to deliver faster analysis, your positioning can’t lead with speed anymore. But if you’ve invested in deep industry expertise, proprietary frameworks, and trusted client relationships, those become your positioning anchors in a way they weren’t before. AI didn’t change what you do. It changed what the market values about what you do.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The board’s role here is to ensure that AI strategy and positioning strategy are connected. I’ve seen too many companies where the AI initiative lives in operations or IT, completely disconnected from the strategic planning process. The result is efficient execution of a strategy that’s becoming less differentiated by the quarter.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><a href="/revenue-architecture/">Revenue architecture</a> in an AI-enabled company needs to account for how automation affects every stage of the revenue system, from how prospects discover you to how clients experience your delivery. Boards that treat this as a marketing question or an IT question are missing the systemic nature of the shift.</p>
<h2 id="what-id-put-on-the-board-agenda" class="wp-block-heading">What I’d Put on the Board Agenda</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">If I were advising a board on how to structure their next AI conversation, I’d suggest three agenda items.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>First, a positioning audit. </strong>Have someone, ideally a <a href="/fractional-cso/">strategic leader with cross-functional visibility</a>, present how AI adoption is changing your competitive landscape. Not what AI tools you’re using internally, but how the market is shifting around you.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>Second, an AI risk register. </strong>Document every place where your business has become dependent on AI capabilities and identify the corresponding risks. This belongs alongside your financial and regulatory risk tracking.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>Third, a differentiation roadmap.</strong> Based on the positioning audit, identify the 2-3 strategic assets that become more valuable as AI becomes ubiquitous, and make sure your investment priorities reflect those assets. This might mean investing more in <a href="/content-strategy/">content that demonstrates genuine expertise</a> and less in automated content volume. It might mean deepening your <a href="/diagnostic-advantage/">diagnostic capabilities</a> rather than automating your delivery process. The specifics vary, but the principle is consistent.</p>
<h2 id="the-boardroom-shift-thats-coming" class="wp-block-heading">The Boardroom Shift That’s Coming</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The boards I work with that are ahead of this curve share a common trait. They’ve stopped treating AI as a technology discussion and started treating it as a strategy discussion. They ask about positioning before they ask about implementation. They think about differentiation before they think about efficiency.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">This shift is still early. Most boards are still in the operational conversation. But the ones that move to the strategic conversation first will make better decisions about where to invest, what to protect, and how to position their companies for a market where AI is the baseline, not the advantage.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The companies that win in an AI-saturated market won’t be the ones that adopted AI first or spent the most on it. They’ll be the ones that understood what AI can’t replace, and built their strategy around it.</p>
<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>
<h2 id="frequently-asked-questions" class="wp-block-heading">Frequently Asked Questions</h2>
<div class="wp-block-wpseopress-faq-block-v2 is-layout-flow wp-block-wpseopress-faq-block-v2-is-layout-flow">
<details id="why-do-most-board-level-ai-conversations-miss-the-point" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>Why do most board-level AI conversations miss the point?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Most boards frame AI as an operational question: which processes can we automate, how many FTEs can we redeploy, what’s the ROI on tooling? Those questions have clear answers, which is exactly why boards default to them. The problem is that they’re the wrong starting point. AI is reshaping competitive dynamics, not just internal efficiency. The consequential decisions live in the strategic conversation about positioning and differentiation, and most boards haven’t started having it yet.</p>
</details>
<details id="how-does-ai-actually-change-the-competitive-landscape" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>How does AI actually change the competitive landscape?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">AI compresses differences between competitors on operational dimensions while amplifying differences on strategic ones. When every company in your market can produce content at scale, automate outreach, and personalize at the individual level, those capabilities become baseline expectations rather than advantages. What doesn’t compress is positioning: the depth of your expertise, the trust relationships you’ve built, and the authority your brand carries. As AI levels the operational playing field, those strategic assets become more valuable, not less.</p>
</details>
<details id="what-three-questions-should-every-board-be-asking-about-ai" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>What three questions should every board be asking about AI?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The first is how AI affects your positioning relative to competitors, specifically whether your primary source of differentiation is now replicable by every player in your market. The second is what becomes more valuable as AI becomes ubiquitous, which almost always points toward demonstrated expertise, genuine relationships, and trusted brands. The third is where your business has created AI-dependent risk, such as a content strategy that collapses if search engines change how they evaluate AI-generated content or a sales process that stops working when buyers start filtering automated outreach.</p>
</details>
<details id="what-is-an-ai-risk-register-and-why-should-boards-maintain-one" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>What is an AI risk register, and why should boards maintain one?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">An AI risk register is a formal document tracking every place your business has become dependent on AI capabilities, along with the corresponding risks if those capabilities change, fail, or lose effectiveness. Most companies track financial and regulatory risk with rigor but haven’t applied the same discipline to AI dependencies. Boards that treat AI risk as a governance question rather than a technology question are far better positioned to respond when the landscape shifts.</p>
</details>
<details id="how-should-boards-connect-ai-strategy-to-positioning-strategy" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>How should boards connect AI strategy to positioning strategy?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The most common failure pattern is an AI initiative that lives entirely in operations or IT, disconnected from strategic planning. The result is efficient execution of a strategy that becomes less differentiated every quarter. Boards need to ensure someone with cross-functional strategic visibility is auditing how AI adoption is changing the competitive landscape, not just tracking internal efficiency metrics. The goal is a differentiation roadmap that identifies which strategic assets grow more valuable as AI becomes ubiquitous, and makes sure investment priorities reflect those assets.</p>
</details>
<script type="application/ld+json">{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","url":"https://michelfortin.com/ai-board-meeting/","@id":"https://michelfortin.com/ai-board-meeting/","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","url":"https://michelfortin.com/ai-board-meeting/#why-do-most-board-level-ai-conversations-miss-the-point","name":"Why do most board-level AI conversations miss the point?","answerCount":1,"acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"<p>Most boards frame AI as an operational question: which processes can we automate, how many FTEs can we redeploy, what's the ROI on tooling? Those questions have clear answers, which is exactly why boards default to them. The problem is that they're the wrong starting point. AI is reshaping competitive dynamics, not just internal efficiency. The consequential decisions live in the strategic conversation about positioning and differentiation, and most boards haven't started having it yet.</p>"}},{"@type":"Question","url":"https://michelfortin.com/ai-board-meeting/#how-does-ai-actually-change-the-competitive-landscape","name":"How does AI actually change the competitive landscape?","answerCount":1,"acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"<p>AI compresses differences between competitors on operational dimensions while amplifying differences on strategic ones. When every company in your market can produce content at scale, automate outreach, and personalize at the individual level, those capabilities become baseline expectations rather than advantages. What doesn't compress is positioning: the depth of your expertise, the trust relationships you've built, and the authority your brand carries. As AI levels the operational playing field, those strategic assets become more valuable, not less.</p>"}},{"@type":"Question","url":"https://michelfortin.com/ai-board-meeting/#what-three-questions-should-every-board-be-asking-about-ai","name":"What three questions should every board be asking about AI?","answerCount":1,"acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"<p>The first is how AI affects your positioning relative to competitors, specifically whether your primary source of differentiation is now replicable by every player in your market. The second is what becomes more valuable as AI becomes ubiquitous, which almost always points toward demonstrated expertise, genuine relationships, and trusted brands. The third is where your business has created AI-dependent risk, such as a content strategy that collapses if search engines change how they evaluate AI-generated content or a sales process that stops working when buyers start filtering automated outreach.</p>"}},{"@type":"Question","url":"https://michelfortin.com/ai-board-meeting/#what-is-an-ai-risk-register-and-why-should-boards-maintain-one","name":"What is an AI risk register, and why should boards maintain one?","answerCount":1,"acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"<p>An AI risk register is a formal document tracking every place your business has become dependent on AI capabilities, along with the corresponding risks if those capabilities change, fail, or lose effectiveness. Most companies track financial and regulatory risk with rigor but haven't applied the same discipline to AI dependencies. Boards that treat AI risk as a governance question rather than a technology question are far better positioned to respond when the landscape shifts.</p>"}},{"@type":"Question","url":"https://michelfortin.com/ai-board-meeting/#how-should-boards-connect-ai-strategy-to-positioning-strategy","name":"How should boards connect AI strategy to positioning strategy?","answerCount":1,"acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"<p>The most common failure pattern is an AI initiative that lives entirely in operations or IT, disconnected from strategic planning. The result is efficient execution of a strategy that becomes less differentiated every quarter. Boards need to ensure someone with cross-functional strategic visibility is auditing how AI adoption is changing the competitive landscape, not just tracking internal efficiency metrics. The goal is a differentiation roadmap that identifies which strategic assets grow more valuable as AI becomes ubiquitous, and makes sure investment priorities reflect those assets.</p>"}}]}</script></div>
]]></content:encoded>
</item>
<item>
<title>What Boards Get Wrong About Growth Strategy</title>
<link>https://michelfortin.com/boards-growth-strategy/</link>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Michel Fortin]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:23:24 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Expert Leadership]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Growth Strategies]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Strategic Planning]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Board Strategy]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Fractional Leadership]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Growth Architecture]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Revenue Growth]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://michelfortincom.bigscoots-staging.com/?p=5691</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Most boards treat growth as a marketing problem or a sales problem. It's neither. Here's what I've seen go wrong at the board level and how the best companies fix it.]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[
<div class="wp-block-group article-summary"><div class="wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained">
<h2 id="article-summary" class="wp-block-heading">Article Summary</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Boards consistently misframe growth as a departmental problem rather than a system design problem. This post examines four recurring errors: treating growth as a marketing or sales function, tracking trailing metrics instead of systemic signals, reaching for new hires before fixing underlying architecture, and delegating positioning decisions that belong at the executive level. The better board conversation starts with a diagnostic, not a dashboard.</p>
</div></div>
<div role="navigation" aria-label="Table of Contents" class="simpletoc wp-block-simpletoc-toc"><h2 class="simpletoc-title">Table of Contents</h2>
<ul class="simpletoc-list">
<li><a href="#article-summary">Article Summary</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#growth-is-not-a-department">Growth Is Not a Department</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#the-metrics-trap">The Metrics Trap</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#the-hirefirst-instinct">The Hire-First Instinct</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#positioning-is-a-boardlevel-decision">Positioning Is a Board-Level Decision</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#the-ai-question-boards-should-be-asking">The AI Question Boards Should Be Asking</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#what-better-board-conversations-look-like">What Better Board Conversations Look Like</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#the-conversation-id-want-to-have">The Conversation I’d Want to Have</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#frequently-asked-questions">Frequently Asked Questions</a>
</li></ul></div>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Most board conversations about growth follow a predictable script. Revenue is flat or slowing. Someone asks what marketing is doing. Someone else asks about the sales pipeline. The CMO presents a slide deck full of campaign metrics. The CRO presents a pipeline forecast. Everyone nods, action items get assigned, and the same conversation happens again next quarter.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">I’ve sat in enough of these meetings to know the problem isn’t the people in the room. It’s the frame. Boards tend to treat growth as a departmental output rather than a system design problem. And that framing error cascades into everything else.</p>
<h2 id="growth-is-not-a-department" class="wp-block-heading">Growth Is Not a Department</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The most common mistake I see at the board level is treating growth as something that belongs to marketing, or to sales, or to a “growth team” that sits somewhere between the two. This creates a structural incentive for each function to optimize its own metrics while the overall system underperforms.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">I wrote about this dynamic in detail when I described <a href="/revenue-architecture/">revenue architecture</a> as a discipline. The companies that plateau despite increasing spend and activity almost always have the same root cause: disconnected revenue functions that each look healthy in isolation but fail to compound when viewed as a whole.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">A board that asks “what is marketing doing about growth?” is asking the wrong question. The right question is “how well are our revenue functions connected, and where are the leaks?”</p>
<h2 id="the-metrics-trap" class="wp-block-heading">The Metrics Trap</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Boards love dashboards. That’s understandable. You need data to govern effectively. But the metrics most boards review are trailing indicators wrapped in vanity packaging.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Pipeline value, MQL volume, conversion rates, CAC payback periods. These all matter. But they describe what already happened, not what’s about to happen. And they rarely surface the systemic issues that actually constrain growth.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The boards I’ve worked with that make better growth decisions tend to track a different set of signals. They want to know how positioned the company is within its market, not just how much activity it’s generating. They measure <a href="/authority-building/">authority and visibility</a> alongside pipeline, because they understand that a company that’s invisible to its market has to buy every conversation it gets.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">When I step into a <a href="/fractional-cso/">fractional CSO</a> engagement, one of the first things I do is audit what the board is actually looking at. More often than not, the dashboard needs redesigning before the strategy does.</p>
<h2 id="the-hirefirst-instinct" class="wp-block-heading">The Hire-First Instinct</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Here’s another pattern I see repeatedly. Growth stalls, so the board pushes for a new hire. A VP of Growth. A new CMO. A demand gen leader. The assumption is that the right person will fix the problem.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Sometimes that’s true. But more often, the hire fails because the underlying architecture wasn’t ready for them. They walk into misaligned teams, disconnected systems, and unclear positioning, then spend their first six months trying to untangle the mess instead of building on it.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">This is one of the reasons <a href="/fractional-cmo/">fractional leadership</a> has gained so much traction. A fractional executive can come in, assess the architecture, fix the foundation, and either stay to execute or hand off to a permanent hire who now has something solid to build on. It’s a faster path to results and a lower-risk path for the board.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The question isn’t “who should we hire?” It’s “what does the growth architecture need before a new hire can succeed?”</p>
<h2 id="positioning-is-a-boardlevel-decision" class="wp-block-heading">Positioning Is a Board-Level Decision</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Most boards delegate positioning entirely to marketing. That’s a mistake.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><a href="/power-positioning-pillars/">Positioning</a> determines how the market perceives your company relative to alternatives. It affects pricing power, win rates, talent acquisition, partnership leverage, and investor confidence. Those are board-level outcomes that deserve board-level attention.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">When I work with companies on positioning, the conversation always starts at the leadership level, not the marketing level. The reason is simple: positioning decisions require trade-offs that marketing can’t make alone. Choosing to focus on a specific segment means deprioritizing others. Leading with a particular value proposition means subordinating competing messages. These are strategic choices that need executive alignment.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The boards that treat positioning as “a marketing thing” tend to end up with a company that means different things to different departments. Sales positions one way in conversations. Marketing positions another way in content. Product builds toward a third interpretation. The market receives all three signals and forms its own conclusion, which is usually confusion.</p>
<h2 id="the-ai-question-boards-should-be-asking" class="wp-block-heading">The AI Question Boards Should Be Asking</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Every board is talking about AI right now. Most of those conversations focus on efficiency: how can we automate more, reduce headcount, speed up production?</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Those are valid operational questions. But they miss the strategic one.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The strategic question is: <a href="/high-tech-high-touch/">how does AI change our positioning</a>, and how do we use it to become more valuable to our market rather than just faster?</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">I’ve written about the <a href="/high-tech-high-touch/">high-tech, high-touch dynamic</a> in detail. The short version is that every wave of automation triggers a counter-demand for human expertise and genuine connection. The companies that use AI to free up capacity for deeper client relationships, more original thinking, and more personalized engagement will outperform those that simply use it to cut costs.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">For boards, the implication is clear. AI strategy isn’t an IT conversation. It’s a positioning conversation. And it belongs in the same strategic planning framework as market selection, competitive differentiation, and growth architecture.</p>
<h2 id="what-better-board-conversations-look-like" class="wp-block-heading">What Better Board Conversations Look Like</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The boards I’ve seen make the strongest growth decisions share a few common habits.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">They discuss the company’s <a href="/competitive-intelligence/">competitive position</a> before they discuss campaign performance. They understand that <a href="/organic-visibility/">organic visibility</a> is a strategic asset, not a marketing tactic. They ask about the health of the revenue system, not just the output of individual departments. And they hold leadership accountable for architectural coherence, not just functional metrics.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">They also resist the urge to solve growth problems with more activity. More campaigns, more hires, more tools, more channels. The instinct is natural, but it usually compounds the problem. If the architecture is misaligned, more volume just creates more waste at a higher cost.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The better question is always: “What’s the constraint?” Sometimes it’s positioning. Sometimes it’s the handoff between marketing and sales. Sometimes it’s a <a href="/content-strategy/">content strategy</a> that generates traffic but not authority. The answer changes, but the discipline of asking the right question doesn’t.</p>
<h2 id="the-conversation-id-want-to-have" class="wp-block-heading">The Conversation I’d Want to Have</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">If I were presenting to your board, I wouldn’t start with a campaign plan. I’d start with a diagnostic.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">I’d want to understand how your revenue functions connect, where your market positions you relative to competitors, and whether your growth constraints are architectural or executional. That <a href="/diagnostic-advantage/">diagnostic process</a> is what separates strategic growth work from the quarterly marketing review that everyone endures but nobody finds useful.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Growth isn’t broken because the people are wrong. It’s usually broken because the system was never designed as a system. Boards that recognize this, and govern accordingly, are the ones I’ve seen build sustainable, compounding growth.</p>
<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>
<h2 id="frequently-asked-questions" class="wp-block-heading">Frequently Asked Questions</h2>
<div class="wp-block-wpseopress-faq-block-v2 is-layout-flow wp-block-wpseopress-faq-block-v2-is-layout-flow">
<details id="why-is-treating-growth-as-a-marketing-or-sales-problem-a-mistake" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>Why is treating growth as a marketing or sales problem a mistake?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">It creates a structural incentive for each function to optimize its own metrics while the overall revenue system underperforms. Marketing generates leads, sales closes deals, and both can look healthy in isolation while the company plateaus. The better board question isn’t “what is marketing doing about growth?” — it’s “how well are our revenue functions connected, and where are the leaks?”</p>
</details>
<details id="whats-wrong-with-the-metrics-most-boards-track" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>What’s wrong with the metrics most boards track?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Most board dashboards are built on trailing indicators — pipeline value, MQL volume, CAC payback — that describe what already happened rather than what’s constraining growth next quarter. The boards that make better decisions also track positioning strength and organic authority alongside pipeline, because a company that’s invisible to its market has to buy every conversation it gets. The dashboard often needs redesigning before the strategy does.</p>
</details>
<details id="why-does-hiring-a-new-executive-often-fail-to-fix-a-growth-problem" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>Why does hiring a new executive often fail to fix a growth problem?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Because the hire walks into misaligned teams, disconnected systems, and unclear positioning, then spends their first six months untangling the mess instead of building on it. The underlying architecture wasn’t ready for them. The better question before any hiring decision is: what does the growth architecture need in place before a new hire can actually succeed?</p>
</details>
<details id="why-is-positioning-a-board-level-decision-rather-than-a-marketing-decision" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>Why is positioning a board-level decision rather than a marketing decision?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Because positioning determines pricing power, win rates, talent acquisition, partnership leverage, and investor confidence — all board-level outcomes. And the trade-offs positioning requires, like choosing which segments to prioritize and which messages to subordinate, need executive alignment to hold. When boards delegate positioning entirely to marketing, sales, marketing, and product all end up positioning the company differently. The market receives three conflicting signals and reaches its own conclusion, which is usually confusion.</p>
</details>
<details id="what-is-the-ai-question-boards-should-actually-be-asking" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>What is the AI question boards should actually be asking?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Not “how do we automate more?” but “how does AI change our positioning, and how do we use it to become more valuable to our market rather than just faster?” Every wave of automation creates a counter-demand for human expertise and genuine connection. The companies that use AI to free up capacity for deeper relationships and more original thinking will outperform those that simply use it to cut costs. For boards, AI strategy is a positioning conversation — not an IT conversation.</p>
</details>
<script type="application/ld+json">{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","url":"https://michelfortin.com/boards-growth-strategy/","@id":"https://michelfortin.com/boards-growth-strategy/","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","url":"https://michelfortin.com/boards-growth-strategy/#why-is-treating-growth-as-a-marketing-or-sales-problem-a-mistake","name":"Why is treating growth as a marketing or sales problem a mistake?","answerCount":1,"acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"<p>It creates a structural incentive for each function to optimize its own metrics while the overall revenue system underperforms. Marketing generates leads, sales closes deals, and both can look healthy in isolation while the company plateaus. The better board question isn't \"what is marketing doing about growth?\" — it's \"how well are our revenue functions connected, and where are the leaks?\"</p>"}},{"@type":"Question","url":"https://michelfortin.com/boards-growth-strategy/#whats-wrong-with-the-metrics-most-boards-track","name":"What's wrong with the metrics most boards track?","answerCount":1,"acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"<p>Most board dashboards are built on trailing indicators — pipeline value, MQL volume, CAC payback — that describe what already happened rather than what's constraining growth next quarter. The boards that make better decisions also track positioning strength and organic authority alongside pipeline, because a company that's invisible to its market has to buy every conversation it gets. The dashboard often needs redesigning before the strategy does.</p>"}},{"@type":"Question","url":"https://michelfortin.com/boards-growth-strategy/#why-does-hiring-a-new-executive-often-fail-to-fix-a-growth-problem","name":"Why does hiring a new executive often fail to fix a growth problem?","answerCount":1,"acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"<p>Because the hire walks into misaligned teams, disconnected systems, and unclear positioning, then spends their first six months untangling the mess instead of building on it. The underlying architecture wasn't ready for them. The better question before any hiring decision is: what does the growth architecture need in place before a new hire can actually succeed?</p>"}},{"@type":"Question","url":"https://michelfortin.com/boards-growth-strategy/#why-is-positioning-a-board-level-decision-rather-than-a-marketing-decision","name":"Why is positioning a board-level decision rather than a marketing decision?","answerCount":1,"acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"<p>Because positioning determines pricing power, win rates, talent acquisition, partnership leverage, and investor confidence — all board-level outcomes. And the trade-offs positioning requires, like choosing which segments to prioritize and which messages to subordinate, need executive alignment to hold. When boards delegate positioning entirely to marketing, sales, marketing, and product all end up positioning the company differently. The market receives three conflicting signals and reaches its own conclusion, which is usually confusion.</p>"}},{"@type":"Question","url":"https://michelfortin.com/boards-growth-strategy/#what-is-the-ai-question-boards-should-actually-be-asking","name":"What is the AI question boards should actually be asking?","answerCount":1,"acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"<p>Not \"how do we automate more?\" but \"how does AI change our positioning, and how do we use it to become more valuable to our market rather than just faster?\" Every wave of automation creates a counter-demand for human expertise and genuine connection. The companies that use AI to free up capacity for deeper relationships and more original thinking will outperform those that simply use it to cut costs. For boards, AI strategy is a positioning conversation — not an IT conversation.</p>"}}]}</script></div>
]]></content:encoded>
</item>
</channel>
</rss>