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Governance and Strategy With San Diego Botanic Garden
There’s something powerful about connecting how a board governs with where an organization is going.
One of the most impactful moves in strategic planning is integrating a Board Self-Assessment into the process. It grounds the strategy in reality—clarifying strengths, surfacing gaps, and ensuring the board is truly equipped to steward the vision ahead. Strategy doesn’t just live on paper—it lives through governance.
Grateful for the opportunity to facilitate a two-day leadership retreat with San Diego Botanic Garden, where we brought together board governance and strategic planning in a meaningful, integrated way. The conversations were thoughtful, candid, and forward-looking—exactly what strong governance requires.
And the setting? Absolutely stunning. The Garden itself is a reminder of what intentional cultivation can create over time. If you haven’t visited, it’s well worth experiencing.
San Diego Botanic Garden
This week I had the privilege of facilitating focus groups with the dedicated staff and volunteers of the beautiful San Diego Botanic Garden as part of their strategic planning process.
One of the most important—and often most impactful—parts of thoughtful strategic planning is creating space to listen. Gathering input from a wide range of internal and external stakeholders brings forward perspectives that leadership alone can’t see, surfaces both opportunities and blind spots, and builds shared ownership in the path ahead. When people feel heard, plans become stronger, more grounded, and far more likely to succeed.
I’m grateful to the San Diego Botanic Garden team for their openness, insight, and deep commitment to mission as they think intentionally about the future.