Why It Takes a Village to Build Good Strategy

See this Tom Peters riff on the advantages of using heterogeneous groups to solve problems, rather than simply assigning the task to a team of experts.  Powerful stuff!  This is not to say that we should draft a diverse group to, say, decide how to perform surgery.  That's the sort of discreet activity where technical expertise and skill counts most.  Rather, diversity and heterogeneity trump uniformity when the problems or big, hairy, messy and complex.

This is one reason why we suggest that our strategic planning clients use a group process to help generate potential directions.  Most of the long-term challenges independent and international schools face are big, hairy, messy and complex.  And a substantial number of these challenges have heretofore defied solving by experts.