Have you ever taken a personality indicator like the Enneagram, StrengthsFinder, or DISC? At their best, they identify areas where we can excel. They also show us how we behave under stress, and conversely, how we behave when we’re thriving. Boards have personalities, too, and successful management teams understand and engage their board’s unique strengths and weaknesses.
Experienced management teams know that board meetings provide a powerful opportunity to create strategic alignment. But what happens when a management team feels off-balance? The temptation to stage manage becomes irresistible. But, this is operating out of weakness. Good boards provide governance and autonomy while focusing on strategy. Directors come prepared and want to be engaged in their areas of strength.
To successfully lead a company through any board meeting, management teams should:
* Be succinct and contextualize relevant materials when seeking advice. Prepare by ensuring each weighty issue has a clear “what, so what, and now what” focus.
* Focus on Matters that Require Board Attention (MRBA). Board meetings aren’t a time for operating minutia. Governance and operations are purposely different.
* Lead your board with an intentional thematic roadmap of deeper dives throughout the year (e.g., AOP, Product, M&A, GTM).
Management teams should resist temptation and avoid these games:
* Kill the clock. Do not overwhelm directors with too much content in an attempt to avoid serious discussion. This common approach to avoid board discussion won’t work (for long).
* Hide the ball. Do not confuse directors with esoteric industry jargon. Burying the bad news is a bad plan, as is making people feel like they don’t understand the specifics of your unique industry.
* Preempt-a-mole. Pre-selling everything with the intent of removing organic discussion and debate creates a lifeless interaction. You may be trying to avoid drama, but you are actually creating it. Yes, there are times and places for seeking alignment before the board meeting, but if you are preempting every tricky subject, it’s too much.
Use your board’s strengths to your corporate advantage. Create room for discussion and debate among directors and the management team, and provide space for an executive session. Consider conducting polls afterward to see, Did we really hit the mark? This kind of constructive feedback — especially after an intense meeting — is most impactful.
“But wait,” you ask, “what if my board is composed of professional investors, academics, jerks, family members, people we have outgrown, or those who haven’t actually operated a business in years?” This may be true of your board, just as it is true of any social, political or dynamic organization that needs to be led well. Your board’s personality may need a culture change, and that change may require hard decisions. But it doesn’t abdicate your responsibility to lead the culture toward that necessary change.
And if your board needs a bit of reshaping, lead them down the path of change. If you do this with honesty, integrity, and without playing the games so many do, you’ll earn the respect of your board, and build a more resilient enterprise.
