A boardroom should be an environment of enthusiasm, productivity, and diversity. If a board meeting is lacking in any of these departments, the board’s effectiveness is likely to be disrupted. Consequently, the meeting will not coax the best strategic board support, ideas, thoughts, and perspectives from its members.
Board members can attend many board meetings a year, and no one meeting is the same. Plenty of board meetings waste too much time reviewing the past and ultimately reshape what should have been a productive strategy meeting into a show-and-tell experience. While it is important to discuss the past, any focus on this should centre around how it affects securing a successful future for the business.
If you are pondering how to ensure your boardroom runs smoothly, Jo Haigh, Chairman and Founder of fds, has put together an informative New World Board Pack that equips the reader with a guide to board support consultancy, including agendas, formats, and rationale.
Strategic Board Support
When planning board meetings, it is essential to understand how to optimise the best use of your time by considering many factors.
To enhance the productivity of the board members, meetings are best held in the morning and off-site, with refreshments readily available. To avoid distractions, technology unrelated to the meeting should be turned off to encourage sole focus on the meeting. Additionally, breaks should be taken, ideally every 45 minutes, to prevent the concentration of board members from drifting.
The length of the board meeting generally depends on how many times the board meets a year. For quarterly meetings, the content will usually take all day to discuss thoroughly to avoid a surface-level conversation. For monthly meetings, an early start would be ideal with the aim of finishing the board meeting at midday. If more time is needed, then this is an indication that the agenda has not been planned thoroughly enough.
Agenda Board Support
A solid agenda is crucial to a successful board meeting. This provides a necessary sense of structure and cohesion to the conversation. The agenda should be issued in advance, requesting specific non-standard points for inclusion—this avoids the need for any other business, which is the killer of good governance.
Board papers should also be issued in advance, brief and punchy and marked at the top as follows:
- For Information
- For Debate and Discussion
The best board is self-assured and can confidently answer any questions about its purpose. This includes its key objectives and what it is adding effectively to the business. If board members are unable to answer these questions, clarity must be gained in this area.
Defining Roles in the Boardroom
Amongst other things, the role of the director is to promote the success of the company, protect its assets and manage risk and resources. Understanding the role of NEDs in business is of the utmost importance when embarking on your boardroom journey.
As a member of the board, you are not technically part of a team until a board decision has been made. In which case, it becomes the cabinet’s responsibility to ensure implementation. Until then, you are operating as a group of individuals who act in a way that is believed to be best for the business. Every individual should bring a fresh and innovative approach to the board meeting in order to create a multi-character playing field and embrace diversity in the most positive and proactive way possible. A successful board should encompass a variety of people.
Preparation Board Support
Before any board meeting, it is essential that each person come prepared. This is applicable in a practical sense, as board members should act with professional courtesy, read the required papers, and arrive armed with appropriate questions. Board members should also approach the meeting with a positive mental attitude. By being in the right headspace, board remembers can provide full concentration on the upcoming discussion.
New World Board Pack
The New World Board Pack offers invaluable board support and assists in structuring a practical agenda. This standing agenda has been helpfully separated into five parts. Special agenda items may be periodically submitted to the Chair for inclusion. However, consideration should be given to where these are added.
The standing agenda is as follows:
- Compliance
- Past
- Present
- Future
- Review
The New World Board Pack also includes sample board papers, which can be tailored and amended as necessary to any board.