Making Board Meetings Constructive

I had a board meeting last week. We had prepared a power point deck of 28 slides -- it was full with lots of information.  The problem was that the entire meeting was spent on reporting -- and we didn't get the benefit of actually discussing the real issues facing the company at this time.  As a result, the board meeting was dry and dull.

After the board call ended, I jumped on a plan to go visit with Brad Feld -- our lead investor in the Series B.  We had sushi dinner and discussed the changes going on at Judy's Book and the board meeting. It turns out that in less than 30 minutes of dinner, I had more suggestions, insights, and constructive feedback than I had received during the entire board meeting.

The net result: I'm going to still send out the 28 page power point -- but I'll assume it's been read and I'll try and structure the board meeting on issues facing management to engage the board in constructive conversation.

Comments

[Ben]

Andy

I noted this on Feld's blog. Great post.

Having been on both sides of the board meeting issue, your approach is spot on. Driving to get the document out there ahead of time is always a problem but key to making this work.

The other thing I have found is that providing some standard content for each meeting and always showing any data as compared to what they saw last time.

Telling them conversion to paid is 5% is not useful if you don't tell them goal is 6% and last month it was 4%, for example.

In order to get real valuable insight out of a board they have to be operating off of good data about what is actually happening. I have just had the experience as a board member in the last week of being feed "sound bites" instead of the real fact. While it might have made that meeting go smooth, it was about to set the company up to not address a key issue around an recent product launch.

For example, if in a October meeting, the discussion is on conversions and in November no one discussing the conversion numbers and instead focuses on page views, it is a red flag there might be an issue.

[Tom Grubisich]

Board meetings go best, I have found, when they're not overloaded with data. A 28-slide presentation, I think, invites board members to get involved in fine-tooth-combing of operations -- when they should be concentrating on policy, strategy, overall direction. It's okay to send reports, etc., to the board between meetings -- sometimes doing that is necessary homework -- but when you've got two hours or so once a month to look at the big picture, it's best not to burn up those precious moments on details. That's what manager meetings are for.

[Nicholas]

in a dream world, you'd have enough lead time to discuss the meeting with each board member after they had received the deck, but before the actual meeting.

but even if you don't get to do that with everyone, trying to have that pre-meeting, post-materials talk (even with draft materials) with a few key board members can help.

having been on both sides of this i would also say that as a board member it feels good to have the ceo tell me her goals for the upcoming meeting -- what she wants to accomplish -- or as you put it, the questions she wants help in answering.

that way board members don't come in looking for stuff to do - you're giving them an assignment, as it were, before hand (ie "we need help reviewing the marketing budget" or "we need to price new options")