Maximising Boardroom Impact: The Art of Timely Interventions and Diverse Perspectives

As one experienced boardroom player explained, “We have eight meetings a year. You probably get the opportunity for one, or, if you’re really lucky, perhaps two questions per board meeting. That’s around 10 questions annually, so you need to make sure you think about what constitutes a material intervention.”?

Are You Ready To Serve on a Board? - Matt Dallison

In the article, Mike Clasper of Coats and formerly Which? Limited, notes that the difficult thing about being a non-executive director is not asking a [first] question probing an underperformance issue or challenging the strategy, but knowing when to ask the same question again.

While only having eight meetings a year – and an opportunity to only ask one or two questions in each – sounds like a shockingly inefficient way of getting the best value from an experienced non-executive director, in an entrepreneurial, privately-held or family business, there are likely to be less than the legally required minimum of four formal meetings per year and they probably don’t have any non-exec directors either.?

That is not many meetings, or hours, to discuss the myriad of things that need to be thought about, discussed and strategized to the point where good decisions can be made. The lack of an independent, external perspective from non-exec directors makes the likelihood even higher that decisions are not thought through properly and succeed more by luck than judgement. Having a smaller board (of five to seven members) also provides more and better opportunities to get best value from non-executives.?

Momentum is key?

It is our experience at Sirdar that a short meeting (four to five hours at most), at least every other month, builds much better momentum in the business and provides more opportunities to course-correct during the year. Following the King Report on Corporate Governance guidelines and adding at least one, and preferably two, of the right independent non-executive directors to a board can be a game-changer. It is also essential to build a focussed strategy session and an AGM (Annual General Meeting of Shareholders) into the annual board meeting calendar i.e. at least eight meetings per annum, and ideally a monthly interaction if at all possible.?

Courage is a pre-requisite?

As non-executive directors, in particular, we have a very important responsibility to interrogate what is being presented and said in a board meeting and make sure that we are applying our fiduciary duties of Care, Skill and Diligence. A key part of this is to ask the difficult questions and confront the unspoken ‘elephant in the room’. If there is one question that is not being asked, then it is up to the non-executive directors to have the courage and experience to ask it.?

Diversity supports good decision-making?

More and more in the press, and business and academic articles, we are seeing a call to action to bring far more diversity into decision-making processes in politics and business. In the boards that we as Sirdar support companies to build, there is a strong focus on diversity of thought and energy in addition to skills, gender, age, life experience, culture etc.?

A board meeting can be a high-stakes, high-stress environment, so understanding the direction in which each individual is likely to move and think is critical. We use a personality ‘preference tool’ called Contribution Compass to better understand what questions each person around the table is likely to ask and needs answered (What? Who? When/where? How?) because if one is missed, then the decision-making process is likely to be incomplete and therefore more likely to be difficult to implement, or fail completely.?

With the rate of change in technological opportunities and threats, boards need to be much more deliberate about bringing different skills into the room. New technologies and use cases of older technologies are appearing at a frightening rate (the recent exponential growth in AI tool development being the most talked about one) and also ways to corrupt, fake, lock or delete data are becoming more and more diverse and difficult to combat.?

So what can you do about it??

Build a board that is not made up of people that you have a lot in common with. Finding truly independent directors with diverse backgrounds and skill sets is difficult, so don’t try to do it on your own. Ask for help from a specialist in director appointment.?

Ensure that there are more “tech savvy” people on the board with an understanding and experience in spotting the threats and opportunities of technology.?

EQ can be much more important than IQ in a boardroom. It is a place where listening is far more important than telling; reaching consensus is more important than being right. Ego needs to be left at the door.?

Provide regular training for your directors to ensure that they are competent in the implementation of governance best practice and have a working knowledge of the rules that they need to live by.

??

If in doubt about the way forward, seek help from an advisor and guide who can support you to develop a high-performance, diverse board.