Small boards (5 or less) are magic. These massive board meetings here with 10-20 people and every board member and board observer bringing a colleague stifles problem-solving conversations, vulnerability, transparency and generally makes things unproductive.
99% of board meetings I attend have board materials sent less than 24 hours prior to the meeting, sometimes nothing prior to the meeting. I'd encourage founders to do a flipclass model where the deck is sent 4-5 days in advance and only Q&A at the board mtg + strategic deep dives
Would also encourage time for the outside board to chat at the end of each board meeting and then invite the CEO back in for immediate feedback. I've seen this only in 2-5%of boards, so far.
Another easy win in board meetings is to invite non-founder employees/mgmt in to focus on a strategic deep dive. Gives board a view on depth and quality of talent, gives non-founder employees access to strategic priorities/discussions and trade-offs. Makes them more effective.
Another easy win in board meetings (especially at seed to B) is to circulate action items (including homework for investors!) right after the board meeting, and to review these action items at the beginning of the next board meeting. Drives some accountability and bias-to-action
Overall guidance to founder/CEO would be to use this meeting for the company's maximum benefit, not a reporting tool, by 1) focusing on truly needle-moving questions/issues; 2) netting out so-whats/learnings; 3) ruthless pruning of rat-hole conversations; 4) pre-work for board.
Would love to hear from founders and investors here with their specific actionable best practices for board meetings... please reply with your comments! I look forward to learning from you.
VC-backed founders/CEOs: Do you get needle-moving value from your board meetings?
Ok my last tweet on this. Half of founders get zero value from board meetings. Founders: what have investors done (or could do) that provides high value *during* your board meetings? Poll results here:
