Away Days: Back To Normal?

Good practices to consider…

Identify what you want to achieve. Is it a new strategy or a tactical refresh? Are you assessing progress in implementing strategy? Are the challenges of the next couple of years enough to handle for now, or should you be working on the vision for further ahead? Do you need a full review or a focus on one narrow aspect of the market or a strategic driver such as technology or people? There’s no one way to do it – but the objectives need to be realistic and clearly stated.

Things to avoid…

Assuming everyone’s on the same page, especially after the upheavals and constraints of the last 15 months. The CEO and Chair need to decide what they want to get out of the day and then work together to achieve it. Getting the Board and wider management team together and away from business as usual is more than ever a precious opportunity, so use it wisely.

Good practices to consider…

Ask well ahead what the Board wants. And that means more than a chat between the CEO and Chair. That is necessary but not sufficient. After well over a year of on-screen discussions, and perhaps more time for reflection, some of the NEDs might well have some new ideas or be looking for something a bit different.

Things to avoid…

Just assuming that reverting to the pre-lockdown structure will hit the sweet spot. Or that a discussion between a few will be enough to come up with the optimal plan. The momentum and energy coming out of a good strategy day depends in part on people feeling that it was focused and structured in just the right way. You won’t be able to satisfy everybody. But this time more than ever the structuring needs to feel inclusive.

Good practices to consider…

Build in plenty of social time. It’s been a long time since people got together. Some directors won’t have met in person before. Others will be looking to rekindle the intellectual and personal spark that makes their membership of the board enjoyable. And there’s just a lot of catching up to do, whether the news is business or personal.

Things to avoid…

Feeling it’s wrong to build in too much social time, so as not to distract from the imperative of making sure the organisation has a clear way out of the crisis times. Or being a bit tight on the social spend, not wanting to be seen splashing out when others are tightening their belts. Both are understandable, even laudable, considerations.  But the value of bringing the board together should not be underestimated. It’s a good – and necessary – investment.

Good practices to consider…

Allow enough time. At least a full day with an overnight stay, otherwise travel schedules interfere with the sessions. Doing it properly takes time.

Things to avoid…

Imagining half a day plus lunch is going to be enough. In fact, a lot of boards are now working off two days and getting a lot more value as a result. And certainly don’t be tempted to squeeze in a regular, energy-sapping and distracting board meeting at the same time.

Good practices to consider…

Preserve plenty of time for discussion. That’s what the NEDs will want, and what should make it most valuable to the executives. And in-depth discussion is what’s suffered most from 18 months of screen interaction.

Things to avoid…

Allowing management presentations to take over. Yes, the team will want to share their thinking and analysis, but much of it would be better covered in pre-read. Listening to slide-driven explanations is rarely the best approach, and it’s especially unlikely that this is how the Board will want to spend their first lengthy chunk of time together.

Good practices to consider…

Spend some specific time on the Covid consequences. Boards will have been tackling the short-term consequences constantly. But they –and possibly the executive team – may not have had the space to sit back and reflect on what happens next: the lessons learnt, the new opportunities that are shaping up.

Things to avoid…

Letting the pleasure and relief of a “return to normal” result in a “back to where we were” approach to strategy. Few will have escaped the impact – and, for some, new opportunities will demand fresh thinking. NEDs are likely to bring a mixture of caution, enthusiasm and challenge.

Good practices to consider…

Pay extra attention to how competitors have been affected or how they are responding to the new environment.

Things to avoid…

Imagining that they are responding to an unprecedented time of change in just the same way as us. So bigger questions need to be asked: what opportunities have they seen that we’ve missed? What weaknesses are they now suffering that we can exploit? And management need to have done their research before the meeting so that the inevitable questions don’t get the answer, “We’ll take a look at that”. That doesn’t help the discussion.

Good practices to consider…

Set out in the pre-read where the executive team’s thinking has got to. (Okay, you can let management have a few minutes’ presentation time to launch each session.) Perhaps with a section on “How Covid has changed things” just to make sure it’s thought through?

Things to avoid…

Expecting the Board to do all the thinking. That’s not what they are there for, at least not at the outset. They will give value by reacting to and building on management’s work.

Good practices to consider…

Think through the attendance carefully. Travel exposure and quarantine might still be a factor for some, but that isn’t the main point. It’s about what makes the atmosphere right, who really does need to catch up with whom, and who has knowledge that will help ignite the discussion.

Things to avoid…

Inviting too many of the management team. In a normal year, there’s an element of “the more the merrier”. (Some parts of the meeting provide an opportunity for wider-than-usual team engagement. But this time round the quality of the catch-up with fellow directors is going to matter most, so it must not become too diluted.

Good practices to consider…

Things to avoid…