The CEO Report

Letting the CEO Report be just one more of those things you have to get through, along with all the other governance stuff that takes up all the time and means you never have enough for strategy…

Allowing the Report to cover solely what the CEO thinks they want to hear about. That might work but it could be a bit hit and miss. With the CEO very much focused on the world as he/she sees it, it’s likely there will be other angles and questions in the minds of the NEDs. The Chairman should be in a position to help anticipate these.

Regarding the CEO update as a standalone agenda item. It should have a clear beginning and end – but it needs to act as an introduction to nearly everything that follows. It has an important role to play in positioning the other items.

Leaving performance reporting to the CFO. That’s likely to result in a financially-based report focusing on current year outturn versus budget and last year. That’s all part of reporting on performance – but only part. Commentary on the results and what’s underlying the outcomes is useful, but there will be many aspects of performance against strategy that the financial report doesn’t do justice to.

Leaving the Board with only a hazy view of the immediate challenges or of how the executives see the future (both short and long term). It needs to know what might be round the corner – and there’s probably nothing a board likes less than an unpleasant surprise. It needs to be confident that the executives are watchful and have plans for dealing with the unexpected.

Classifying the CEO Report as part of the regular standing items and performance updates that come after the more immediate, non-standard items. If put towards the end, it will probably get squeezed and fail completely to act as the tone-setting “strategic hanger” on which many of the other agenda items should be hung. If your CEO Report deserves to be at the end of the meeting, that means you have the wrong sort of CEO Report.

Allowing performance reporting and updates on internal developments to overshadow what, in most cases, is the main determinant of success. There may not be an obvious slot on the agenda to focus on this fundamental question, so the CEO needs to make sure it comes up in the meeting more than just in passing.

Navel gazing. Yes, the Board wants to know how things stand internally. But change will often be driven from what’s happening outside and best-laid plans can be waylaid by “events”.

Simply stating a few performance figures and reporting on what’s happened since the last meeting (contracts signed, who I’ve met, where I’ve been…). Boards need to know about what’s happened but they like to spend much of their limited time discussing the future.

Assuming that the Board will join the dots itself as different managers address different topics, development, problems… That is quite difficult to do when various managers express themselves differently and from their own point of view and, possibly, from their own silo.

Letting someone else (the Private Secretary, the Head of Strategy, the CFO… we’ve come across them all) draft the entire report without any direction. It’s fine for the detailed drafting to be done by someone else – but the report needs to express the CEO’s own mind, not what someone else guesses it might be.

Allowing the CEO to fall back on a verbal report, possibly supplemented by one page of bullet points… Yes, it takes time to prepare a report to the Board, but if it helps to bring about more strategic discussion then it’s an investment from which the CEO, as well as others, will benefit.

Thinking in isolation. Papers will invariably benefit from feedback – on clarity, content, messages… And if the executive committee thinks the Report is touching on the things that are bothering them and on the issues where they need support, it’s probably covering the ground well.