A blueprint for structuring effective board meetings
My day to day work involves helping management teams with their company direction and the creation of differentiated propositions. The last of this three part series of blog posts is again related to governance. Read on to find out about board meetings – how these should work and when they should take place.
Busy senior leaders have many competing priorities, and sometimes, regular board meetings can be the (wrong) thing to drop off the list.
Those new to the board might need to learn what a good schedule and plan looks like.
While each board must find its approach and rhythm, the Institute of Director’s suggests there should be four to twelve a year, lasting between two to four hours. A good timetable could look like the following:
Monthly
- Review of year-to-date financial performance against budget
- Report from the financial director on the company’s cash position
- Top line operational report from MD
- Current trading position from the business development director
- Review of the risk register
Quarterly
- One-by-one divisional review
- Review of the HR, marketing, R&D and production functions
- Review of any subsidiaries - or for creative agencies a review of associations or partnership agreements
- Reporting from any board committees
Bi-annually
- Review of any HR and health and safety issues
- Performance against long-terms plans (as opposed to budget), checking whether policies, objectives and strategies are on track
- Possible formal re-budgeting
Annually
- Decision-making around policies, objectives and strategies
- Approvals of the forthcoming annual budget
- Annual performance review
- Annual board review and election/re-election of chair
- MD/CEO’s annual performance review
- Assessment of senior staff performance
- Annual review of the board’s reserved powers
- Annual review of bribery policies
Any matters for the board should be addressed through a paper added to the agenda. The paper should include an executive summary, background, recommendations, strategic and financial implications, risk analysis, corporate governance compliance, and responsible person(s).
Ultimately, good corporate governance improves company performance, helping to manage risk, build resilience, increase trust with finance providers and take advantage of commercial opportunities.
If any of this resonates and you’d like professional advisory support to help structure your business and achieve your growth plans, please email sarah.waddington@wadds.co.uk. I’ll be happy to help.