Here is the board pack for your October 2023 meeting.

This month, as well as your own agency-specific topics, we'll explore:

  • Liberate to accelerate: as a business grows the temptation is to centralise, control and wrap things up in bureaucracy. A smart founder, supported by a wise board, will prune this back to stay nimble.

The guides to how to run board meetings are in the Playbook. That's where to look if you need any refreshers, or want to see if there are any extra practices or tips you could adopt to take your meetings up a level.

As ever, even if you are a smaller agency and it's only one or two people on your board, that's fine. The key is that you are taking the time and space to do this high level thinking, and our briefings act as the external stimulus.

And if any of the briefings don't click with what you feel you need to discuss this month, feel free to review the library of board briefings and substitute one, or substitute your own. It's your meeting.

In advance of the meeting

  • CEO to write a 'CEO briefing' covering the agency's key KPIs, updated headline forecasts, key events in the business, an updated Agency Radar, and the top 3 issues on their mind. Circulate it to all board members at least 3 days before the meeting, as a collaborative document if possible so board members can get clarifications and ask questions in advance. Prepare this even if all board members work in the business, and even if you're the only board member in a small agency — writing is thinking, and it'll help focus your mind.
  • CEO to have a short call with each board member to catch up and discuss the plan for the meeting.
  • CEO to arrange for board members to be provided with copies of all briefings, and this agenda, at least 3 days in advance.
  • All board members to have read the agenda, CEO briefing, and the board briefings for the agenda items (you can print them to PDF from your browser), to be ready for productive discussion.

Agenda

The meeting is designed to be 3 hours long, and the guide times below are based on that (but you decide what works for your agency and tell board members the times and durations)

  1. Formal board business (if you're a formal board as well as an advisory board, this is where you do things like agree dividends, appoint directors, sign off the accounts, etc. There may often not be anything needed here) [10 mins]
  2. Discussion on the core of the CEO Briefing (CEO doesn't need to present the briefing, board members should have read in advance, so get straight to discussion) [30 mins]
  3. Discussion of the top 3 issues the CEO raised in the briefing [40 mins]
  4. Break [10 mins]
  5. Discussion: Liberate to Accelerate [90 mins]
  6. Wrap Up

Meeting follow-up

  • Share notes of discussions and decisions
  • Remind board members of future board meeting dates
  • Ensure time is scheduled for you to prepare for future meetings
  • Schedule in time for you to digest and act on what came from this meeting