Listen to an eminent board member

Words of wisdom are spoken in an interview in Board Intelligence of Vindi Banga. As the article explains, “He is the chair of UK Government Investments and Marie Curie, as well as a non-executive at GlaxoSmithKline and The Economist Group. Prior to this, Vinda sat on the board of the Confederation of British Industry, Thomson Reuters, Marks & Spencer, the Mauser Group, and spent 33 years at Unilever where he was a member of the Executive Board.”

Here are a few excerpts of note, with my emphasis:

• A great meeting does four things….. First, it spends the bulk of the discussion time on the maximisation of opportunity, rather than on the minimisation of risk. Risk is the “comfortable topic” that boards naturally default to, and having it on the agenda is obviously necessary, but it’s not what drives a business forward.
• Second, it balances long and short-term. The urgent will always creep onto the agenda, and it shouldn’t be allowed to crowd out the important. As a rule of thumb, at least half of a meeting’s time should be spent on long-term issues.
• Third, it’s well-managed. Yes, you need board material to stimulate the conversation, but it’s a colossal waste to use your meeting to simply share…