The Case for Board Meeting (2)
POSTED ON: Thursday, May 12th, 2016
CATEGORIES: Business Strategy and Planning, Leadership and Management
Business Owner
This business had been trading for twenty years and had performed adequately but without real success. The owner believed that much better results were possible but was not clear how to make real positive change. Board meetings were being conducted but didn’t seem to be making any impact.
On the invitation of the owner/manager, we attended a board meeting in order to understand better what was going on. It was clear that there were some serious issues with the way the board meetings were being conducted which included:
- The board meetings were completely operational
- There was no supporting information flow to the board
- The meetings largely consisted of the MD lecturing the staff
How did we support?
We facilitated several key changes in order to make the meetings run well and add value to the business, including:
- Agreeing and then sticking to dates for the meetings
- Assisting the directors to set goals and understand what good would look like
- Facilitating the production of a budget and forecast
- Agreeing and then facilitating the production of information required by the board to enable it to have discussion and make decisions
Together, these actions were instrumental in helping to structure the responsibilities of those that attended. Problem solving decisions were taken and the business began to grow.
Conclusion
The directors became much more aware of their business model and of the facets of marketing and finance. The process took 7 months and the business is now delivering significantly more net profit per month.