Preparation makes a big difference

Board workshops are a great way for boards to go deeper on key issues, break down barriers, align the board on its priorities and talk about their big opportunities and challenges in a less formal and structured environment.

In our experience many boards come away extremely disappointed with their strategy days and board workshops because of one or more of the following reasons:

• the desired outcomes of their time together weren’t sufficiently explicit, or if they were some or all of the directors had a different view as to what the desired outcomes that needed to be achieved
• they tried to do too much in the session and ended up not doing anything particularly well
• the board didn’t spend sufficient time prior to the workshop discussing what they wanted to achieve and largely left it to management to organise their time and set their agenda
• their facilitator wasn’t sufficiently experienced to guide the discussion or intervene at important points during the workshop.

Because the time spent by directors together is so valuable, it is worth putting in a significant investment in time and effort to ensure it is well planned. Often the Chair or a Committee Chair and one or two others directors will work with an executive or and/or an external facilitator to ensure all the appropriate planning takes place.

Many special focus areas

No two board workshops are the same as they need to be designed to achieve the board’s agreed outcomes and have regard to the current state, desired future state and those involved.

Insync has designed and facilitated board workshops that have gone for between two hours and two days and have covered the following topics:

• Discussion and agreement to an action plan arising from a board evaluation
• Turning a long list of board priorities into a short list and aligning the board around those priorities
• Aligning the board around the current state, desired future state and a high level plan to improve the maturity and sophistication of the organisation’s risk management and compliance
• Sharing insights and individual action plans arising from an Director Effectiveness Review and agreeing how sustained change will be embedded
• Designing and populating a director’s competency matrix and agreeing to the competencies and attributes required of future directors
• Discussion and agreement to a turnaround plan for the organisation
• Strategy workshops

If you would like Insync to provide you with a proposal to assist your board with a tailored workshop please contact us.

Insync also conducts similar workshops for leadership teams.