Board Facilitation
BOARD LAUNCH
THE ISSUES
When new Boards start up, they have a great deal of background to gather, new people to get to know, governance and committee responsibilities to sort out – the agenda is daunting. The last thing the President wants to do is to facilitate the meeting in addition to leading and participating.
Great Board impact for young companies does not happen by accident!
Get your new board off on the right foot by:
- building trust and respect quickly
- orienting members and executive to the contribution they can bring to benefit this company
- establishing expectations and productive relations with the CEO and senior management
And when you get going – Your board is too valuable to spend all its talent grappling with compliance issues.
- recognizing and coming to terms with the new governance regime so your entity can profit – not be punished – by participating in public markets.
- Settling quickly into a style and mode of action to bring leverage to the Board/ Executive/ Company interface
- Bringing the real potential of the Board into play fast
OUR SOLUTION
Catalyst Strategic can bring you help to commission your Board to be up to speed fast.
Our Board Launch process gets the meeting to flow so that all the bases are covered and the agenda moves. The purpose of Board Launch is to get over the familiarization and formalities and onto business with dispatch while giving Directors the in-depth introduction and briefing they require to be immediately effective.
Get your new board off on the right foot by:
- Building trust and respect quickly
- Orienting members and executive to the contribution they can bring to benefit this company
- Establishing expectations and productive relations with the CEO and senior management
Your board is too valuable to spend all its talent grappling with compliance issues.
- Recognizing and coming to terms with the new governance regime so your entity can profit – not be punished – by participating in public markets.
- Settling quickly into a style and mode of action to bring leverage to the Board/ Executive/ Company interface
- Bringing the real potential of the Board into play fast
CASE IN POINT
A New Energy Pubco – launched their new board with a bang, making clear what the board can bring to the company’s quest for value. The Board made clear what it was looking for in terms of interaction with the CEO and the company. Difficult questions of best practice were raised and resolved with dispatch. Months of “trial and error” to establish a working basis was short circuited in favour of a quick start. The compliance/ governance regime was quickly operationalized. The result – an effective Board at the head of a company gaining market value exponentially.
Reference: available on request
BOARD STRATEGIC RETREATS
THE ISSUES
What if your Board strategic retreat:
- Was dynamic and exciting for Board and Executive alike
- Moved to value creation fast
- Contributed strongly to the company’s forward prospects?
Most Boards carve out a day or two away to have a concentrated opportunity to provide value. The run rate on the talent in the room is thousands of dollars per hour! As CEO, you want the highest value you can engineer from these encounters. The last thing you want are your prized members coming away feeling their time was even slightly wasted or that the meeting did not meet its potential.
OUR SOLUTION
Your Board can profit by bringing in a veteran with years of strategic framing for organizations, someone who gets it – quick – and engineers real value from groups and useful tools of orientation to the future and real value creation is assured through Catalyst’s work.
An annual retreat is a fixture on most Company calendars. The Board will be open to a much more intense briefing on the company and the company will have much greater potential benefit from its Board members. This is the last place for tedious reports and unfocussed discussion.
External facilitation through Catalyst Strategic can bring:
• Life and high value to a Board retreat
• The interface with senior executive can be sparking and rigorous
CASE IN POINT
A not for profit Resource Institute – at a turning point with a new President and a new thrust – scheduled an annual planning retreat at a mountain resort.
The stakes were too high with a volunteer Board and an urgent new direction for the President to spend focus on organizing and directing the meeting. His leadership as a full participant was essential. He could not afford to be diverted by procedural, recording or social convening duties.
Catalyst Strategic was commissioned to take charge of the meeting process and looked after everything from logistics to agenda to recording in addition to providing high value intervention and direction to the meeting itself.
Board members felt their contribution in that meeting exceeded anything they had been able to bring before, that they got to know each other fully and well, and that they were able to tackle difficult issues with directness and dispatch. A new mark for meeting effectiveness had been set.
Reference: available on request
TESTIMONIAL
Gerrit Maureau
President and CEO, Canadian Petroleum Institute
“Our first Board strategic retreat on my watch really had to come off superbly. Doug and Lyn gave me the personal attention, design, detailed planning and execution that ensured such an outcome. The test, of course, was our Board member reaction. They were extremely positive about the retreat and from that point forward have been most supportive. We launched a great year of significant accomplishment based on the excellent work done there. Great work!”
BOARD BOOST
THE ISSUES
What if your Board provided it all?
- Mindful governance without impairing company drive
- The potential value that individual Directors were selected for accrues to the Company
- A cohesive and lively forum moving the company to the next level
- Mentorship and a school of sober second thought for the President
Are these gains coming through full force? You pride yourself on bringing high standards to bear in your work as a leader. Are you letting fear of offence stem your sense that more could be done either by a Board you lead or Boards you sit on?
It is hard to attract good Board members. You do not want to waste their time through ponderous process or wandering low leverage discussions. With threats of liability, non-compliance, and extravagant new requirements mean that a directorship could become unappealing. Superb pointed Board process and elevated communication on Boards make the meetings eminently worthwhile for members and Presidents or Chairs.
Effectiveness of Boards can be compromised by low voltage communication, poor focus or disorganized discussion, inadequate preparation or unclear agenda management. The talent available when boards are in session represents potential value contribution at an astronomical hourly run rate.
The difference a well-oriented, strongly communicating Board can make it hard to measure. Is yours getting the best chance? If you don’t think so, send this to those who can bring us on Board!
OUR SOLUTION
What difference can we make?
Bringing fast and pointed focus to what Boards must do to surface value is our forte. Our assistance for Boards on how the Board works and how it can work better. When energy, engagement and focus remains high, Boards get a great deal done in a short period of time. We specialize in bringing practices to meeting conduct and management that bring out the best of what is there to be harvested, without taking the Board off-task. Much like any other aspect of business, a little investment here in process guidance can bring about a great return.
CASE IN POINT
A rising software public company – several years along – had gone through several levels of growth. The Board now comprised representatives of 3 eras, some in from the start, others newly attracted. The President wanted to get past unproductive and repetitive conflicts that had characterized Board Meetings in the past – particularly with the strong new members coming to their first retreat.
Catalyst Strategic was brought in to orchestrate and facilitate the meeting.
A hard hitting one-day session ushered in a new culture in Board proceedings. The new members were introduced rapidly and were contributing strongly before the day was out. Alignment was strong. Unproductive patterns were curtailed.
The President was delighted and the Board has never looked back.
Reference: available on request
TESTIMONIAL
Frank Stanford
CEO, Wellpoint Software Inc.
“We were in a sensitive transition with our Board. We had new members coming on, a resignation, a tough agenda and needed alignment behind a new regime of Board/ executive communication and support. With Doug’s help, we emerged much more together and able to tackle a couple of difficult acquisitions with more confidence and better Board practices going forward.”
