In our previous article, we discussed how CEOs who communicate effectively with their board can ascend new heights. To do this, CEOs make a meaningful investment of time and effort to prepare thoroughly and maintain transparent, two-way communications. Their readiness is intensified by the way that business today is ‘always on’. Given increased organizational velocity, heightened scrutiny, and more complex challenges than ever before, how can CEOs show up for the board and communicate for lasting impact? And when should they consider giving their extended management team an opportunity to engage with the board directly?
For CEOs, communication effectiveness is not just about what happens in the boardroom. The CEO’s role calls for sustaining communications before, during, and after each board meeting. A deep, privileged relationship with the board chair1—centered on openness, trust, and objectivity—is critical. An effective chair not only runs the board but serves as a thought partner, adviser, and prospective mentor to the CEO in maximizing the company’s full potential. This relationship requires tight orchestration and synchronicity. In the words of Westpac’s former CEO, Gail Kelly: “The role of the CEO is to make the board members’ jobs easier, not more difficult. That starts with forming a great relationship with the chairman.”2
In this article, we will examine how CEOs can communicate meaningfully with their boards, setting the right operating cadence to foster deep connections, build trust, and drive holistic impact. Ideally, this work is done in close collaboration and exchange with the board chair.
In our experience, CEOs whose board communications have a lasting impact…
…Diligently prepare, keeping in mind the board’s composition, dynamics, and culture
…Enable constructive-critical discussion and debate
…Follow up powerfully after the meeting and between meetings
Diligently prepare, keeping in mind the board’s composition, dynamics, and culture
Diligent preparation requires leaders to understand their board’s composition—in particular, board members’ levels of know-how, experience, and interest in engaging on discussion topics. It also requires an intimate knowledge of board dynamics and culture and an agreement about who speaks with whom. In their preparations, CEOs and their teams can keep in mind questions such as the following:
- Who has a formal role on the topic or is heavily influential? Who are the relevant committee chairs and members on the topic, and who might have greater insight and influence due to experience or expertise?
- What topics are of greatest interest to the board? What are board members’ preferred styles of communication, and what level of experience and involvement should we expect?
- What other topics, recent developments, or external factors may be top of mind for board directors? How will these (directly or indirectly) affect their viewpoints and perspectives?
This type of analysis can be a crucial part of board meeting preparation. Based on these questions, CEOs and their board chairs, often together with their board secretary, can help develop a carefully crafted narrative and forward-looking agenda, delivered in a way to which the board members will be receptive, given their context on and perceptions of the institution and the broader marketplace. If CEOs keep these questions in mind, they will be better prepared to bridge the information gap between board and management, preparing the right level of materials to allow board directors to prepare effectively and contribute to a productive session.
To prepare and thus communicate effectively, CEOs formulate plans across dual horizons. They are experts at both sharing and staging. Ahead of each session and interaction, they work backward, starting by clearly setting the context and the objectives. Simultaneously, they deliberately zoom out to plan ahead for the year, setting the stage for key decisions in advance. Taken together, these approaches can set the right altitude of discussion while cultivating or reinforcing a transparent culture between the board and executive leader. The board secretary can play an important gatekeeper role to ensure that only well-prepared and well-structured board documents are shared with the board; the rest gets pushed back for further iterations.
These proposals are typically delivered in the form of a board paper. Effective board papers display several characteristics: they start with an executive summary, are short enough to be readable, and supply all relevant backup in appendixes. Above all, a good board paper clearly conveys for each item what the board is being asked to do. Is the CEO just keeping the board informed, or do they want a clear decision between options? Are they looking for advice, counsel, and ideas? Do they need connections to be made? By specifying the ask, the CEO ensures that each board member knows in what spirit they are being invited to read and prepare for each section.
Enable constructive-critical discussion and debate
On average, boards are spending more than 30 days per year in total, including committee work and preparation. The number of meetings will depend on the environment and issues at hand. When a board meets, the chair is particularly responsible for optimizing the time spent together. The CEO makes sure that they and their extended management team are well prepared to allow for an effective discussion and debate of their respective topics. Board members often recognize that aspects of meeting discipline get in the way of their contributing as much as they could. Only 30 percent of board members report that they serve on boards whose processes are effective,3 and nearly half of executives observe that their board’s performance falls short.4 A good chair aligns the board, architects the flow of discussion, and embraces constructive, contributory dissent.
Aligning the board. First, the board chair makes sure everyone starts on the same page. Company culture is important here. For example, when we examine companies that might look similar from the outside, we often find, internally, their processes and ways of working can differ significantly. In one, participants always read the pre-read ahead of a session; in the other, the reading may not be a prerequisite to attend. Therefore, at the second company, board members need to be brought up to speed at the beginning of every discussion.
Architecting the flow of discussion. Second, board chairs facilitate conversation thoughtfully. Meetings can often have a natural flow of open, narrow, and then close. In an ideal setup, this means first getting more information in the room and offering fresh perspectives, then narrowing the range of options, and finally deciding on an outcome. This can be the flow of the whole meeting or be repeated multiple times by topic. When meetings are unproductive because participants are at cross-purposes, the cause is often that participants are unclear about where in this process they are meant to be. If the level of contribution or input required on a particular topic is also ambiguous, inertia can take the place of productive dialogue. To counter such problems and help focus the session, especially with board members who spend relatively little time in the environments of their companies – the chair can explicitly reiterate the purpose of each discussion item, its process, and its outcome (a decision, a debate, a set of options, or a commitment of resources).
A good agenda may group similar items together—for example, all the strategic initiatives where input and constructive challenge are expected, then all the asks for final decisions. This can reduce the requirement for board members to shift mindsets constantly throughout the meeting. It also makes it easier to front-load the agenda with the topics that require the most discussion. Brad Smith, the former CEO of Intuit, said, “In every presentation to the board, we included a cover page with an executive summary and box to the right that outlined the two or three things where we needed their advice. That channeled ninety percent of the board’s energy into helping us.”5
Embrace constructive, contributory dissent. Effective chairs handle disagreement productively. Effective boards value dynamic problem solving and constructive dissent because it represents a diversity of viewpoints. Identifying challenges early can lead to stronger decision making and faster implementation. Dealing with disagreement productively often means reducing differences of opinion to questions of fact and can often lead to better outcomes as untapped ideas are integrated. CEOs or indeed other board members need to ask critical questions. “What are the facts that make you think this? What facts would alter or confirm your opinion? What further analysis should we do?” The more thorough the preparation before the meeting, the easier it will be to handle dissent during the meeting; proper syndication will often mean that the data needed can be brought to the meeting rather than addressed after it.
New formats are emerging beyond presentation followed by discussion. Here are some examples:
- Highlights and lowlights. One approach is to provide a combination of highlights and lowlights—a list of five initiatives that are going well, matched by an equal number that are encountering challenges. This enables candid dialogue and dissent. It also invites constructive feedback to improve areas.
- Gallery walks. As mentioned in our previous article, CEOs can make engagements with the board experiential—showing their impact rather than simply telling. This format is more interactive and provides an opportunity for the board to see and feel the progress.
- Stress tests and simulations. Where the dynamics of an industry are complex, it may be easier to experience them than to have them explained. In a stress test with a rich and accurate simulation engine, trade-offs become clearer, and the assumptions underpinning the “official future”—the evolution of market dynamics that a company assumes will happen—are exposed, often with revelatory effect. For maximum effect, board members can divide up into red teams and blue teams in order to surface and express opposing sides of an issue.
- Venue changes. In a hybrid world, there is more flexibility in convening the board. While most meetings will likely still happen at the headquarters, some can also be usefully run at production sites, in other countries, or in combination with field visits or learning trips.
Follow up powerfully after the meeting and between meetings
An effective board meeting ends with a series of decisions. In some cases, these will require further work or analysis; in others, there will be formal actions to be taken. Either way, next steps will need to be reported clearly to the management team members responsible for moving these issues forward. The CEO, the board chair, the corporate secretary, or whoever is tasked with acting should follow up with relevant individuals and teams. A single to-do list, combined with the meeting minutes, can serve as a vital mechanism to align everyone on the path forward, including action items, timing, and responsibilities. For seamless execution, an effective board secretary can play a key role here in holding the pen and ensuring progress.
Each session presents new opportunities to sustain engagement, momentum, and meaningful dialogue. Based on our targeted conversations with leaders across industries, we’ve identified a set of informal channels CEOs use to keep the conversation going in between meetings to keep board directors up-to-date and well connected on the latest themes:
- Concise and consistent CEO memo. Typically, CEOs share a brief, two-to-five-page memo every month or quarterly. These can also be used as a cover for each board meetings’ pre-reading material to sharpen the discussion prior to reading the fact base. They may also provide the board with any additional shareholder communication, employee newsletter, or any other relevant communication.
- Short, sharp information exchanges. Given the speed of innovation and change, it is becoming increasingly common for CEOs to create a private forum with their board members via text, messaging applications, or another mechanism. This channel can be used to provide first alerts, share relevant industry news and articles, or seek high-level thoughts and feedback.
- Bidirectional home visits. It is also common for CEOs to go to the board members’ home turf, whether at their office or home, or vice versa. Inviting board members to the office exposes them to a cross-section of management and gives them more visibility into culture and ways of working.
- Bespoke convening and forums. Some CEOs convene the board and invite external thought leaders, including academics and innovators across industries, to provide a deep dive into issues that are top of mind or the latest trends—for example, generative AI and geopolitical resilience.
Effective communication with the board goes well beyond crafting messages. Excellent CEOs take a personalized approach to meet board members where they are, which can help to build trust. In addition, by tightly aligning and synchronizing the agenda with the chair, they can help create a systematic approach to board communication ahead of, during, and following each board meeting.
The CEO–board chair partnership can set the tone for an effective collaboration between the board and management team. CEOs and chairs establish a continuous communication stream before, during, and after board meetings, with the ability to respond in real time to marketplace shifts. CEOs and their management teams must invest in their board relationships, deeply understanding board members’ levels of know-how, experience, and focus areas. This helps ensure that the combination of diligent preparation, constructive board sessions and consistent, ongoing dialogue generates positive outcomes for the board and its stakeholders.
In our next article in this series, we will hear from leaders how they have driven effective, long-term engagement through CEO–board communication.
1 Or in the case of a combined CEO/chair, the relationship with the lead independent director.
2 Carolyn Dewar, Scott Keller, and Vikram Malhotra, CEO Excellence: The Six Mindsets That Distinguish the Best Leaders from the Rest, Scribner, March 2022, p. 163.
3 McKinsey 2019 Global Board Survey.
4 “Board Effectiveness: A Survey of the C-Suite,” PwC and The Conference Board, 2020.
5 Dewar et al., CEO Excellence, March 2022, p. 190.