Bill Campbell helped me understand how he did it. Bill would always say that if there was any potentially surprising or controversial topic, the CEO should go to every board member, one-on-one, to walk them through it before the meeting. That allowed them to ask questions, offer different perspectives, and then the CEO had time to take those thoughts back to the team and revise their thinking, presentation, and plan. There should only be good surprises in a board meeting—We’ve exceeded our numbers! We’re ahead of schedule! Check out this cool demo! Everything else should be a known quantity.
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