SOAR: seeing board decisions clearly
See how Strategy, Oversight, Accountability, and Risk bring a difficult board decision into focus.
- Three pages
- Free for boards and their staff
When this helps
Capable people keep leaving the same conversation with different conclusions.
Disagreement can look personal when directors are actually answering different questions. SOAR gives the board four lenses for noticing where the picture is blurred—and a way to improve the conditions for a decision.
What’s inside
Four lenses on what is holding the decision up.
01
Four lenses on the same decision
Understand how purpose, evidence, authority, and risk shape what directors see.
SOAR02
The source of the blur
Recognize patterns such as shifting priorities, repeated requests for detail, reopened decisions, and incompatible assumptions about risk.
03
A more useful conversation
Work through a practical example and choose the question that would help your board move forward.
Putting it to work
Read it with a real decision in mind.
Bring one unresolved choice
Think of a conversation your board keeps returning to, or a decision that feels harder than it should.
Notice where the picture is blurred
Look through Strategy, Oversight, Accountability, and Risk. Which question are people answering differently—or struggling to answer at all?
Open the conversation there
Use that question to identify what would help. A clearer picture can make room for useful disagreement without demanding identical views.
Download the guide
See the decision through a different lens.
Use the guide to explore what your board may be missing and the conversation that could help it move forward.
- A practical starting point for your board
- Free for boards and their staff
SOAR: seeing board decisions clearly
Guide · PDFWant help putting these ideas to work?
A resource can give you a starting point. We can help with the questions and conversations behind it.