The Decision Session

One consequential matter prepared and facilitated properly, with ownership and monitoring attached before the board leaves the room.

Works on

Information, Decision, Monitoring and Follow-Through

Format

Facilitated session

Duration

Three weeks, one sessionPlaceholder pending confirmation

In the room

Full boardchief executive and relevant executives

Ends with

A decisionowned, dated and monitored

Whether this fits

One consequential matter, and any one of these.

If several apply across several matters, the honest answer is a systemic one instead.

A merger, a major capital commitment, a chief executive succession or a strategic pivot is coming to the board.

The matter has already been in front of the board once and did not land.

Directors are divided, and the division is between people who are each right about something.

The board has to decide by a date and cannot afford another circling meeting.

The decision will be scrutinised afterward, and the board wants its reasoning on the record.

A board cannot choose between options it was never given.

Most stalled decisions are not stalled for want of information. The board has been handed a recommendation with supporting material, which is a different thing from a choice, and no amount of further analysis converts one into the other.

What happens

Three weeks of preparation, then one session.

Weeks 1–2Frame the actual question

Boardpath works with the chair and the chief executive to state the decision the board is really being asked to make, which is frequently not the one on the agenda. The real alternatives are identified, including the ones nobody has written down.

The decision stated as a question the board can answer yes or no to
The alternatives, including doing nothing and deciding later
Confirmation that the decision is in fact the board’s to make

Weeks 2–3Build the Decision Brief

The choice is put in front of the board rather than a case for one option. What each alternative costs, what would have to be true for each to be the right call, and precisely where the board’s judgment is required rather than management’s analysis.

The alternatives set out so they can be compared, not just the recommendation
The disagreement stated fairly, in the words of the directors who hold it
What the board is being asked to accept as uncertain, said plainly

The sessionWork it through in order

Boardpath facilitates. The board takes the matter through SOAR in sequence, so strategy and risk are argued on their own terms rather than against each other. Directors who have been talking past one another usually discover they were answering different questions.

Before the room emptiesClose it

The Decision Record is written and agreed while the board is still present. An owner and a date are attached, and the board settles what would tell it the decision is not working and when it would hear.

The decision written in the board’s own words while everyone is still present
Who owns it, by when, and who they answer to
What would bring the matter back to the board, and when

Ready to get started?

Describe the situation, not the engagement.

Bring the matter in front of your board, why it matters now, and who is involved. One conversation is usually enough to identify the smallest useful next step, which is sometimes this engagement and often something narrower.

Take the Board Checkup · six minutes, no contact

Schedule a conversation · 45 minutes with an advisor

Attend an orientation · for individual directors