The art of manipulating Board decisions!!!

A lot has been written about good Board practices. Everybody agrees that the role of the chair is critical in facilitating a good dialogue and supporting the decision-making process. But what if the chair simplywants to have it her own way? What if the whole point is to get the directors to rubber-stamp a particular decision, but you (the chair) are afraid they might resist? Here are some good old tricks to "align" those rebels behind you. Trust me, I have seen them many times, and they work perfectly.

GOOD PRACTICE #1

-Always send the material for the meeting as late as possible. This way, nobody will be prepared for the meeting, therefore …………

GOOD PRACTICE #2

-  Give the Board members long documents to read (preferably over 50 pages), full of Jargon and - absolutely - without a summary. Make sure to put all the boring stuff at the beginning of a document and bury the "difficult" information somewhere in the middle. Never put the tables in appendices because it makes it easier to be found!

GOOD PRACTICE #3

-  If you expect the Directors to ask for clarifications on the content of the documents, tell them they can ask during the board meeting. There is a double benefit here. Firstly, many people will be embarrassed to ask; secondly, if they do, time is wasted, and there is no room for annoying discussions.

GOOD PRACTICE #4

-  Schedule the beginning of the meeting as late in the afternoon as possible, mentioning that it should takeplace "outside working hours" because many board members are too busy. This way, the "activists" are under time pressure, and everybody is tired of putting up a good fight. If you "must" start in the morning, try to include a lunch break, and schedule the topic that you wish to manipulate second on the agenda after lunch.

GOOD PRACTICE #5

-Allocate discussion time for each item that allows no more than 1–2-minute interventions, if everybodydecides to take the floor. If needed, waste some of the time allocated to a topic by asking the rapporteurto present a document already distributed beforehand, with the pretext that some members might not have the time to read it.

GOOD PRACTICE #6

Start the meeting by asking members to respect each other's time. Emphasize that "you are all busy people around the table." This not only puts pressure on those who might dare to raise matters but also gives them the impression that the board meeting is not as important as other duties. If needed,before giving the floor to somebody that might disagree with you, remind them to make the interventions as short as possible, "out of respect for the others." Do the same, in a more emphatic way, if the "rebel" dares to ask the floor for a second time.

GOOD PRACTICE #7

After introducing a topic, take the floor to express your opinion first, preferably in the most explicit way the minimum etiquette allows. Then give the floor first to those who will agree with you. Leave those with who you expect to disagree and the juniors last. This will create the impression that the majority is behind you. Most people don't like to belong to the minority, so if they do, they prefer not to open their mouths.

GOOD PRACTICE #8

If somebody expresses a disagreeing opinion, use the floor while introducing the next speaker to discardhim in one sentence. A good one might be, "I fully respect your opinion, but I seriously doubt that there will be many around this table to agree with it."

GOOD PRACTICE #9

Always put first on the agenda the trivial matters, using the excuse that if you put those away, you can have all the time to discuss the critical ones. That practice, on the one hand creates a mindset of indifference (after an hour of dotting the "I" s and crossing the "t "s, everybody is demotivated), while on the other hand, it creates time pressure for the discussion of the critical items.

GOOD PRACTICE #10

Always put time-sensitive matters (budgets, action plans, etc.) on the agenda of the last board meetingbefore their deadline. This way, if somebody has a strong disagreement, you can disarm her with the argument that there is no time to revise the document before the deadline. Nobody would like to be held responsible for not approving a critical document on time, so resistances are more likely to yield.