By Sonya Beyers
When we enter the boardroom for a meeting, we know we’re going to make decisions and it may take a while.
The whole point of sitting on a board is to make decisions – yet board meetings are often not conducive for optimal decision-making.
Directors are often distracted and tired when they turn up for a meeting, which impacts on people’s decision-making abilities, and therefore can impact on the board’s performance.
When we consider that meetings typically run for three to four hours each time, and that they’re mostly held after working hours, it stands to reason that directors may already have cognitive depletion when they arrive.
These are often busy people who have just spent a day in their profession or business, and they come to the boardroom focused on a range of matters that have happened over the course of their day.
They have the absolute best intentions for the organisation’s performance but often board directors will arrive at a meeting distracted by other matters, and modern technology has exacerbated the issue – phones may be on silent, but messages, emails and call alerts are still coming through, taking attention away from the what’s being discussed around the table.
The concepts of mindfulness and neuroscience though can be adopted at meetings to help directors overcome these challenges and improve the decision-making processes and abilities of boards.
Why mindfulness matters
The role of the board is to set and challenge management, so you need to be performing at your best at meetings, to ensure that in the short time when you have access to the information and to management, that you can fulfill your role effectively.
That means, being focused on the job at hand.
The traditional set up of board meetings though presents some challenges to achieve that.
Neuroscience tells us that our brains start to fatigue after lunch and a process called decision fatigue sets in – in which we become less able to make good decisions as our brain tires and looks for quick solutions in order to think less.
Neuroscience also tells us that focusing on more than one thing at a time is unproductive and not optimal, and that each time our thoughts are interrupted – for example, by an email or message alert – it takes on average almost 25 minutes to refocus on something after a distraction.
The human brain is also only able to focus in a meaningful way for 20 minutes, so in sessions that run an hour or more sifting through weighty and important information it’s going to be difficult to maintain critical thinking.
Avoiding after hours meetings for earlier time slots is certainly an optimal idea, although perhaps not practical or an option for your organisation, and trying shorter meetings is also not likely to be a practical solution.
There are strategies though that can help your board overcome these challenges and make better decisions, in particular adopting mindfulness practices.
The concept of mindfulness is taking off in many areas, including using the technique in meetings.
The Mercure hotel chain has even introduced Mindful Meetings as a corporate offering, in which the setting, right down to the food served, is designed to enhance concentration and limit distractions.
More board chairs are adopting these practices as a way of ‘centering’ their directors in the boardroom to ensure optimal and effective leadership and decision-making.
I’ve recently crossed paths with some directors who are even starting their meetings with meditation.
You don’t have to go that far though. Try some of these ideas to facilitate the best decision-making environment for your board members.
Make your meetings more mindful
- Turning off mobile phones to avoid distraction – chances are there won’t be an emergency in the three hours you’re together, so ask your members to switch their phones off and leave them in their pocket or bag. Tell them there will be breaks in which they can check their messages (see below).
- Check-in at the start – some chairs are adopting a mindfulness practice of starting their meeting by asking their board to consider what they’ve contributed to the organisation recently, to reflect. This draws their attention away from what they were just thinking of – the phone call, the email or the conversation they were just having about their day job – and brings them into the moment in the room and to start focusing on their responsibility as a board member.
- Feed them healthy food – The most common piece of feedback I hear from board members about their meetings is the low standard of food supplied. Most boards are served unhealthy, high carbohydrate, sugar-laden food which not only isn’t tasty but it lacks nutrition and doesn’t aid concentration at all. Serving boards healthy food options, including snacks, will help ward off the decision fatigue mentioned above and aid concentration.
- Table breaks into the agenda – this may be a challenge for some chairs, because if you’re on a roll you can be reticent to stop your flow and lose your momentum but it should be considered for the good of your audience. It may feel counterintuitive, but it may well be more productive and give better outcomes. If your members can see on the agenda there will be a break for refreshments, toilet and to check their messages, they may well find it easier to concentrate on the meeting, knowing they will get a break at a certain time.
- Set a smart agenda – place the most important items for consideration at the beginning of your meeting, when cognitive abilities will be at their highest.
- Pre-engage thoughts – ask your members to set aside distraction-free time before the meeting to read and synthesize the meeting notes and information. This gives time to review and consider the agenda items at a time when they are more able to focus and review the data without distraction or interruption. Then it simply requires a re-reading just prior to the meeting to refresh thoughts, rather than needing a full analysis on the run.
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Photo by Samuel Zeller on Unsplash