Well, it depends…mainly on whether there has been a deep and honest dialogue during the meeting that has addressed and resolved important issues. Or have some views been suppressed or disrespected?

In a useful article (Hard Truths About the Meeting After the Meeting), Phillip Clampitt explores the need to encourage thorough and respectful debate during meetings and how to use related strategies to avoid toxic post-meeting dynamics. [1]

Clampitt emphasises the critical role of leaders in various workplace environments. While not referring specifically to boardroom examples, his analysis and guidance are undoubtedly of value to board chairs in encouraging positive board dynamics and communicating board decisions to a wider audience. In this review, we look at how his advice might apply in the boardroom.

It’s important to acknowledge that post-meeting meetings are an inevitable part of boardroom dynamics. As Clampitt points out, they can be a fertile ground for 'mischief and mayhem'. Understanding this can help us prepare and manage these interactions more effectively.

These unplanned gatherings tend to be freewheeling because participants perceive the stakes to be lower than speaking up during the formal meeting. People assume minimal reputational costs and diminished accountability. So, tolerance for fuzzily formed opinions/arguments becomes heightened as they seek to frame or categorise the uncertainties and unstated sentiments inherent in any formal meeting.

The meeting after the meeting can generate moments of clarification, grousing or pushback. In turn, the outcomes range from supportive to toxic:
An informal post-meeting meeting offers an opportunity for newer directors to make sense of what was said in the meeting. A longer-serving member of the board, for example, may share a backstory that produces enough clarity to reassure them and get them on board.

• Grumbling about a ‘dumb decision’ might relieve frustration but can also help spread rumours, sow doubt and undermine the board or other members. Taken to the extreme, this behaviour can also legitimise constant grousing, persistent disenchantment and increasing levels of disengagement.
• Attacking another member’s character or questioning their motives behind their back may help someone feel better about themselves but undermine board cohesion.

Despite the inherent risks in these post-meeting meetings, Clampitt advises that attempts to stop them would be futile and counterproductive. A better approach, therefore, is to expect them and adopt a range of techniques that would make them less problematic.

Before offering solutions, he shows several ways in which leaders unwittingly push team dynamics and culture in a toxic direction by:

1. ‘Spraying and praying’. This is the idea that sharing more information is good in and of itself. However, people receiving that information connect the dots in diverse ways, which can trigger different interpretations of its meaning and significance, stimulating multiple discussions outside the meeting. Effective leaders share information in a way that helps people make sense of it.
2. Ignoring aspirational differences. Board members often have quite diverse historical, technical and aspirational backgrounds. The board tries to integrate these various perspectives into its decisions. However, the members’ differing backgrounds mean they are likely to have different concerns about a proposal.
3. Normalising faux queries. Board chairs can easily overestimate the degree of understanding, alignment and buy-in to a decision when they simultaneously ask for and then limit questions. This can be done, for example, by constricting the time for questions (“Sorry, we are almost out of time for questions, so let’s keep this brief.”), asking leading questions that discourage disagreement (“This is the best option; I think you’ll agree, right?”), and by restricting questions until later and by a different communication channel (“Please email me any questions or comments”).

Clampitt then offers five strategies to help leaders transform post-meeting dynamics in a positive way.

1. Improve meeting choreography

Just as choreographers carefully consider the number of dancers on the stage, the sequence of movements and the set, the board chair can shape the conversational space before, during and after a discussion, influencing the acceptance of key decisions, the performance of critical personnel and team spirit.

In a boardroom context, this means being clear about the ‘why’ and the ‘when’ of the board meeting (the cycle and scheduling of board meetings and their purpose are too seldom considered). ‘What’ should be on the agenda? For a successful meeting, ‘who’ should be involved in addition to board members and the chief executive? ‘Where’ and ‘how’ should the meeting be conducted? Technology is making this not only a possible consideration but a necessary one.

Clampitt suggests that when you address all six of these critical considerations, the likelihood of a post-meeting kerfuffle dramatically decreases. But he also notes that these cannot be considered in isolation. For example, ‘who’ should be included depends on the ‘what’ (agenda) of the meeting. Some board meetings have more people in the room who are not board members than those who are. Clampitt suggests inviting only those who would add the most value because as meeting size increases, so does the likelihood of more divisive post-meeting meetings.

‘How’ the meeting should occur—virtually or in person—is a question that boards routinely consider now. The pandemic forced boards to become adept at virtual meetings. But, however convenient, the online medium is prone to attention-diverting distractions, including what Clampitt describes as ‘snarky sidebars via direct messaging’. Face-to-face meetings are more likely to encourage positive behaviours inside the board meeting than afterwards outside it.

2. Craft routine protocols for communicating change

Board chairs and chief executives must often announce to staff changes that arise from board decisions. Any major change, welcome or not, naturally sparks post-meeting discussions, and Clampitt says researchers have found that only 50% of all decisions are ever implemented and sustained. How can that percentage be increased? He proposes seven key questions that leaders should address when communicating major decisions:

1. What was the decision?
2. How was the decision made?
3. Why was the decision made?
4. What were some of the rejected alternatives to the announced decision?
5. How does the decision fit into the organisational mission and vision?
6. How does the decision impact the organisation?
7. How does the decision affect employees?

Addressing all of these, Clampitt says, doubles the likelihood that employees, for example, will embrace the decision or change. He argues that leaders who routinely address the complete set of seven factors shape employee expectations over time, head off mischievous chatter, and boost the likelihood that people will embrace the change.

3. Bridge gaps between differing backgrounds and experiences

If chairs do not bridge the gaps between board members during the meeting, directors will look to do so outside the meeting. This can cause division and disruption that the chair cannot address at once. Clampitt suggests several ways skilled board leaders can legitimise and reveal differing perspectives to bridge the gaps when bringing together diverse perspectives, abilities and experiences, including:

• sharing pre-meeting readings that will help inform the discussion
• acknowledging and making sure differing perspectives are considered
• encouraging participants to offer differing points of view
• soliciting input from the board about what issues might need further clarification
• inviting a devil’s advocate to the meeting [2] or asking someone to temporarily play that role.

4. Channel emotions and depersonalise concerns

Here, Clampitt’s advice is for the chair to bring down the emotion in the room. Acknowledge people’s concerns (whether valid or not); ensure they feel they have been heard. Foster a spirit of respect and encourage people to voice vague and perhaps even politically incorrect sentiments during the formal meeting rather than afterwards. Convert emotive reactions into ideas worthy of further contemplation and reasoned debate. Separate the issue from the individual who voices it. Have it owned by the whole board, which can then respond to or resolve it.

5. Elevate the value of pushback in the formal meeting

To get the best return from members’ or advisers’ pushback, deal with it during the meeting and not after. During the formal meeting, the chair can negotiate tweaks to policies or procedures to ease their implementation and can even reimagine decisions. That is far less possible in post-meeting conversations.

Chairs should not only encourage pushback during the meeting but also try to unearth possible concerns before board meetings. If a director is not comfortable voicing their concern in the meeting, the chair can then suggest ‘possible pushback’ during the formal meeting. They may also need to do some work with the board, emphasising the value and importance of divergent views. ‘Safety’ issues may need to be addressed so people feel they can share such views without concern for short- or long-term backlash.

Chairs must constantly remind themselves that they must allow discussion, open debate, dialogue and disagreement to occur in the meeting. If they do not, it will happen anyway after the meeting, and, as the board leader, they will be less able to influence it more positively.

While this review has been about post-meeting meetings, we should also note the potential for Clampitt’s ‘mischief and mayhem’ in pre-meeting meetings. When sub-groups of the board caucus in advance to determine the outcome of the forthcoming meeting—irrespective of any further advice and information that might be provided during the meeting—they are arguably guilty of showing they have closed minds and disrespect for their colleagues. Both are harmful to effective governance. [3]

Notes

[1] Phillip G Clampitt. ‘Hard truths about the meeting after the meeting’. MIT Sloan Management Review 6 May 2024

[2] One board we have worked with routinely invited known critics to come to the board to challenge its thinking.

[3] Comparable situations can also occur in the way boards structure and use committees. Without careful management, these (especially so-called executive committees) can become ‘a board within a board’.