Consulting Journal: Methods - Making consent agendas work

Methods: Making consent agendas work

by David Blakey

You may need to tweak the handling of consent agendas to get them accepted.

[Monday 22 January 2018]

In the previous article, I suggested a simple process for introducing consent agendas to a client. There is, however, a danger that some board members may not welcome the idea, or be fearful of the idea, or may not use the process properly. Let's look at each of these.

Impediments to consent agendas

Resistance

Some board members may have a pattern to their behaviour in board meetings that they are reluctant to change. Over time, as more boards introduce consent agendas, they will become accustomed to the idea, but, if this is first time that they have encountered the concept, they may not welcome it.

Consider having a meeting with the chairman, at which you can discuss each board member's likely approach to consent agendas. You may discover that there is a member who only sits on this board or on the boards of other organizations who take a traditional approach to board meetings. These tend to be the board members who do work assiduously through their packets before the meeting and who arrive with a clear set of questions. You could ask the chairman to talk to this board member.

Jack, our consultant David Blakey has suggested that we try a new technique in our board meetings called consent agendas. It's quite a new thing for us and I may need your help in getting it to work with some of the less experienced members of the board. I can refer you to some articles about how it's worked in other companies.

(But not this article, otherwise the plan may fail.)

Jack may be flattered by this approach. He will be on the side of the chairman if it works, and he can always detach himself from supporting it if it doesn't. Best of all, he can familiarize himself with the concept before he actually has to use it, especially if he is an assiduous worker.

Fear

Some board members may fear any innovation. These are likely to be the people who question everything.

Miranda, our consultant David Blakey has suggested that we try a new technique in our board meetings called consent agendas. It's quite a new thing for us and I want you to work with it and then let me know of any flaws you see in it. It's quite important that we give it a go during our meetings, so just go along with it, and then let me know what you think privately.

Not trying

These will tend to be the people who don't work the system properly now. They tend not to have read all the papers in their packet and they ask questions that will have been answered in those papers. There must be some reason why they are on the board, and it's often because they are the innovators, such as the CTO, who is far too busy to read everything in his packet.

Mike, David Blakey has suggested that we try a new technique in our board meetings called consent agendas. It's quite a new thing for us and it needs to be implemented properly. You'll be getting a packet of documents for a consent agenda and I'd like you to be fully up to speed with them before the meeting.

Clarifications

If you still believe that the first meeting might go wrong, you can try a variation to the script.

The chairman was going to introduce the consent agenda and then ask if the board wanted to withdraw any item:

Chairman: I place the consent agenda before the board. Shall we remove any item from the agenda?

Instead of this, the chairman can say:

Chairman: I place the consent agenda before the board. Is there any item that needs clarification?

If there is, then the owner or the chairman can answer any points raised and then continue:

Chairman: Is there any other item that needs clarification?

When no one responds, the chairman can then continue.

Chairman: Shall we remove any item from the agenda?

There are likely to be fewer removals than if the clarification step had been omitted.

Next steps

The next step after introducing the clarification step is to decide if it needs to stay. This should be a board decision, as the board's rules of order had to be changed to allow consent agendas with clarifications, and those rules may now have to be changed again to omit the clarification step.

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