A quick thought about board texts

Good morning all,

Have you ever walked into a board meeting and gotten the feeling that half the conversation had already happened before everyone got there?

Sometimes it has.

A few texts. A Signal thread. Emails going back and forth. A side conversation in the parking lot.

In most cases it feels harmless, even helpful. People are trying to prepare, think things through, move a hard conversation forward, or avoid wasting time in the meeting.

But sometimes those informal conversations start doing the work governance was supposed to do.

Once decisions start getting shaped outside the boardroom, governance gets harder to see and harder to defend. People remember the same conversation differently. The meeting starts feeling more like confirmation than deliberation.

And sometimes an offhand comment, written quickly, meant only for one or two people, ends up carrying far more weight than anyone expected later.

So here are three things worth keeping in mind if you’re thinking of texting or emailing about board business:

• Use written communication to prepare for the discussion, not settle it.

• If a conversation starts sounding more like a decision than a question, it may belong in the meeting.

• When something feels too sensitive for a text or an email, take that instinct seriously. It may be telling you the conversation belongs in the room.

I wrote more about this in last week’s Bright Line Standard article, including why informal communication creates governance and litigation risk more often than people realize.

You can read the full article here: What the Record Shows: Governance Risks Hidden in Informal Communications

If you’re a board member, here’s one question worth asking before you hit send: Would this be better said in the meeting than in the message?

Take good care,

Nancy