The board isn't functioning.

Meetings run long and decide little. The same issues return each month. Management is unsure what the board actually wants, and the board is unsure whether management is telling it everything.

Under pressure this compounds quickly. A board that cannot create clarity multiplies the pressure on the executive team.

• Decision rights between board, chair, chief executive and shareholders are never written down.
• Board packs report activity rather than performance.
• Shareholder interests are argued inside the boardroom instead of resolved outside it.
• Directors move into management's territory, or avoid the difficult question entirely.
• Everyone assumes the problem is personalities when it is usually structure.

• What decisions sit with the board, the chair, the chief executive and the shareholders?
• Is the board receiving information it can actually govern on?
• Which strategic decisions have been deferred, and for how long?
• Are shareholders aligned on what the business is for?
• Is this a governance problem, a leadership problem, or a shareholder problem?

• Interview the board, the executive team and significant shareholders.
• Map decision rights and delegations, and reset where they are unclear.
• Rebuild board reporting around performance, risk and the decisions required.
• Agree a forward agenda that carries the unresolved strategic decisions to a conclusion.
• Where necessary, support changes to board composition or leadership.