For board chairs

How to run a board retreat that reaches decisions

Most board retreats end with good feelings and few decisions. The board spends a day in a nice room, hears presentations, breaks into small groups to fill flip charts and goes home. Six months later the plan looks the same as it did before the retreat.

A retreat is worth the day only if the board leaves having decided things it could not decide in a regular meeting. That takes work before the day, an agenda built around decisions, and someone in the room whose job is to keep the conversation moving.

Start with the decisions

Before you set an agenda, write down the three or four decisions the board needs to make. “Discuss enrollment” is a topic. “Decide whether to grow enrollment or hold it and raise net revenue per student” is a decision. If you cannot write the decision, the board is not ready to make it, and that item belongs in a committee first.

Talk to each person beforehand

Call every board member before the retreat and ask the same few questions. What is the most important thing this board needs to decide? What worries you that has not been said in a meeting? What would make the day worth your time? Keep the calls confidential and share only the themes.

These calls surface the real issues, often the ones nobody raises in a full meeting. They also tell you who is likely to dominate and who is likely to stay quiet, so you can plan for both.

Send a short pre-read early

Send the pre-read a week ahead: the decisions on the table, the options for each and the facts the board needs. Ask everyone to read it. Do not spend the morning presenting what people could have read at home. Time in the room is for discussion and decision.

Build the agenda around the decisions

Give each decision a block of time with the same shape: a short framing, a round in which every member says where they stand and why, open discussion, and then a decision or a clear next step. The round matters most. When each person speaks once before anyone speaks twice, the board hears from the members who usually stay quiet, and the disagreement comes out in the room instead of in the parking lot afterward.

Keep the conversation moving

The facilitator’s main job on the day is to keep the board on the decision in front of it. Vocal members will pull the conversation toward their own topics. Name it when it happens: “That’s important, and I’m putting it on the list for later. Right now we’re deciding this.” Then go back to the question. Keep the list of parked items where everyone can see it and come back to it before the day ends, so people trust that what they raised will not be lost.

A chair can facilitate the board’s own retreat, but it is hard to lead the discussion and take part in it at the same time. Many boards bring in an outside facilitator so the chair can be a full participant.

Close with commitments

End the day by reading back each decision, who owns it and when it is due. Send a written summary within two days, and follow up on every commitment at thirty days. Most retreat plans fail in the month after the retreat, not on the day itself.

From Leading the Room, a book in progress by Gerry Morton on how to lead any room where people gather, drawn from twenty-two years in peer groups across Vistage, EO, YPO and TIGER 21 and on boards.