Today I sent this to all the CEOs in my investee companies (where I invested as an angel or as Episode 1, plus to the soon to be Episode 1 investee companies):
At Episode 1, we read several blogs avidly. Mark Suster‘s is one of those and he has recently started a sequence of posts on board meetings – the first one of two so far is Why You’re Not Getting the Most out of Your Board.
I highly recommend reading these (in fact, subscribe to his blog – it’s great)
I agree with everything in this first post except the idea of calling all board members in advance for a 1:1 call – that seems less efficient to me than doing the update info at the meeting. Instead, when sending out the board pack (at least 48 hours in advance of the meeting), you should ask specifically for the directors to email you any other questions they might want raised in the meeting. Depending on the reply, you might chose one or two board members to call 1:1 before the meeting.
I agree with everything in his second post on boards too: how to control your board discussion and avoid chaos. Some very good suggestions in there I have not used before.
Enjoy!