Unleash the Power of Your Board: Why Independent Members are Key

Name: Unleash the Power of Your Board: Why Independent Members are Key
Uploaded: 2023-10-03T14:15:02+00:00
Duration: 50 s
Channel: Jason M. Lemkin
Description: In this segment, Jason M. Lemkin and a co‑speaker discuss how founders can make their boards more effective. They stress the need for candid…

3 Oct 2023 · 1 min

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In this segment, Jason M. Lemkin and a co‑speaker discuss how founders can make their boards more effective. They stress the need for candid, straight‑talk feedback from board members and advise leaders to explicitly request it. The conversation highlights that many boards under‑utilize independent or outside directors, especially when a company’s biggest risk is go‑to‑market execution. By adding board members with deep sales, marketing, and collection experience—people who have navigated tightening budgets and slower sales cycles—founders can develop a realistic battle plan. The speakers also touch on governance cadence, questioning how often founders should hold board or investor meetings when they’re not already scheduled, implying that regular, purposeful meetings are essential for alignment and strategic adjustment.

Chapters

If you do have a board and people are not giving you the straight talk, ask them for it and tell them that you want it. And if they don't know it, they may have colleagues who've lived through— get also, I think independent board members and outside board members are totally underutilized by boards. Like get someone— if go-to-market is your big risk, get a great person who's got go-to-market experience on your board, who's lived through cycles and understands how budgets tighten, how sales cycles slow, how cash like gets pushed out and like how you do collections, all the ticky tacky stuff that you've got to like live through the hard way. I think that's the way you get the— because you have to come up with your battle plan.
Yeah. And just— I know this almost sounds like a base, like a silly question I've asked years ago, but today, how— if people aren't having board meetings or investor meetings, how often should they have them?