A short YouTube conversation (Precursor Ventures, Apr 29, 2025) about making board meetings more constructive. Early guidance emphasizes preparing board members individually before meetings so discussions are productive, and treating bad news with empathy rather than punishment (avoid yelling, berating, or belittling).
You're running the company. We're talking about this issue because you have a point of view. Please tell me what your point of view is so we can talk about that. Instead of talking in the abstract about whether this is an interesting issue.
You say a productive practice, because I know a lot of founders like to do this, is individually with board members, bring them up to speed on what they're going to talk about ahead of time, and then at the board meeting, almost re present it, knowing what everyone's thinking.
So I always try to think, you know, if somebody's really down or comes to you with bad news, they probably know it's bad news. There's sort of no need to yell at them, berate them, or belittle them.
