At the end of a recent workshop facilitation for a board I congratulated them on how well they had participated in the discussion. That is, how well they followed consciously or unconsciously better practice for optimal board decision making.

What did they do well? Here are a few key ones:

1. The Chair did not speak first.
2. The Chair often spoke much later.
3. They listened.
4. They listened to what was not being said.
5. They asked good questions.
6. They clarified questions and comments made through good questions.

Not all boards are like this. Sure, you can be lucky and get a great group of strong, critical thinkers that just know how to listen and collaborate. Other times, however, despite careful board selection process, you get a less-than-perfect board (same for a leadership team).

What to do if you have a less-than-perfect board (or leadership team), particularly when it comes to those big bet strategic decisions? One thing you can do is explain the power of listening, the power of opening one’s mind to others and to other information on hand.

However, explaining is one thing, learning about these things is another.

This is why I have been going deep on helping boards and other teams learn more about good decision-making hygiene to avoid both noise and bias (If you’re unsure of what I mean by “noise”, take a look at my blog Your Brain’s Lying to You.)

I’ll be sharing more on creating Boardroom Excellence in next week’s blog. Until then, you can go deeper on bias and noise in this free copy of Chapter 10 – The Unmaking of Strategic Decisions from my book Team Think: How Teams Make Great Decisions.