187. The joy of repetition (Condition #35: Meeting frequency)

Some of you are tuning in to this episode expecting me to solidly dis the concept of regularly scheduled board meetings, and maybe even urge you to reject it. At the risk of disappointing you, I honestly just don’t feel that strongly about it. Let’s be real, most people have complicated lives with only limited tolerance for spontaneity, especially when it comes to something as fundamentally, um, boring as a board meeting. Having a regular board calendar and cadence matters! In part because it increases the probability that everyone will actually show up. It also adds some structure and predictability around which we can build decisions. Knowing when everyone will be together helps us to plan what information we will share and when, what conversations we need to have at what times, and when we hope to actually, you know, MAKE a decision on a thing. And let’s be fair, boards do bust out of their scheduled meeting flow every once in a while, but usually only because of an emergency or some other thing that forces us out of the gravity of routine. I just can’t help but wonder whether an extreme deviation from the norm might be kinda cool. Like, what if a board’s meeting frequency was something like “we meet once a week virtually for precisely 15 minutes (13 hours per year). These weekly meetings alternate between efficiently ticking some routine compliance box, and creative exploration of some important or zany question. Our quarterly, full-day in-person meetings will be informed by the creative exploration, and mostly free from compliance because that’s all been dealt with already.” That’s 56 board meetings per year, but actually somehow sounds less burdensome to me than a “normal” quarterly or monthly cadence. I dunno. What do you think?