Last month Peter Neal, founder of Experience Bank Group, talked about how his peer group for existing and aspiring NEDs, Trustees, board advisors and consultants working at board level had swelled so much in numbers that the group had split into two cohorts with a third on the way in 2024.
To bring to life what happens in these meetings Peter shares blogs after the sessions, and in this article, you will find round ups of the first split meetings of 2024.
“January saw our EB peer group programme for existing and aspiring NEDS, trustees, board advisers and consultants working at board level split into two cohorts. The numbers have swelled significantly with constant requests to join – this way we can ensure each member gets valuable airtime. And, once a quarter, we all come together and catch up!
“In EB1’s session we welcomed new member Arif, who’s been involved in the Experience Bank for a number of years and recognises the support the group for existing and aspiring NEDS, Trustees, Board Advisors and Consultants at Board Level gives him in his roles.
“We start our sessions with a sign-in where we look at scores for how people in the group are doing business wise and in their personal lives. We also use this as an opportunity to raise any questions. The scores were all solid for January and words like, manic, slow, steady were all used to describe the start of 2024!
“Our amazing facilitator, mentor and coach, Andrew Marsh, asked us all to make a start on our outcome/intent statement i.e. what does ‘good’ look like by December 2024? The model is based on the 1-3-5 approach from Pete Wilkinson. For the next group meeting we all agreed to have finished our statement and objectives.
“We moved onto questions including an issue on company culture, especially in larger companies with multiple sites and geographies. The scenario is tension with the MD of an acquired business leading to friction between central finance and the local team. We undertook a wide discussion and looked at the Burke-Letwin Diagnostic Model as a way of evaluating – we’ll be expanding on this next time as we were interested.
“Next we explored what CRM systems people are using. Systems like Hubspot, Salesforce etc were shared. However, when looking at the purpose of the system to track the sale/lead and project management/delivery, the discussion included Trello and other PM systems. The discussion made us question if one system could do all.
“In EB2 we were joined by new members Jonathan and Graham – Graham is a returning member who recognised the support the group for existing and aspiring NEDS, Trustees, Board Advisors and Consultants at Board Level gives him in his roles.
“Again sign-ins were done in person including introductions, how 2024 has started and questions to discuss. The group looked at their 1-3-5 like the other group and took time out to work up initial thoughts to revisit in February’s session. We then moved onto a few questions from the group. Firstly, Andrew joined up three questions as they overlapped. A query on doing your PR to raise profile, how do you get your first role, and curiosity on our view of the NED market in general. This was an open debate process. It was a really wide-ranging discussion including the dynamics and nature of the NED market in North East. 95% of all NEDs in SME are appointed via referrals/intros and we looked at focusing in on your target sectors so you avoid being scatter gun.
“We then looked a question on the transition into MD from Commercial Director as a board making the change. We split into two groups to discuss and then fed the key inputs into the person asking the question. This lead into discussion on making sure agendas are good, appropriate and that all prep is done ahead of meetings. Andrew reminded us that a board should be more strategic than operational – think about driving a car, the rear view (i.e. the past) should be looked at but if you take your eye away from the view in front it can be catastrophic…! The front view and indicators are all about the future and where you can avoid disaster by applying good focus.
“Finally, we discussed the strategic demise and opportunity of print journalism in the North East. This morphed into Andrew sharing the PESTEL analysis – Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental and Legalisation. This is a perfect example of what a board should be discussing, and we look forward to feedback on the amends to our member’s board meeting agenda.”
If you would like to join our peer group, do get in touch with me on peter@theexperiencebank.co.uk