Category Archives: Executive Reviews

Posts in this category present content related to Executive Reviews of operating activities (businesses, initiatives, functions, units, accounts, etc.).

Executive Reviews

When Attention Is the Constraint, Focus the Work and the Reviews

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Most things go wrong because leaders are spread too thin, not because the work is impossible. When the volume of initiatives outstrips reviewer capacity, important items get little or no attention. Meetings slip. Mental presence drops. The fix is to match what we take on to the attention we can invest, and to raise the quality of how we review.

If right-sizing is not possible now, decide what will be reviewed and what will run without review for a period. Make the risk explicit. Set an escalation path. Define when an item re-enters reviews as capacity or leverage grows.

Focus the work

Start by counting real review slots that leaders can cover with preparation and follow-through. That number caps the active portfolio. Then triage:

  • A-items are mission-critical. Each has a named executive sponsor, clear measures, and regular executive reviews with explicit asks.
  • B-items are managed by metrics. Escalate by exception.
  • C-items are owner-run with coaching on demand and a light touch.

This puts scarce attention where it lifts results most.

Focus the reviews

Specialize attendance to increase leverage. Assign one executive sponsor to each A-item. Do not require every executive at every review. Form a small coverage group and rotate as needed. Use pre-briefs so the review starts before the meeting: the sponsor shares questions, context, and what a good decision looks like.

In the session, reviewers create safety, listen first, get clear, and then push thinking with best advice and guidance. Reviewees come prepared to learn, are willing to pivot, and implement feedback fast. Use simple ground rules: everyone participates, one conversation at a time, stay mentally present.

Set a simple operating rhythm

Set review cadence thoughtfully; do not schedule by the passage of time alone. For example:

  • Units: review monthly at first, then every other month, then quarterly as performance stabilizes.
  • Functions: set cadence based on stability and rate of change.
  • Initiatives: review at launch and at key milestones, and never allow more than six months between reviews.

Raise the quality of prep

Distribute a high-quality pre-read 24–48 hours before the meeting. Keep it as short as possible and only as long as necessary, with detail in appendices. The pre-read should answer five questions:

  • What we said we would do.
  • What we did.
  • What happened.
  • What we learned.
  • What we plan to do next.

Add attachments only when they inform a decision.

Reduce risk proactively

Make explicit forecasts against success targets, even when confidence is low. Call out dependencies (what must go right) and constraints. Offer fallback options and  the triggers to use them.

Risks and guardrails

  • People may feel B and C work is abandoned. Publish simple dashboards, define escalation paths, and time-box re-entry to A-status.
  • Sponsors can become bottlenecks. Rotate coverage and keep optional executives available for spikes.
  • Meeting quality can drift. Reaffirm ground rules, coach reviewers and reviewees, and pause to “helicopter up” if the conversation gets stuck.

Start by estimating attention capacity and applying the A/B/C triage to your current list. Then schedule the next cycle of reviews with clear sponsors and pre-read expectations. Get clear. Align. Grow.

See also

Executive Reviews, Get Help, Manage to Lead

Steering Committees: Engaging Stakeholders for Guidance, Commitment, and Growth

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Note: A complementary reading for MtL Module 8 Get Help

Leaders who “get help” know success comes not from going it alone but from surrounding themselves with structures that strengthen thinking, accountability, and action. In Manage to Lead, we emphasize the value of an Accountability Board, Advisory Board, Coach, and Peer Group.

There is another form of outside help that deserves equal attention, especially for initiatives that affect customers, partners, or community stakeholders: the Steering Committee.

What a Steering Committee Is

A steering committee brings together stakeholders who represent the organizations, communities, or customer segments that will be most directly affected by what your organization or initiative produces. Unlike an advisory board, which offers expertise, or a governing board, which ensures accountability, a steering committee co-creates success by helping shape priorities, decisions, and outcomes.

Why Steering Committees Matter

  • They give leaders direct access to the voices of those who will live with the results of decisions.
  • Members often have decision-making authority and access to resources within their own organizations, allowing them to influence adoption, funding, and partnership.
  • They help leaders anticipate resistance, discover alignment opportunities, and stay connected to real-world needs.
  • When members see that their guidance has been heard and acted upon, they become even more committed to the success of the effort—often becoming early adopters, users, and buyers of what is produced.

How Steering Committees Add Value

  • Guidance and Direction: Members provide grounded input, helping leaders avoid blind spots and adjust course before costly mistakes occur.
  • Legitimacy and Endorsement: Their involvement signals credibility to others in the ecosystem.
  • Acceleration: Members help open doors, clear obstacles, and facilitate decisions that move implementation faster.
  • Sustained Alignment: Regular engagement ensures the organization’s goals stay relevant to stakeholder priorities and that everyone is working from a shared picture of success.

How to Form and Manage One

  • Identify six to ten individuals who represent the key stakeholder groups your initiative depends on.
  • Be explicit that their role is to advise and connect, not to manage day-to-day execution.
  • Meet quarterly or at major decision points with focused materials and specific questions.
  • Listen deeply. Summarize and report back on how their input has influenced what you do next—this simple feedback loop builds extraordinary trust and advocacy.
  • Keep the tone collegial, practical, and forward-looking. Participation should feel rewarding and consequential.

How It Fits in the Leader’s Support Structure

Adding a steering committee complements the existing support framework:

  • Accountability Board: Keeps leadership focused on plans, performance, and resources.
  • Advisory Board: Provides wisdom from experienced operators.
  • Coach: Strengthens the leader’s use of self and interpersonal effectiveness.
  • Peer Group: Offers perspective, learning, and accountability from equals.
  • Steering Committee: Connects leadership directly to those who will benefit from, and champion, the organization’s results.

The Payoff

When stakeholders see their fingerprints in your output, they work harder to make it succeed. Their ownership translates into faster adoption, greater influence, and more sustainable results. A well-run steering committee transforms external stakeholders into allies, advocates, and extensions of your leadership team.

Call to Action
As you design your leadership support structure, ask:

“Who outside the organization has the most to gain from our success… and how can we bring them inside the tent?”

Form your steering committee early, engage them often, and show them how their voices shape your outcomes. You will multiply your leadership capacity and set your organization up for enduring success.

Keep Growing with Manage to Lead

Steering committees are one of many ways leaders can expand their impact by bringing others into the process of thinking, managing, and acting strategically. If this approach resonates with you, explore how the Manage to Lead (MtL) System helps organizations like yours:

• Get clear about purpose and priorities.
• Align leadership teams and stakeholders.
• Drive change that sustains performance and growth.

Visit intelliven.com to learn more about the Manage to Lead framework, download tools, or join an upcoming session to practice applying MtL methods to your organization’s real-world challenges.

Get Clear. Align. Grow.

Do & Review, Executive Reviews, Operations, Presentations

Maximizing the Value of Review Meetings

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Periodic reviews are critical for keeping important initiatives, functions, and projects on track in an organization. However, maximizing the value from review meetings takes thoughtful effort from both the reviewers and those presenting their work (the reviewees).

Too often, one or both do not put in the necessary preparation or exhibit good practices during the review resulting in an unproductive meeting. By understanding and executing on the key responsibilities for each role, reviews can be transformed into productive learning experiences.

Responsibilities of the Reviewer

  • As a reviewer, you have the vital role to create an environment conducive to an open and honest discussion. This starts well before the meeting with your careful review of pre-read materials. Your job is to develop informed questions and hypotheses to pressure test during the meeting itself.
  • A best practice is to share your initial questions and perspective with the reviewee in advance. This allows them to understand where you are coming from, hone their thinking, and essentially start the review meeting before it officially begins. Provide framing upfront for a more productive dialogue in the review.
  • Once in the meeting, resist the urge to jump straight to your pre-conceived notions. Instead, actively listen to the reviewee’s presentation with an open mind. Ask clarifying questions to ensure you fully understand the current state and ask well formulated questions to push up thinking, before offering opinions or advice. The best reviewers make the reviewee feel heard and can see the situation through their eyes.
  • With a common understanding established, it’s then time for hard questions. Don’t hold back . Say what needs to be said and apply pressure to the reviewee’s thinking. Challenge assumptions, probe for gaps or inconsistencies, and push to consider alternative perspectives. However, do it in a constructive way, being careful to separate the person from the points.
  • Finally, provide clear guidance on the path forward, explaining your thought process. Remain open to final thoughts from the reviewee before setting expectations. Keep the review a two-way dialogue, i.e., a quest for truth!.

Responsibilities of the Reviewee

  • Presenting during a high-stakes review meeting is highly stressful. However, reviewees must resist the urge to treat it as a one-way presentation. Effective reviewees embrace the meeting as a collaborative problem-solving session by being vulnerable and open to feedback.
  • The preparation should focus not just on materials summarizing the current state, but also anticipating the tough questions reviewers are likely to ask. Be ready to back up your assumptions, analysis, and recommendations with data and reasoning. At the same time, avoid being overly attached to your original ideas and be open to altogether change coursing course based on the discussion.
  • During the meeting, reviewees should temporarily park their leadership responsibilities. Resist giving into the urge to justify everything. Instead, actively listen (i.e., repeat back to the speaker what you heard) to be sure you understand reviewers’ perspectives, concerns and recommendations with a beginner’s mindset, as if hearing it for the first time. Ask clarifying questions, take detailed notes, and extend the discussion with a genuine desire to learn.
  • With reviewers’ guidance absorbed, the hard work is still ahead. Reviewees must internalize and promptly act on the suggestions, including updating plans and re-doing analysis as needed.

Summary

High quality reviews are hard work for both parties. Reviewers must create a psychologically safe environment, genuinely understand the current state before reacting, and then push reviewees’ thinking while providing clear guidance.

Reviewees in turn must be vulnerable, keeping an open mind to altogether pivot based on the discussion and immediately implement the feedback through more work. Shirking these responsibilities leads to disastrous review meetings that simply check a box. Whereas, embracing the mindsets and following the suggestions above turns reviews into powerful tools for accelerating success.

See Also

Do & Review, Executive Reviews, Governance

Optimizing Your Board of Directors: A Guide for Fast-Growing Private Companies

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Growing private companies often encounter challenges in establishing an effective board of directors. Typically, boards comprise well-meaning individuals who meet periodically, usually for a few hours up to a couple of days. However, these meetings frequently become sessions to celebrate company successes rather than critically examining company performance against its board-approved plans and strategic initiatives for the year.

For these companies, it’s vital to have a diverse board, including external directors who offer unbiased insights and prevent family / founder / owner dominance. Establishing clear governance policies and procedures is essential, as they define the roles and responsibilities of each board member. Moreover, regular board meetings focused on progress towards strategic goals, rather than on operating details, are crucial.

This post outlines best practices for efficient private company board meetings, ensuring that your time together is well-spent. We also provide a template for an effective board meeting agenda.

The Board Agenda – Your Roadmap to Efficiency

Preparation is Key

  • The board chair should distribute a draft agenda 4-5 days before the meeting, soliciting upgrades and additional topics.
  • Agendas must be clear, concise, and focused on performance metrics, strategic goals, and pressing issues.

Best Practices for Productive Meetings

  • Limit meetings to three hours to maintain focus and energy.
  • Introduce new items for information only, with decisions deferred to subsequent meetings after thoughtful review.
  • Distribute materials a day or two in advance, allowing members to come prepared.
  • Allocate time for informal interaction before and after the meeting to foster trust and collaboration.
  • Record and distribute key action items, decisions, and insights promptly after the meeting.

Agenda Template

  • 10-min: Administrative matters (e.g., by-law updates, approve minutes from prior meeting, etc.)
  • 15-min: CEO’s overview of the business state
  • 20-min: Financial performance review of actual results vs. plan and projections
  • 20–40-min/ea: Updates and discussion of strategic initiatives (up to three) and / or committee (e.g., compensation committee, governance committee, audit committee) reports
  • 10-20-min: New or walk-on items
  • 5-20-min: Future meeting topics
  • 5-min: Adjournment and reminders of meeting Action Items, Decisions, and Insights

This template is flexible and can be adjusted to fit the unique needs of your board.

Conclusion

Setting up and managing an efficient board for fast-growing private companies is both challenging and rewarding. By adopting these best practices and using a structured agenda, boards can offer valuable guidance and oversight, enhancing their collaboration with the management team.

See Also

Click the figure above for a summary of Accountability Board Support Characteristics

 About The Author

David Halwig, IntelliVen Co-Founder and President of Mid-Atlantic Region, provides strategic management consulting and advisory services to leaders whose organizations are at critical inflection points. David helps improve governance, leader development, strategic planning, and risk management. He also has substantial experience with merger and acquisition strategies, valuation, and transition approaches.  

Connect with David on LinkedIn

Executive Reviews

How to Make Meetings Powerful Using a Pen

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There really is “power in the pen“.  The person who takes notes in a meeting and then drafts and distributes the Meeting Record is demonstrating leadership. Deciding how what happened in a meeting is to be memorialized is a power move. Those who want to be leaders and who want to be powerful will find that owning and driving the process to produce Meeting Records is the way to go! Continue reading How to Make Meetings Powerful Using a Pen →