I have earlier blogged about Independent Directors here. Having said that, there are other aspects to a Board of Directors too. This is especially true for the home grown entrepreneurs/owners cum managers, who have grown to a certain level, have a board because it is fashionable, hold meetings, but that’s it. I have been lucky to have worked across different sizes of organisations, but come to realise that Entrepreneur/Owner driven are probably the most insecure – yes, yes, I know there are exceptions to that also.

I have recently had an opportunity to interact with a couple of these organisations which are 25 crores plus, wanting to scale, be ready for growth, grow and all of those phrases. They invited me to sit on a couple of their meetings, which I did and finally asked them my basic Questions –

1) How do you get the Board to participate in the strategy to reach 100 cr

2) What level of your top management should be involved in operational matters and how should expectations be mapped/managed?

3) What % should be devoted to 3-5 years, 1-3 years <1year

4) What meetings should drive which agenda?

5) Does everybody handling the same fire help?

Once asked, there was a flurry for a couple of days and then pin drop silence. And they have gone back to the old method of running the business where words like responsibility are used, but everyone shies away from the word ‘Accountability’

Are you one of them? Have you worked for one of them? I would like to hear about your experiences.