BoD's are run by consensus

BoD's are run by consensus. Period!

And we seek consensus among all participants not just board members.

I cannot imagine how a constructive dialog in a startup is productive if the decision is made by over-voting. In one of the previous posts I explained that you can have also observers and in fact at Zemanta we would routinely have a bunch of them (all representatives of our investors). That doesn't mean that we didn't fought over some decisions. We did, but still when the decision was made, it was accepted by consensus.

However, we always made sure that we had a consensus about important decisions. If the topic was complex, I would routinely prebrief all participants (not just board members) and give them my opinion and my options a few days before.

That ensured:
- we debated the most important topics efficiently and effectively
- investors felt comfortable with the openness and involvement in the process
- we avoided bombshells of unexpected news and views

I don't say that that's the only way, but it sure worked for me pretty well and I plan to stick with it in the future.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Benefits of the Group Decision-Making Process (ismckenzie.com)
• Board of Directors Who's Who (spetic.si)