Your job as a director is to understand and then decide upon issues that face your organisation. Often the best tool for doing this job is asking questions. However, as with any tool, there is a level of skill required before you can achieve best results.
Ask too many, or poorly targeted, questions and you will be seen as a boardroom pest who adds work and little value. Ask too few questions and you may be seen as a waste of a good board-seat that could usefully be occupied by someone more productive.
To help directors who want to optimise their questioning to achieve great insights at every opportunity, we have put together this list of questions and ideas to consider.
The questions below provide comprehensive coverage across:
- Defining your purpose and picking your moment
- Getting the right style of question
- Managing tone and power
- Focus and strategic impact
- Raising new ideas and issues
- Investigating and finding a path forward
The questions are designed to start you thinking about issues that you may encounter. Your answers are not necessarily good or bad; they should reflect the current and desired state of your understanding of the board and its role in your company.
Trust yourself to recognise the most important questions to help you get the impact you want from the questions you ask.
At the end of the checklist, we have listed some references that you may wish to investigate for additional reading on the topic. We have also included some suggestions for putting into action the ideas that result from considering the checklist.
Defining your purpose and picking your moment
1. The WAIT model (Why Am I Talking) helps directors to pause before asking a question and consider why they need to ask and what they hope to achieve. Have you considered the desired outcome for your questions?
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2. Are you asking to inform yourself about an issue? Is this question better asked before the board meeting either by phone or by email, rather than taking up board time for your personal benefit? What are the rules and protocols for making contact with the executives to ascertain the information you need? Can you access the information independently without involving the executives or your colleagues?
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3. Are you asking to clarify something that is not clear in a board paper or report? Is this question better asked before the board meeting either by phone or by email? Do you need to share the question or response with your colleagues?
1Should the response be added to the board papers as an official record, or can it simply be received?
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4. Are you asking to uncover something that you believe is obscured, either deliberately or unintentionally? Would this question be more effectively asked by the Chair? If so, should you: (a) relay it to the chair in a private conversation? (b) wait until the next in-camera session and discuss the matter with your colleagues before it is put to management? (c) raise it at the board meeting so that it can be minuted?
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5. Are you asking to elicit a deeper board understanding of an issue or trend? Should this question be given on notice, so that a response can be prepared, or asked in session, so that your colleagues can help to nuance the request?
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6. Are you asking a question because you have been inactive for a while and are feeling the need to be more engaged, active and contributory? Is this question the best way to achieve that?
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7. Is your question going to be perceived as one of your 'hobby horse' questions? How can you avoid this?
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8. Are you asking to diffuse tension or to help progress the discussion? Does the chair need or want you to reduce the tension or move away from the current position? Is this something important enough to raise even in the face of an adverse reaction from the chair?
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9. Is your question one that can be answered by a short response? Would a closed question
2provide adequate information? If you can get enough information from a closed question, it is usually not the best use of board meeting time. It is also often perceived by the recipient as more aggressive and ‘painting them into a corner’ where they can only give the response you seek.
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10. Is your question inviting the provision of more, or more detailed information? If so, an open
3question is probably most effective.
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11. Is there enough time in the agenda (or before the meeting if asking prior) for an open and complete response or would you prefer to put the question on notice for a later response?
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12. Can you use a ‘crack question’
4 get more information than a closed question but within a shorter time?
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13. Do you need to ask this question now or should you wait for your colleagues to ask questions and then, if relevant, join them?
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Managing tone and power
14. When you look in the mirror you likely see a normal person looking back at you. When staff look at you in a board context, they see your situational authority. How can you phrase your question so that it has no threat implicit or connotation of power?
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15. Do you have a (short) preamble that may help when questioning staff members with whom you do not yet have a relationship of trust?
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16. Can you check your preamble with a trusted colleague (or your board mentor if you have one) to make sure that it does not sound to your colleagues as though you are insincere or – worse – incompetent?
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17. How quickly do you speak? Is that likely to make it hard for some people to understand your question and respond comfortably within a brief time span?
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18. Do you have staff from non-English speaking backgrounds or other cultures where direct or complex questions may be an issue?
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19. Sometimes, when we are particularly interested in a topic, we may want to ask several questions in one burst. That can be overwhelming to the person trying to listen and respond. Is a pause before asking your next question going to seem respectful and considerate? Is a lack of pause going to trigger anxiety in the recipient of your question?
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20. Have you considered the words you use to ensure that there is no unintended ambiguity, negative connotation, or miscommunication?
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21. What is your natural tone of voice? Does it seem harsh, powerful, or shrill? Could it be perceived as aggressive, self-negating, apologetic, accusative, over- or under-confident, or frivolous? Can you change your tone to better suit the circumstances?
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Focus and strategic impact
22. Have you considered the prioritisation of your questions to ensure you only ask the ones that are important?
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23. What is your area of expertise compared to your colleagues on this board? Which topics do your colleagues (and the executive team) want and expect you to take the front running on asking questions?
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24. Which topics are adequately covered by your colleagues on the board so that you can safely give them precedence in asking questions?
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25. How will it be perceived if you ask a question about a colleague’s area of expertise? How will you manage phrasing and tone to achieve your desired response?
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26. What were you put on the board to achieve? What value do you want to add? What questions do you need to ask to help the board to consider the strategic insights that you contribute?
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Raising new ideas and issues
27. Are there any issues or areas where you lack expertise but know the board needs to consider and develop insights?
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28. Can you find out enough information to frame some questions that will highlight the need for board attention to this topic?
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29. Will you raise the issue privately with the Chair or CEO, in an in-camera session, or at a board meeting?
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30. Will you ask management to respond, or will you ask the board or CEO to allocate budget to bring in external expertise such as a consultant or contractor?
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Investigating and finding a path forward
31. What do you need to know about this situation? Why is it important to have this information?
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32. How will information about what went wrong prevent recurrence of the problem?
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33. Is you asking a question the best way to learn? Can you ask without damaging your relationships or should you use an outside party to ask so as to preserve your relationships?
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34. What do management and the board need to learn from this experience? What is the best question and format of delivery to engender that learning?
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35. Is it possible to elevate your question to a policy, system or process level? A board does not only need to understand what happened and how. It needs to make decisions to move the company forward towards achieving its strategic potential. Rather than respond to each issue, good boards look at policy responses that will prepare management to better handle future instances of each issue or other, different, issues.
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36. What is the best way to engage your colleagues and management in formulating and supporting a strategic response to the current circumstances?
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Taking action
Read the questions and note which ones you can confidently answer. Make a record of any actions that you wish to take to help answer any questions that you were not confident about.
There are no right or wrong answers to these questions. However, asking yourself the questions about your intended question before you ask in a board meeting can make a dramatic impact on how you are perceived and on how effective you are in adding value to your organisation.
Additional reading and reference sources
Powerful Questions that Every Director, Executive and Manager Must Ask, Christo Norden-Powers, Spandah Publications, 2006, Australia.
Dilemmas, Dilemma, Practical Case Studies for Company Directors, J Garland McLellan, Great Governance Press, 2016
101 Boardroom Problems and How to Solve Them, E Mina, Amacom, 2009
Setting the Tone at the Top, B Seldon and M Muth, Australian Institute of Company Directors, 2018
Don’t; How Using the Right Words Will Change Your Life, B Seldon, Mercier, 2016