SaaS CEOs: Does Your Board Reflect Your Areas of Greatest Need?
SaaS CEOs: Does Your Board Reflect Your Areas of Greatest Need?
Quarterly Board meetings are a blur for a young SaaS CEO. Without a strong management team, you are often preparing at the last minute for something that comes quite regularly.
Typical Board meetings go something like:
- CEO presents
- CFO presents
- Some key company leaders might present -- usually sales, marketing or product, depending on the milestones. I liked giving leadership exposure to the Board - it's great career development.
Once all the non-Board members leave, and the door shuts, that I find is the most interesting conversation.
The CEO is done with the "show", and now the Board is going to give them the "tell."
There's just one thing. Who is in the room right at this moment will often determine the fate of a company. The reason is simple:
Board members can bring wisdom, experience, and - mostly importantly - benchmarks from other companies. The phrase "knowing what good looks like" is extremely valuable.
For a new "rocketship" CEO, understanding what good looks like is an incredible asset. Many times they are hiring sales, marketing, or other leaders for the first time. An organization can go months or years with ineffective leadership in a major part of the company due simply to ignorance (willful or otherwise) to "what good is."
If you don't know what well-run sales or marketing or product or technology organizations look like, any outcome can sometimes look great and you can chalk it up to best effort. If the company is growing, maybe it is. We all start somewhere ... As long as things are improving, right?
When things start going sideways or (worse) down, however, and no one is quite sure why.... that's when you need to know what good looks like IN DETAIL in a particular area.
That's when your Board can be invaluable. They should be able to give you a clue what good looks like.
Which is why when you look around at your Board, ensure it reflects areas that help you move forward in areas of your greatest need -- and not just someone who is the most famous person you know.
