Time Demands Lead to Offline Meetings, Resignations

Increasing demands on directors’ time are prompting boards and committee chairs to regularly hold ad hoc “meetings between the meetings,” as directors call them, ranging from quick, 30-minute discussions to lengthier deep dives, as boards grapple with packed agendas that leave little room for broader emerging issues. Research suggests that increasing time demands — whether from official board meetings or shorter, informal ones — are also leading to directors’ resignations from boards.

But many directors say the additional meetings are necessary to fulfill their oversight responsibilities. In addition to the formation of temporary committees and the proliferation of offline conference calls, committee chairs are also working to make their meeting agendas more adaptive so directors can focus on key issues as they emerge, while pushing routine business — barring something critical — into preparatory reading material or to a between-meetings call. That flexibility allows committees to avoid situations in which discussion of regular agenda items during audit committee meetings, for example, leaves only seven minutes at the end for cyber risk.