 Avoiding Unnoticed and Unwanted Decision-making Excursions
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 All boards have norms of behaviour. These are seldom explicitly articulated or documented. One of the most common is the norm of conflict minimisation the consequences, of which, are often some form of 'group think'. Groupthink typically occurs where there is insufficient challenge to the emergent thinking of a board and poor decision-making is often the result.
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Is It the Chair's Job to Facilitate the Conversation or Direct the Traffic?
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 A board's meeting style and practices are often very deeply ingrained and enduring. However, some common practices have long since passed their use-by date or are simply inappropriate. For example, the expectation that the chair will be at the centre of every aspect of the board's discourse. Do we really need a chair to direct the conversational traffic like some sort of policeman on point duty?
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Letters of Appointment
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 The practice of issuing a formal letter of appointment to each new board member should be seriously considered by all boards. It underlines the importance of the commitment a new board member is entering into and makes explicit a wide range of expectations. It also provides a new director with other important information relating to their appointment. The very process of drafting of the letter forces the appointing authority (1) to be clear about conditions attaching to the role.
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Is Your Eye On the Road Ahead?
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 Evaluation of past decisions, learning consciously from experience and knowing whether the organisation's performance is on target are important aspects of a board's work. When, however, a board spends the greater part of its meeting time dealing with reports about the past it ignores a fundamental reality. A board can only influence that which has not yet happened! In other words, a board's primary focus should be on the future.
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