Prisoner of agenda

A board meeting was scheduled for 1 hr. The agenda had 5   items.

• Approve last meeting's minutes. Took 20 mins because Ashish insisted the word 'synergy' was misspelt.
• Budget review. CFO presented 47 slides. No one understood slide 12, but everyone nodded at slide 38 because it had a pie chart.
• New product launch. Marketing said it was 'revolutionary'. Engineering said it was 'still in beta'. Legal said, 'Please don't call it revolutionary.'
• Employee morale. HR showed a graph shaped like a ski slope.
• AOB (Any Other Business). Turned into a 90-min debate on whether the office coffee machine should offer oat milk.
• Meeting ended 4 hrs later. No decisions made. Everyone agreed it was 'productive'.

Board Out of Their Mind

A consultant was hired to 'optimise board efficiency'. He began with, 'Let's unpack the paradigm.' Then: 'We must leverage verticals while synergising horizontals.' Someone asked, 'What does that mean?'

He replied, 'It's about aligning the core with the periphery.' Someone else asked, 'Are we the core or the periphery?' He said, 'Yes.'


After 2 hrs, he drew a triangle, labelled it, 'Value Funnel', and charged ₹2.5 lakh. The board thanked him.